Bloodline - S1E6 - Part Six

Previously on Bloodline, ‘Part Five’

We pick up shortly after where we left off in Part Five, John has somehow absconded with the transcripts of his interview with Detective Potts and is reviewing them over a beer at home. Simultaneously Danny is listening to the tapes in the truck, chain smoking and popping pills with our mysterious bus girl from Part One. I have started to assume this is his mental projection of a grown-up Sarah, but I could be wrong. Bus girl encourages Danny to play the tape again when John calls.

John pretends to be checking up on Danny since he missed him after the service, but Danny is not making it easy. The tape clicks in the player and John asks what the sound was, Danny responds that it was a gun he was cocking to kill himself. John gets angry and starts yelling and Danny assures him that it was a joke. Then, because this is totally normal, John asks Danny to go fishing this weekend. Danny tells him he has other plans and hangs up.

Danny Boy, You’re Still Out

Sally gets the mail and finds a copy of Robert’s will has been mailed to her. Is this standard practice? I feel like it adds insult to injury to remind the widow that her husband died, in case she forgot. As Sally reads over the document, she realizes Danny has been cut out of the will and sighs. She later addresses this with Meg, who was Robert’s lawyer, asking her to fix it. Sally instructs Meg to talk to her brothers and get them to agree to cut Danny back into the business.

Before Sally and Meg discuss the will, Danny asks Sally for a couple of days off because he needs a break. He almost whined his request petulantly, and she agrees. He says he is going to drive down to Key West and she tells him to enjoy it. He drives to meet Eric to score some blow. Eric gives him a decent amount of coke and refuses to take his money. He does offer to hang out later, but Danny leaves without a word.

Kevin, You Bastard

Kevin stops by his former house to pick up some things and finds Belle is not home. He gets what he came for and leaves a note thanking her for letting him crash in the last episode. As he grabs his “college boy luggage” of a trash bag, he notices Belle’s laptop is on the counter and cocked just a little bit open. Then Kevin commits the single worst sin anyone can commit and gets all up in her business. He finds she has set up an online dating profile and has arranged to meet one of her suitors.

Down at the marina, Kevin the Snoop is chatting with the guys when he spots Susie, the owner of the property. He goes over to talk with her and tells her of his disappointment in not coming to him about selling. She tells him that her son wanted to handle it. He points out that the developers looking to buy it will completely ruin him and asks if he pays her cash, will she accept his offer. She tells him that if he can come up with the money by the end of the month, it’s a deal.

Danny’s On a Bender

Danny starts off his morning at the Whistle Stop Bar & Grille. He takes a couple of bumps of coke before heading in to the bar and ordering a tequila. The bar is pretty dead considering it’s the middle of the day, if not earlier, so after downing another shot and poorly attempting to chat with the bartender, he leaves in search of a party elsewhere.

Danny ends up at a beach club that looks fresh off the television coverage of MTV Spring Break circa 1998. He is quite obviously the oldest person around, including the employees of this establishment. He orders a drink and watches some girl dance like a stripper on the dance floor. She eventually approaches him and whispers in his ear. Didn’t her Daddy ever warn her not to go up to creepy-as-fuck old men in bars who are leering at you?

Ayudame, Meg

As Meg is leaving the inn after speaking with Sally about the will, the valet who pulls her car around asks for her help with his cousin, Carlos. Evidently, Carlos is in some legal trouble, and the Rayburns have always treated them well. He doesn’t know where else to go and despite the fact that her area of expertise is not criminal law, she agrees to meet with him and see if she can help.

They later meet and Carlos explains he was arrested for aggravated assault, but that despite him having a knife on him at the time, he did not use it. He admits that he was drunk, stupid, and angry, but has since sobered up and leads a different life. His cousin agrees that he attends daily AA meetings and Carlos offers to provide proof of this. After some reluctance, Meg agrees to defend him despite not being a criminal lawyer.

Old Ghosts

John tracks down Lenny who has not yet left the Keys. He asks Lenny to meet with him to discuss some things and Lenny agrees. They later meet on a bench overlooking the water and discuss what happened back in the day with Danny’s case. John asks what the statute of limitations is on providing false information during a police investigation, and Lenny tells him not to worry about it because he was just a kid.

After some discussion of what happened, Lenny admits he always knew the family was lying about what happened to Danny, he was just unable to prove it. He takes some of the blame because he questioned Danny and Robert together instead of separately, and Robert fed him the lie that Danny then parroted back at him. When he interviewed the rest of the family, they all repeated the same story and he knew that it had been fed to them, he just didn’t know by whom. He did mention that Sally was out of town despite it being a busy time at the inn with preparations for the upcoming season at full speed. If he’s implying that flawless Sissy Spacek had anything to do with this, I’ll smack him myself.

