Bloodline - S1E12 - Part Twelve
Previously on Bloodline, ‘Part Eleven.’
Part Twelve gets rolling at the onset and doesn’t stop until the final moments before the credits. We pick up where we left off in Part Eleven, with John asking Janie about the boat trip with Danny. He’s gripping her seahorse necklace present and grilling her on what he said and what he did while she was with Danny. She pulls a typical teenage girl attitude about her present and generally acts like brat.
Where is Danny?
Back at the inn, Sally is doing some repotting while Scary Guy (Lowry’s hitman, evidently) asks her about Danny. He claims he is a friend from high school and Sally, being blissfully unaware of her family’s duplicity, tells Scary Guy that Danny is spending some time with his girlfriend, Chelsea O’Bannon. Here’s a hand-drawn map to her house if you need that, too.
There are a few scenes with the various siblings used to establish everyone’s whereabouts in this episode. None of what occurs is extremely pertinent to the plot, so I’ll give a brief rundown:
- Meg – after Marco stops by at her request and tells her in no uncertain terms that he literally has nothing to say to her regarding their relationship, she broods and searches for flights to New York to start her new life.
- John – gets into an argument with Diana because he asks her to pack her shit and take the kids out of town until the mess with Danny has been handled. Kyle Chandler just spends the entire episode looking pretty fucking stressed out.
- Kevin – decides to go on a Danny hunt with the untraceable gun he stole from Danny’s drug luggage. He spends the majority of this episode driving around nervously looking at the loaded gun beside him on the bench seat of his truck.
Our first glimpse of Danny in the episode, he’s driving around in the old Chevy listening to the tapes of the interviews, stewing in his rage. He eventually creepily shows up at Meg’s door and walks right on in to ask her about his drugs. I am still unsure why a woman living alone with a potentially homicidal and vengeful brother roaming around is sitting alone in her house with the door unlocked, but I digress. She attempts to call John, but Danny snatches her phone and warns her not to get in between him and John.
Danny Lays Low(ish)
Danny meets Eric at a motel which he has paid for in cash and set Danny up for a couple of days to hide out in. As he gets settled in his room, John visits the inn to warn Sally that Danny is in trouble and that if he contacts her that she needs to immediately call John. He also tells her that he has put a sentry out front to make sure he doesn’t come on the property. Sally is rambling about the pier dedication when he first arrives, but he shuts her down and puts her in her place pretty quickly.
As he’s leaving the inn, Danny calls John and tries to convince him to meet up to return the drugs. He knows John wouldn’t have dumped the drugs into the water because he would need the evidence to convict Lowry for the immigrant deaths. John tells him he is not going to make a deal with him, so Danny promptly hangs up.
The next morning, Danny, in his infinite wisdom, pays a visit to Lowry in his bait shop to tell him that he lost his drugs because his brother stole them. Expectedly, Lowry isn’t here for this brotherly rivalry bullshit and just wants his drugs back. Danny lets it slip that John is on to Lowry for the human trafficking ring he’s been running, and Lowry tells him to get the fuck out of his shop. But not before Danny gets to impart my favorite line of the episode, “I guess he draws the line at torching immigrants.”
Everybody Hates Danny
Marco confronts John at the station about the whole Danny situation. He makes John aware that he’s not an idiot and he realizes that John is hiding stuff from him. John wants Danny brought in and charged with something - anything - that will stick this time. Marco refuses to be his blind partner in crime and says he won’t press charges that are trumped up. John tries to imply that if he wants to be a part of the family he will, but he doesn’t know that Marco wants absolutely no parts of his family anymore, so that falls flat.
Lowry meets up with Scary Guy in the warehouse and informs him that Danny stopped by for a visit that morning. Scary Guy tries to convince him to cut his losses, but seduced by the fact that Danny thinks he can get his stash back and that it was quite a large quantity of drugs, he remains undecided. Scary Guy just wants Lowry to tell him what to do. Evidently his orders are to hunt him down.
Danny goes to the hospital to visit Chelsea, who was under the impression he had skipped town without saying goodbye. Which he did, but he charms her into loaning him her car and steals a kiss before taking her car to the gas station because it was conveniently empty when he borrowed it. Kevin is still driving around town looking for Danny and sees him pumping gas so he pulls over and calls John. John tells him to keep Danny there, he’s on his way.
Since Kevin stopped approximately 10 feet from the gas station, Danny spots him and saunters over to Kevin’s truck. Kevin grips the gun and cusses to himself until Danny arrives at his window. After some insults are exchanged, Kevin shows Danny the gun and tells him to get into the truck. Danny all but laughs in his face and walks away while Kevin stands there impotently gripping the gun and yelling.
The Hunt For Danny
Back at the O’Bannon’s, Scary Guy breaks in and waits for someone to return. Eric is the unlucky winner and when he comes in, he gets pistol whipped and then beaten in an attempt to extract Danny’s hiding spot. He refuses much to the detriment of his ribs causing Scary Guy to pull a gun on him and tell him this is his last chance.
When Chelsea gets dropped off at home, Eric is packing his things into a trash bag and limping out to his van. He tells Chelsea that he’s getting out of town and that she should too, as well as stay away from Danny. Chelsea goes to the police station to talk to John and tells him where Danny has been hiding so that he can go protect him from the Scary Guy.
John goes to the motel in the pouring rain and calls Danny on the phone. He sits in his truck and tells Danny that he has decided they should meet and make a deal. As they set a meeting place and time, he sees Scary Dude sneaking up to Danny’s motel room and looking for a way to break in. John starts his truck and drives away.
