Bloodline, the Netflix original series about a horribly dysfunctional family, recently wrapped up on its third and final season. Season 1 was great, season 2 was mostly great, but apart from a few bright spots, season 3 was a disappointing mess.
1. What’s up with Beth?
First of all, who’s Beth? Oh, she was in a season 1 episode that I don’t remember. Well, now she’s back and suddenly super important. A scene in the final episode suggests she’s a long lost Rayburn child, but we never know for sure. I feel like Eve’s actress was unable to return and Beth (more or less) filled the role she was supposed to have in the narrative.
2. What’s up with Mike?
Played by Brad from Boston Legal, Mike shows up towards the end of the series and uhh…does nothing of consequence. He admits to John he kissed his wife a couple years ago, but John already knew that. Great. That’s great.
3. What’s up with Roy?
There were a lot of hints this season that he was Kevin’s biological father, but nothing was confirmed. He has a sudden heart attack and becomes hospital ridden right when Kevin has to make an important drug deal (how suspiciously convenient). Then Roy dies offscreen. What?!
4. What’s up with Ozzy?
He was an okay season 2 antagonist, but now he’s back and still causing trouble. After the 5 month time jump, he has some offscreen development and becomes a decent guy, trying to convince the Rayburns to confess their sins. What was his relationship with Roy Gilbert? And why was he so quick to shoot himself? Looks like the writers just didn’t know what to do with him.
5. What’s up with the priest?
Sally sees him a couple times and seemingly confesses some of the horrible stuff she and her family has done. Ozzy somehow knows of this priest, but then it turns out…the priest didn’t exist and was a mass hallucination?
6. What’s up with Janey?
There was some focus on her in the middle of the season that she was going on the path of becoming “bad,” but after she serves her purpose of bringing Nolan back into the picture, her importance totally diminishes and she all but fades away.
7. What’s up with the trial?
I thought this was the perfect mechanism for the Rayburns to face their downfall, but after we spend a couple episodes on it, the whole thing fizzles out and the Rayburns are once again off the hook.
8. What’s up with Chelsea?
In the second half of the season, Chelsea steals some pills from work and gets fired, and because of this, she can’t testify during the trial. Not that we’re sure it would have done any good. But you have to admit, this was a little contrived.
9. What’s up with the dream episode?
The penultimate episode of Bloodline is wasted on John getting stuck in various dreams where he has purple fingernails, Danny’s alive, Sally’s dead, Sally’s alive, and similar weirdness. It’s like they wanted to get a piece of the David Lynch pie. Even more perplexing: the producers crammed some of the plots they were saving for seasons 4-6 into season 3. So if they had all these stories to tell, why waste a precious episode on a dream that doesn’t accomplish anything?
10. What’s up with the ending?
Nothing really gets resolved and it just cuts to black. True, we have a general idea of the character’s fates (especially Kevin), but nothing really final – we’ve seen them get out of tough spots before. But worst of all, the show chickened out at the last minute by not actually showing John’s confession to Nolan that he killed his father. A good chunk of the final episode builds up to this moment we don’t see!
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