Bloodline - S1E11 - Part Eleven
Previously on Bloodline, ‘Part Ten’
Part Eleven had my stomach twisted up with anxiety toward the end but it started with a slow build. It opens with Danny in a bar, having flashbacks of the day Sarah died, when the scary guy who ruthlessly garroted CFM in the last episode approaches. He gives Danny a burner phone after ensuring Lowry’s drugs were still safe - despite the heat - and tells Danny that when he calls, he better show. I wouldn’t cross this dude.
Everyone Is Uneasy
Kevin goes to Chelsea’s house to ask if Danny said anything to her about when she and Kevin slept together. Chelsea says that she didn’t tell him, but that he talked to her about it. Thankfully, Kevin doesn’t relive the awkward-as-fuck conversation from last episode, but he does say he thinks Danny attacked him because of their tryst. She assures him that Danny and he’s not violent. As he asks what she sees in Danny, Eric pulls up and Kevin makes a beeline for his truck.
John waits for Carlos as he leaves one of his AA meetings. The Rayburn family really doesn’t have boundaries when it comes to anonymous meetings. He tells Carlos to get in his truck and then calls him a lying piece of shit. Carlos looks like he might shit his pants, but John don’t give a fuck. Back at the inn, he makes Carlos open the shed and John opens a couple of the plethora of suitcases to see the cocaine and then tells Carlos to get the fuck out or he’ll kill him. John calls Meg and tells her to get Kevin and meet him at the boatyard.
Inside the inn, Danny pours a drink in the dark when Kevin comes down the stairs asking why the lights are out. Poor Kevin is so jumpy since he got beaten up, he needs a hug. Kevin confronts Danny about sending Eric to beat him up. Danny plays if off and acts like Kevin is crazy for blaming him. He asks why he’d be mad since Kevin apologized, but then adds, “I’ve been saying sorry my whole life… never seemed to make any fucking difference to any of you.” He then adds that if he did send Eric, he apologizes, and somehow Kevin doesn’t punch him right in the throat.
Danny meets up with Eric, who has gotten him a gun with the serial numbers filed off. He tells Eric that the scary dude worried so he wants it for his protection. Eric is not at all comfortable with the way things have turned out. He’s freaking out a bit and Danny snaps at him and tells him to get his shit together. Then he tells him that Eric is his real brother. Bromance moment.
We Need A Plan
At the marina, John, Meg, and Kevin discuss the fact that Danny has turned the inn into a drug depot. A lot of details come out in this conversation, but to sum it up: Kevin thinks Danny is doing this because it’s a personal affront to the family, but John thinks it is because he owes people in Miami money. Kevin gets mad that John hasn’t told them about any of this sooner, but John tells him to get over it. Then they get down to the legal ramifications.
Meg points out that it’s best if Sally doesn’t know what is going on legally, and then helpfully points out that every second they aren’t reporting it, they could get in trouble. John agrees and says he needs to speak to the DEA and try to get in front of the situation. Meg puts her lawyering degree to good use and points out that if they find narcotics on their property, they will seize it, freeze their assets, and launch a thorough investigation of their financial records. Then Debbie Downer points out that the business will be ruined and everything sucks.
John remains the moral compass saying that they have to report it. Meg thinks they should move the drugs off of their property. Kevin just stands there whining about how they didn’t do anything wrong and if he could he would stomp his feet, cross his arms, and cry, “Why does everything bad happen to meeeeeeeee!” John says that if they move the drugs, they become felons and then looks at his siblings all serious like.
Danny Is The Literal Worst
The next morning, as Danny prepares the boat for the day’s charters, he receives a call from the scary guy telling him to meet him that evening with the drugs. Meg watches from the balcony and calls Kevin to tell him that Danny is still there. She goes inside to get her purse and I am wondering when the hell she moved into the inn, because earlier in the season she had her own apartment with a busted air conditioner. After blowing off Sally and Janie (John’s daughter) she leaves saying she has a ton of things to do.
