As sure as the sun will rise each morning and set each night – in most places of the world, anyway - Netflix will have enough faith in its series to give each one multiple chances to wow audiences. The latest of their originals to get a confirmed follow-up is the extremely tense mystery drama Bloodline, which is officially coming back for Season 2.
This week, Bloodline's social media team reported the show will head back into production later this year, with a goal of bringing Season 2 to viewers in 2016. While it’s far too early to say for sure, it seems as if Netflix will bring it back in the spring, the same time it came this year. Because yes, Bloodline’s first 13 episodes only actually hit the streaming service less than two weeks ago on March 20. (Technically the day before spring, but whatever.) If that isn’t confidence, I don’t know what is.
The highly successful company has a reason to be confident, though, as Bloodline has received almost universal praise since its release. Not the least of which came from me, as I found it to be Netflix’s best drama yet. The dense, multi-layered storytelling made for perfect binge-viewing, although I’m certain it would have worked just as well on a week-to-week basis. Luckily, the streaming service doesn’t make us worry about such things.
Created by the Damages team of Glenn Kessler, Todd A. Kessler and Daniel Zelman, Bloodline’s first season centers on the Florida-set Rayburn crew, whose family business is an inn on the beach run by patriarch Robert (Sam Shepard) and matriarch Sally (Sissy Spacek). Trouble arises when the family’s black sheep Danny (Ben Mendelsohn) comes back to town with the assumed intentions of rekindling relationships with brothers John (Kyle Chandler) and Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz), and sister Meg (Linda Cardellini). But the best laid plans sometimes come with the darkest underpinnings. Co-stars include Chloë Sevigny, Jacinda Barrett, Enrique Murciano, Katie Finneran and many more.
Check out the trailer for Season 1 and then join me below for a brief spoiler-filled talk.
To reiterate: This next part is only for people who have seen Season 1 in its entirety, and it contains major SPOILERS.
As Netflix has yet to limit any of its dramas to a single season, it seemed obvious that Bloodline would get a second go at it, and I previously outlined some of the problems with that, given how neatly tied up Season 1 was. The superb Mendelsohn was the standout performer here, and his death at John’s hands was a major shocker. It seemed like such a bold choice to end this deeply depressing downward spiral, and so Season 2 is at an immediate disadvantage, as the lynchpin of the Rayburn’s familial trauma was revealed in full by the end. Of course, the quasi-cliffhanger of Danny’s kid showing up was interesting, and Wayne Lowery is still at large, so Danny’s murder will almost definitely become a storytelling avenue. Here’s hoping they do it right, because I’ll definitely be there as soon as it comes out.
