Bloodline - S1E7 - Part Seven

Previously on Bloodline, ‘Part Six’

Part Seven opens with the long-tortured Danny cooking breakfast with the recording of John’s duplicitous interview echoing in his mind. As he stares at the sink, the memory continues to Kevin’s taped interview inside Danny’s head. We hear Kevin also told the same lie all those years ago. He notes that “Danny was screaming and crying. Never saw someone hurt that bad.” With this, Danny dumps the remainder of the pills he’s been popping like candy down the drain and hides the bottle in the empty egg carton before calling Sally down for breakfast.

Elsewhere on the island, John discusses his past lies with Diana. He notes that it could just as easily have been him on the boat with Sarah. He tells Diana that he thinks since he has cleared the air with Danny, things could be better now. Diana looks skeptical and tells John not to expect much.

Danny Gets a Raise

As Danny and Sally have breakfast at the inn, she tells him she is proud of him for all of the work he’s done. She talked to Gwen, who I assume is the manager of the inn, about giving Danny a raise. She then hands him his paycheck and he thanks her, telling her that it will be a big help. When the meal is done he goes out to his truck with his paycheck and puts it in the glove compartment with a pile of his past paychecks that seem to go uncashed. Considering he’s always bitching about money, I am unsure what is going on here.

He later meets up with Eric to do another gas can run and confirms he still needs money by once again saying he needs more money. Dude, cash your fucking glove compartment in. He tells Eric about the offer from Robert, and Eric asks why he didn’t take it, and then I remembered why these two idiots are best friends when Danny tells him that his dad fucking died. Danny tries to convince Eric to let him talk to the man in charge of this smuggling operation, and Eric is at least smart enough to tell him no.

Kevin Is Gross

Kevin wakes up in the cabin of a boat to the sound of a ringing phone. Specifically Chelsea’s ringing phone, which is being called by Danny. Chelsea, who evidently slept with Kevin the previous night. This scene made me feel as awkward as the characters were meant to feel. Later, as Kevin drops Chelsea off at home, she asks that they keep this indiscretion between them. Kevin agrees, but her asshole brother Eric is watching like a creeper through the window.

Once Chelsea comes inside, Eric confronts her about sleeping with Kevin. She asks why he cares and he explains that Kevin is the biggest douchebag of the entire Rayburn family, and sadly I kind of agree with him now that Robert is dead. After asking what he’s supposed to tell Danny, Chelsea kindly tells him to mind his own fucking business. Eric points out Danny is his best friend, and she tells him that Danny made it very clear (in Part Six) that he wanted nothing to do with her.

Meg Plays Lawyer

Meg attends the deposition for Carlos and is questioning the eye witness who is testifying against him. At first I thought she was doing a horrible job since she doesn’t have the criminal law background, but she finally led the witness around to revealing that he called the victim’s sister after the attack, despite claiming that he did not know the victim. I am not sure how this comes into play later, but I hope it does since we eventually learn Carlos has more on the line than just some jail time.

Back at the inn, we discover Carlos’ mother has put up her house as collateral for his bail. Meg is reporting to him the results of the deposition when Sally comes downstairs and greets Carlos warmly. She asks where he is living and he tells her that he is living with his family, who has helped him get sober and clean up his life. She offers to sign a character affidavit for the trial which Meg seems to think will really help.

As Carlos leaves, Danny sees Sally handing him an envelope. He decides this is his business and questions Meg about what was in the envelope. She tells him they are helping Carlos and his family out until they get back on their feet after the trial. He tells her that he’s glad they are helping him in a tone that is so close to sarcasm it’s hard to tell the difference.

Finally, A Break in the Case

Marco and John finally make some headway in the case of the floating and charred bodies they’ve found. There was a smuggling ring brought down years ago and while most everyone involved is still incarcerated, the ringleader seems to have been let out early on some kind of deal. They decide to pay him a visit to see if he can give any leads.

At his ramshackle house, they bang on the door all intimidating-like, and when he finally answers, he refuses to let them inside and comes out to speak with them. Marco tells the little old lady sweeping her sidewalk to go back inside. For some reason Marco trying to act like a grown man-cop in this episode was really not working for me. I might still be holding his performance as the flaky FBI agent in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous against him, but I just couldn’t take him seriously.

After John loses his shit on their subject and threatens his probation by searching his house for literally anything illegal, Ray tells John that he should check out the local farms. I feel like John must have gotten his badge online like some people get ordained to perform marriages because, I’m no detective, but I feel like this would be the first place you would look. If you live in Florida with its tropical climate and vast amounts of fruit groves, it seems pretty fucking obvious to me that most of the immigrants without legal documentation are going to work on the farms because of the sheer number of jobs they would offer. Regardless, they decide to jump on this “lead” and John, being petty, tells Marco to call the probation officer and tell him that Ray has been smoking dope.

Kevin Acts Responsible

For someone who looks like the epitome of a washed up beach bum, Kevin seems to be attempting to get his shit together. He meets with someone from the bank at the marina to talk about getting the loan to purchase the property. He is very polite to her and does a very good job of portraying himself as the simple home-town boy trying to eke out a living and stick to tradition at the same time. He tells her that Meg will be working on the financials for him as she leaves promising to get back to him soon.

Later as he works in his shop, the douchebag son of the owner shows up yelling like a complete dick about how Kevin is cheating his mom out of money. He claims that the property is all she has and he’s swindling her out of the massive amount of money the developers were offering. Kevin tells the douche, “I’m sorry that your mom likes me more,” and basically tells him to fuck off. Douche Son tells him that he better hope he doesn’t get the loan as he storms off barely resisting the urge to cross his arms and stomp away like a sullen child.