Meanwhile John informs Clay, the DEA agent, what was found in the shed. Clay seems skeptical that John didn’t know sooner that Danny was involved, but he plays it off that Danny is his brother, and he wouldn’t have believed it without the proof that Meg found. Clay asks him if he knows what may happen if they find drugs on his family’s property and John looks resigned and says yes, and I’m coming to you to get ahead of it. Clay doesn’t seem 100% convinced, but he goes along with it.
Back at the inn, Janie goes out to talk to Danny preparing the boat on the dock. She asks Danny what he did to her dad and Danny shrugs it off. She asks for a cigarette and he acquiesces when she says she smokes all of the time with her friends. For this alone he should die, but that’s just my opinion. She says that John thinks he is better than Danny, but he isn’t. Danny says maybe someday he’ll realize that, but until then she should stay away because you never know what scary uncle Danny will do.
Later, as Danny eats some toast, John comes in and tells him that the DEA have a car outside waiting for him because they need to ask him some questions. He threatens to tell them that John tipped him off about the investigation, but John is nonplussed and tells him they won’t believe him. He tells him to go out, or they will come in and drag him out. We then see him entering the interrogation room at the station.
There Is A Game Afoot
At the inn, John and Clay open up the shed to find the luggage containing the drugs gone. John stands there confused and at this point, I thought that Meg and Kevin had acted alone without John’s knowledge, but we find out later that this is all part of the plan. John calls Meg who is at the marina with Kevin unloading the luggage and tells her that the DEA needs to speak with her immediately. As Kevin loads the luggage into a boat, he feels the gun in the front pouch of one of the suitcases.
Scary dude waits at the warehouse while all of this is going down. He flips open his phone to check the time and paces looking scary and angry while Danny stews in the interrogation room. The agents question Meg about what she saw and what she knows. She tells them that she found the drugs and immediately called John, who she assumes called them. As she’s being interviewed Marco walks up and asks what is going on and looks at both John and Meg suspiciously. Marco ain’t no fool.
Danny gets released because the DEA doesn’t have any evidence against him since the drugs are missing, so he saunters out and Clay confronts John. He tells him that none of this feels right and John says that he was trying to get ahead of the situation and now he feels a thousand miles behind. John leaves the station and calls Kevin and tells him not to do anything with the drugs until he gets there. Kevin is freaking the fuck out, but Meg calms him down and tells him that John knows what he’s doing.
But does he, really?
It Seems That Danny Is Screwed
Back at the inn, Danny opens the shed and sees his drugs are missing. John pulls up and tells him that his drugs are in the water, so he better get the fuck out of town. Danny knows that Lowry will be after him and John tells him to run because he’s no longer John’s problem. Danny says John washed his hands of Danny when Sarah died. He then tells John that it was the seahorse necklace that killed her, that it dropped in the water and she went after it. He says he was just trying to make her feel better.
Lowry and the scary guy meet up in the warehouse because Danny never showed. Lowry tells the guy to wait another hour and then if he still hasn’t shown to take care of it. We get the impression that scary dude has a rope with Danny’s name on it which seems pretty deserved at this point.
John drops Danny at the bus station. Again. He stays around to watch this time and makes sure Danny actually boards the bus. He then goes to the boatyard to get rid of the drugs. He tells Kevin and Meg to stay put and he drives the boat out of the marina.
Danny Leaves Town
On the bus, Danny looks around for Sarah, but she isn’t there. He calls Eric and leaves him a voicemail telling him to get out of dodge and to tell Chelsea goodbye for him. He falls asleep and dreams of Sarah before jerking awake. Imaginary grown Sarah is on the bus now and she asks if he’s glad he went home. He says all he wanted to do was give his speech, which he’s pulled out of his pocket and is looking at.
Sarah asks him where they are going and tells him that he fucked up and should have stayed focused on the work. He says he needed money and she responds that they both know it’s not about that. Danny tells her that he wanted to make them understand, she responds that they can’t understand. When he tells her that she understands, she says that they don’t see what she sees. She asks him what he really wants and he tells her that he wants to make them feel what he feels.