John asks Lenny if he ever approached Robert about the lie and Lenny says he tried to bring it up once, but that Robert denied it and they eventually drifted apart as friends. As John expresses his apologies for his deceit, Lenny tells him that they were a grieving family and they stood up for their father. He points out the problem was, no one stood up for Danny and that he failed him. He then confirms to John that he gave Danny the tapes because he thought Danny had a right to hear them. John goes to the inn looking for Danny, but Sally tells him she gave him a couple of days off and that he’s headed for Key West.

Oh Yeah, We Still Have Floating Burned Bodies to Investigate

I am sure that this loose thread will eventually weave its way into the tapestry this show is creating, but right now it feels like an afterthought in the plot. As John puts out an APB on Danny’s truck, Marcos catches up with him and tells him about a similar case he’s found with survivors. He found one woman’s statement which seems like it could be helpful. John tells him he will go interview her.

He tracks her down at her workplace and asks questions about what happened when she immigrated to the U.S. He says she stated they were threatened with fire and could she explain what she meant. She tells him the Coast Guard came near their boat during the journey and the men told the immigrants in the hold to be quiet or they would kill them. Some of the women were scared and crying and one of the men threw a lit match into the hold to scare them. She said she realized the men would rather burn them all alive than get caught.

Meg Goes To Bat

Meg is meeting with the prosecuting attorney in Carlos’ case about getting a plea deal. She wants him to get no additional jail time for his crimes, but assures her that he is willing to pay fines and do community service, but to let him go with time served. The prosecutor says it’s going to be a hard sell, but that she will send an offer over to Meg’s office the next day.

As Meg is leaving, she runs into Alec who is inexplicably still in town, despite calling off his building project in Part Five. He tells her he bought a boat and stuck around to see its transfer. #richpeopleproblems. He says he didn’t think he was supposed to be talking to her. She apologizes for being a raging bitch to him in the previous episode.

They take a walk and talk about her shortcomings as a person, and then he asks if this means that they are back on. She says no, that it is time for her to stop acting like a child. In my opinion, she needs to act less like a whore, and not less like a child… but I digress. She says that losing her father has helped clarify some things in her mind. The entire series so far, I have thought that Alec’s hair was stupid, and for some reason in this episode, I really hated it. I even wrote in my notes that Alec’s hair is STUPID. It’s underlined twice.

Danny On The Path To Destruction

Back at the inappropriately-young-for-Danny beach bar, he is doing more coke in the bathroom with the slutty redhead who danced over to him earlier. Night has fallen, and during their drug-fueled and disturbing make out session, some dude comes wandering in to get in on the action. Danny agrees to share his blow and they have a weird three-way coke snortathon before heading out to the dance floor to awkwardly mash the redhead between them in a dude sandwich.

Eventually, they run out of coke and the couple leaves him. Deflated he leaves and returns to the Whistle Stop which is still abandoned and continues to drink. As he sits at the bar, a very large man with a Navy t-shirt comes over to order two rum punches. And filterless Danny asks if he’s in the Navy. The man ignores him, and when the bartender brings over his drinks, Danny starts to make fun of his rum punches. I agree with Danny on this one. The sailor does not.

After the sailor advises Danny to leave before things get ugly, Danny samples one of his drinks and says it tastes sweet, just like a sailor’s ass must taste. The huge dude punches Danny, who is hellbent on getting beaten up at this point. He keeps insulting the guy and keeps getting punched until he’s laying on the ground and we fade out to another scene.

Kevin Grows Up

Kevin stalked Belle on her online date and creepily watches from the parking lot. Do all restaurants, bars, places of business in the Keys not have actual walls and windows? Have they not seen how much it rains in the other episodes? Kevin sees that she is laughing and having a good time, and he turns and walks back to his truck and leaves.

Later, he shows up at her house to give her his keys. He says this place belongs to her now and that he shouldn’t have copies of the keys any longer. He tells her he knows he’s been slow on the uptake, but that he gets it, and he is OK with it. He tells her that he loves her, and that he is always going to love her. She tells him she loves him too, and then he realizes that he also gave her his car key and so he needs that.

I loved the simplicity of this scene. It really showed a tremendous amount of character growth in Kevin, and the sad acceptance that individuals come to when relationships end. The bittersweet and calm exchange between Kevin and Belle was beautifully written and made me really feel for these two. I just hope that all stays calm in this particular situation. Kevin tends to be a dick, so I wonder how short-lived it might end up being.

We Need to Talk About Danny. Again.

At some point over the course of this evening -  I was a little unsure on the timing of it all, with Kevin stalking his ex-wife, John searching all over for Danny, and Meg probably out being awful somewhere - the three other siblings get together to talk about bringing Danny back into the fold and giving him some part of the business. John is all for it because he’s on guilt trip lane at the moment. Kevin is asking why the hell they would do that, because Kevin. Meg is an easily molded ball of clay, per usual.