As John drives to the inn, he turns on his police scanner and listens. He hears a call about gunshots heard in the vicinity of the motel and then turns off the scanner and arrives at the inn. He puts on his slicker and heads inside when Marco calls to tell him about a body of a white, causcasian male in his 40’s found at the motel. He tells John he will handle it and John goes inside, telling the sentry on the porch that he can go home now.
Inside, he tells Meg, Kevin, and Sally that Danny called and they are going to meet in the morning at sunrise to discuss things. He heads upstairs and we get a back and forth of him reacting to Danny’s assumed demise, and Marco entering the motel room and observing the body. As John splashes some water on his face, Marco enters and squats over the body. John pukes and then gets himself together to head downstairs to find Danny sitting in the kitchen with the rest of his family. It is revealed that the body in the motel room is Scary Guy and his head was crushed by the conch shell that Danny was using as an ashtray.
Somebody Talk To Sally
In the kitchen of the inn, Sally has finally had enough of everyone’s bullshit and tells them to spill the beans. All of a sudden no one wants to speak, but Danny pipes up and starts telling Sally about all of his fuck ups, assuming that John had already told her everything. He starts with owing people in Miami money, to deciding to sell drugs and ending with someone trying to kill him earlier that evening.
Meg and Kevin try to interrupt his confession, but Sally tells them to let him talk. He finally admits that he used the inn to smuggle the drugs, and Sally gets angry, but Danny gets mean and tells them that they are all liars, but that Sally is the worst. He says he never felt safe in this home, and now none of them will feel safe in this home. Sissy Spacek once again slays me in this scene when she tells Danny that he finally lived up to his father’s expectations before going upstairs and telling them to leave her alone.
Danny leaves and John follows after telling Kevin to stay at the inn and help Meg with their mother. Kevin listens well and we cut to him at the marina in the scene from the earlier episodes where he does a line of cocaine off of the filing cabinet and drinks some whiskey in his boxers while gripping the gun and asking no one, “Who’s the pussy now?”
John arrives at the crime scene, sees Scary Guy’s body, and discusses the case with Marco. Kevin calls him and he steps outside to talk. Kevin is all hopped up and ready to do something about the Danny situation, he tells John that if he doesn’t handle it, Kevin will. John gets angry and tells him to sit tight, and that he will take care of it. He comes to the marina and gets the gun from Kevin who tells him to do what he has to.
Sally Is Heartbroken
Back at the inn, Sally has come downstairs to get a drink and spots Danny’s folded up speech sitting on a shelf in the kitchen. She sits down with her beverage and the speech and reads it, crying. As she finishes it, Meg comes in and sees her distraught. She comes over to comfort her and Sally breaks down. She sobs into her hands that he hates her, that her baby hates her. Break my heart, Sissy Spacek, break it good.
Sunrise Showdown
The next morning, John goes to the beach to meet Danny. He contemplates taking the untraceable gun, but leaves it in his glove box before walking down the beach to join Danny sitting on some driftwood. Danny once again brings up the decision not to let him come back to the family business being on John’s shoulders. John asks if that is really what this is all about before suggesting that Danny leave town for a while until this whole thing gets worked out.
Danny has had about enough of disappearing, so he points out that he’s not leaving when they both know what John did the night before. It is revealed that Danny sent Chelsea to tell John where he was so they could see what he would do. John says he wants to make peace, Danny says he only wants absolution.
John admits that Danny was right and he was wrong all those years ago when they covered up what Robert did to Danny. You can tell that this is all Danny wants to hear, but at the same time that it’s not enough. Danny insists that he is not leaving, but John holds up the seahorse necklace and says that he can’t forgive Danny for this. Danny tries to imply that John can’t forgive himself for Sarah.
John Loses His Mind
John finally loses his cool and tells Danny that he’s tired of Danny making him feel like he should be to blame for Sarah’s death. He says that he never would have taken Sarah out on the boat because she was only ten years old and too young to go without an adult. Danny attempts to argue, but John yells that he was a fuckup long before Sarah, and that John was always covering for Danny because he was always turning everything to shit.
He finally asks Danny what it is that he wants, and Danny says that he just wants John to feel what it is like to always have to beg for things and to apologize for everything. He tells John to beg him to leave and he will. He points to the ground and tells John to get on his knees and beg him to leave. John asks when this is going to end. After desperately repeating the question a few times, Danny says that it has never ended for him so why should it end for John?
John keeps asking when is it going to end as Danny walks away saying that he told John his life wasn’t always going to be perfect. John storms after him, grabbing a piece of driftwood and hitting Danny in the head with it. Danny falls and they start fighting in the shallow water. John keeps yelling the question “When’s it gonna end, Danny?!” and eventually drowns Danny in the water as Danny struggles to get his head above water.
When he realizes what he’s done, John scrambles back onto the beach and sits there staring in disbelief at Danny’s floating corpse in the water in front of him. The credits roll eerily silently.
This episode was the best one yet. I think I may have said that about all of the episodes so far, and it’s true, they have all built and improved upon the previous episode. We finally know how Danny ended up dead, and I’ll be honest and admit that I was a little disappointed that Sally wasn’t the one who eventually snapped and killed him. As usual there are questions that I really hope are cleared up in the final episode of Season One.
- What suddenly sent Kevin on such a bender? Earlier in the season he acted like cocaine was from the devil, and now he’s willingly hoovering it up his nostrils.
- Does Marco have any clue to how deep the rabbit hole goes?
- What the FUCK does that speech say?
- Who told Scary Guy where Danny was? Did Eric finally confess his location to avoid getting shot, or did John tell Scary Guy once Chelsea had revealed it to him?
- Who is going to put Danny in that seersucker suit? My money is on Meg.
- Can someone please hug Sally? Hard?
Join me on Sunday as I recap the finale and hopefully don’t come up with any more questions.