The Aftermath
John gets home and enters quietly to pour himself a drink. Diana comes out to comfort him and asks what’s going on. John tells her that Danny is gone and that’s all she needs to know. The next morning, as the kids are getting ready for the day and Diana talks on the phone, it is decided that John will pick Janie up from school and drop her off to go dress shopping with Meg, Sally, and Diana.
At the marina, Belle comes to visit Kevin, who is still in a cast and doing whatever it is that he does at the marina. She tells him that she’s going to Orlando, possibly permanently. They part ways amicably and he tells her that she looks great, which I am pretty sure he has done every single time he has seen her in the series.
John sits in his office and thinks about the day that Sarah died. He tried to stop Danny from taking her out on the boat without an adult. Sarah asks him to come with them, but then Danny speeds off in the boat. Marco comes in the office interrupting his melancholic reverie and shuts the door. He tells John that they both know that it was Danny on the video and in the audio for the drug case, but he thought that John was in control of the situation. He pulls out the folder of the dead girls and points out that they still need justice. John tells him to take over the case and that he’ll help any way he can.
Danny Is A Dickhead
Sally, Meg, and Diana look at dress catalogues while waiting for Janie to be dropped off. Sally goes to get another coffee and Meg tells Diana that she’s not even sure there’s going to be a wedding because she fucked up. Before she can elaborate, Sally returns and Diana calls John to see where he and Janie are. Being a boneheaded man, he forgot he was supposed to be picking her up so he’s on his way now.
When John arrives at the school, he is informed by one of Janie’s friends that a guy in an old black pickup was there to pick her up earlier. John flips out and calls Janie’s phone, which she ignores, and then the inn and gets Gwen (poor Gwen, forgotten until they need someone to answer the phone) who tells him that she saw Danny earlier with Janie and they went out on the boat, but that he shouldn’t worry because she’s with an adult. This was when my stomach twisted up
John flips his shit, puts out an APB on his daughter and meets Marco down at the marina to go looking for them in the police boat. He thinks he knows where they would have gone and they speed off. Danny and Janie are out in the gulf having fun and he tells her that he got her a present, but isn’t sure if she should get it yet. He was creeping me out hardcore in this scene because he was borderline flirtatious with her. Janie jumps in the water and asks him to join her, which he does. The last we see them, he’s dunking her under the water.
John and Marco are having zero luck finding Danny and Janie when he gets radioed that they found the boat. He and Marco speed back to land and then over to where the boat is. Kyle Chandler’s performance of the frantic and desperate father was amazing in these scenes. The officers inform him that they found the boat and a man, but no girl. My stomach twisted a little further.
As John arrives back at the inn, Danny calls him. He answers the phone justifiably PISSED and asks Danny where the fuck his daughter is. Danny taunts him a little like the dick that he is. John really loses his shit and screams, “Where the fuck is my daughter!” He walks out the back door as he’s screaming and sees that Janie is sitting on the railing chatting with Sally. Danny says into the phone, “I got her a present,” and we see that he’s gotten her the same seahorse necklace before the credits roll.
This episode had me on the edge of my seat. I thought that maybe they were going to actually kill off Janie to give John a clearly justifiable reason to kill Danny. Thankfully, I was wrong, but the show still had me up in my feelings. It also had my mind reeling with questions:
- What was the point of Belle’s character? Kevin could have been properly developed without her if she was just destined to move away at the end anyway.
- How did Danny even know to pick up Janie from school?
- Is Janie getting grounded? Because her ass needs to get grounded so hard.
- Is Sally going to still side with Danny on this?
- Is scary dude going to catch up with Danny and kill him and then the siblings will have to hide the body to avoid the feds?
- Why was Sissy Spacek only in three scenes in this whole episode?
There are only two episodes left in the season, so join me on Thursday as I recap the penultimate episode.