John says they owe him this because of all he’s been through. Kevin asks what he’s referring to, and John mentions Danny’s childhood. Kevin is either playing dumb really well, or he really has no idea what John is referring to. I got a little confused at this because up until now, it has seemed that the entire family has been in on this cover up, but I realized that we really have only heard John and Danny’s versions of what happened. John eventually says that if they cut Danny out, then go ahead and cut him out as well.

John later shows up in a flurry of flashing lights to find Danny’s abandoned truck with Danny’s phone left in it. He also sees that the tapes are in the player and gets that “oh shit” look he does so well.

Seriously Danny, Get Your Shit Together

Back at the bar after getting the shit kicked out of him, Danny leans against the wall outside, and I am pretty sure he was peeing on it. Chelsea shows up to take him home because the bartender called her. He throws a supreme bitch fit, refusing to go. He tells her that he doesn’t give a crap about her. He also tells her that if she cares at all for him, then she means even less to him. She asks him why he is doing this, and he responds, “S’what I do,” before stumbling off.

As he drunkenly walks down the side of the road, a creeper in an SUV stops and asks where he’s heading. Danny asks if he can come with him, and the man tells him to get in. Do we live in a world where men really don’t have to worry about being raped so much that they can literally get into a car while being nearly unconsciously wasted with some complete and sketchy stranger without a care? Or is Danny just that self-destructive?

Sketch-ball takes Danny to what looks like a meth flop-house. They offer him a pipe of something to smoke, which he does and then asks what it is. They give him some bullshit answer and he keeps right on smoking. I should note that Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water is playing in the background at this party which cracked me up.

Danny You Are SO Busted. Maybe.

As Danny sinks into even more of a drug-fueled haze, we think the party is being busted. Cops swarm in and John comes out of nowhere to snatch Danny up like a mother with a bratty child in a supermarket checkout line. John drags him in the house yelling and acting very un-John-like. He yells at Danny that they didn’t just lie for Dad, they lied for him. He implies that if they would have continued digging, they would have investigated Sarah’s death as well. John tells him to stop lying to himself.

We see bus girl in the doorway and John asks Danny who it is. Danny says she’s been with him the whole time. After a scuffle, Danny gets John’s gun and aims it at him. Bus girl tells him that he needs to choose saying, “Is it you? Or is it them?” over and over until Danny finally shoots himself in the head. He then jerks awake in the chair where he’s been smoking and we realize it was a hallucination. He fires that pipe right back up.

The Morning After

The next morning we see Meg and Marco at breakfast. She is flirtingly joking around with Marco about becoming Mrs. Marco whatever his last name is, and he is looking at her amusedly. She drops her fork on the ground purposefully and tells him to pick it up and propose to her. He gets up and picks up the fork before sitting back down and telling her he doesn’t think she’s ready.

Kevin is morning drinking at a bar when he spies Chelsea a few stools down. She asks if he’s still celebrating his freedom referring to Part Five where he drunkenly announced it to everyone. He is in a good mood and tells her that if she can guess within $20 how much it costs to get a divorce on the internet, he’ll buy her a drink. She guesses $200, the answer is $159 (and less than an hours time), but he buys her a drink anyway. He asks if she and Danny are a thing, and she replies she doesn’t know before ordering a drink and settling in.

Danny is at the inn stockpiling bottles of water in his arm to nurse his hangover which has to be horrific. John finds him later descaling fish down on the dock and tells him that John found his truck and that it’s out of gas. Danny doesn’t respond, he keeps cleaning the fish.

John tells him that he knows Lenny gave him the tapes, and maybe they should talk. Danny stops with the fish and turns to face John, giving him the chance to talk. John tells him what their father did was wrong, and that he couldn’t see clearly back then. He said what he thought he had to say and he was wrong, that they were all fucking wrong. He then asks Danny if they can start over.

Danny doesn’t respond for a minute, then asks if John still wants to go fishing. John gets a confused look on his face, but responds yes. Danny tells John that they are past it, and they can move on. The wind is ominously blowing in some grey clouds that I suspect are bringing the infamous rain we’ve been seeing. As John walks away on the dock, Danny looks at his retreating back sardonically before turning and chopping the head off the fish. Then the credits roll.

I still think that Part Five has been my favorite episode of the series so far, but Part Six is a close second. There was some decent plot development and foreshadowing, and I really loved the insight into the dark and twisted mind of Danny. As always, here’s what I am left wondering:

• Where was Sally when Sarah drowned and Danny got beat? I thought in an early episode she “remembered” seeing him in the hospital as a young kid after getting kicked around by Robert.
• Why is John the only sibling who seems to give a shit that Danny suffered broken bones at the hands (and feet) of Robert?
• Is bus girl Danny’s mind projection of Sarah all grown up?
• What is the point of the exploded boat side plot?
• Who leaves their laptop half open and powered on when they are not home? And not plugged in I might add.
• Where is the peaceful separation between Kevin and Belle headed? Have we seen the last of their interaction?

Join me this weekend as we delve further into this mysterious family and raise more questions about what is going on.