Danny Doing That Hustle

Eric and Danny are back to their gas transporting ways. Danny meets Eric at a bar to get his take of the cash from their latest run and Danny seems to be in a hurry to get away. Eric tries to talk him into staying and hanging out, but Danny isn’t having it. Eric decides that this is the best time to tell Danny about Chelsea sleeping with Kevin. Danny plays it off like he doesn’t care and leaves with his fat stack. At the post office, he again mails the majority of the money in an envelope marked More Coming! He drops it in a FedEx envelope and sends it off. At least his package is insured.

We get a montage of Danny working with Eric, raking that godforsaken beach at the inn, getting his cash, mailing his cash, and generally working his ass off. At least Sally is nice enough to bring out some lemonade while he rakes his giant nightmare of a zen garden. I need to know where he is sending this money. I have no theories or ideas, so I need a clue.

At the end of the montage we see two guys drop off a large duct-taped case in exchange for the gas cans that Eric and Danny have been dropping off. Either this hidey hole is remote as fuck, or the people who live in the Keys are the most unobservant people in the history of ever. The case is later picked up by a Hispanic man with the worst blonde dye job from the year 1998. He looks completely ridiculous.

John and Danny Act Like Brothers

Danny regales John’s family over dinner with the story of how John and Diana started out back in the day. Danny jokes about how John wanted a new shirt to impress her at a concert, but had spent all of his money on his car, so he asked Danny for shoplifting tips. The kids laugh and look at their sheriff father who denies ever stealing anything. Danny tells them that instead, he stole the shirt for John. Their daughter asks how the concert was and they reveal it was the first night they kissed. Blech.

After dinner John and Danny sit outside while Danny chain smokes. Some guy comes to pick up John’s daughter and Danny gives her a hard time. Diana comes running out with her cell phone because she was trying to leave it at home, and Danny goes over and whispers something kind of lengthy in her ear. His niece laughs and he smiles as she gets in the boy’s car. Diana asks what he said and he tells her that some things are between a niece and her uncle. She and John share a suspicious look, and I don’t blame them because Danny probably just told her how to score blow and act like an idiot.

After she’s gone John tells Danny that every time she leaves it gives him a pit in his stomach. Danny assures him that she’ll always come home because of how good her life is. John says he doesn’t know how their parents weren’t completely destroyed when Sarah drowned. Danny tells him that his kids are the safest kids in town since he is the sheriff.

Marco Speaks Spanish, John Kneels

John and Marco visit the farm they have been told employs the largest number of illegals in town. After threatening the owner with an INS raid, he agrees to let them talk to his workers. I hate when people refer to other people as their workers, it sounds so slavey to me. Marcos then shows off that he’s been watching Dora by asking everyone there if they know these girls. I was honestly a little confused at this at first because those girls never made it to the U.S., until I heard him using the words for niece, sister, and daughter in his questioning of the various harvesters.

While Marco shows off his skills, John kneels and picks at the grass because evidently a white boy who grew up in the Keys doesn’t know a lick of Spanish. Seems legit. When they later return to their car, someone has written “el buen vecino” on the back of one of the flyers and put it in their open car window. Marco helpfully translates “the good neighbor” and then pauses to let the children watching repeat before telling them good job and moving on.

Kevin Is Less Bitter

Meg drops off the paperwork for the loan to Kevin at the marina. She tells him that everything is in order, but that Belle cannot file for divorce before everything is done or she will torpedo the deal. She advises against him buying the marina, but he tells her that he doesn’t have any other options. Meg gets preachy because she is perfect, but Kevin ignores her advice. She then asks if he’s considered cutting Danny back in to the business and he says that as long as her and John agree that it’s what they want, then he will agree. She says she’ll draw up the paperwork. Hopefully she doesn’t wait as long to file these as she did with Robert’s request.

Kevin goes to visit Danny at the inn and finds him in Robert’s toolshed. He has come to talk to Danny about sleeping with Chelsea. Danny plays stupid like Eric didn’t already tell him, and lets Kevin awkwardly explain what happened. Kevin blames it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol and admits that it was stupid. He says he realized after the fact that she and Danny might have a thing going on, but Danny says no. Then, after admitting that he slept with Danny pseudo love interest, he finally tells Danny that he and Belle are getting divorced. I feel like maybe he should have led with that. He asks Danny if they are cool, bro. Danny says no hard feelings, but his face says many hard feelings.

John Gets A Real Break

John goes to the church called El Buen Vecino and asks around about the dead girls. The man he talks to says he has never seen either of them, but John leaves his card and a flyer and asks him to ask the congregation. As he turns to leave, he checks out the bulletin board of posters in Spanish on the wall. On it is a missing poster for one of his dead girls. I couldn’t tell if we were supposed to assume the pastor or whatever he was never noticed the missing poster or was shady.

Danny Gets Desperate. And Stupid.

After his chat with Kevin, Danny goes to pick up Eric to make a gas delivery. Eric is so fucking classy it makes my eyes bleed. He is sitting on a rusted washing machine (which I honestly think was running - I even rewound it) in the front yard in only his boxers drinking a beer. See below in case you need a visual. Danny asks why he isn’t dressed and Eric tells them that the gas run business is over. Danny doesn’t want to hear that and once again asks if he can meet the head dude in charge and Eric once again says no.

Later, Eric puts clothes on and goes to meet our blonde Hispanic guy to get the money for the last drop they did before shutting the operation down and Danny is hiding nearby in his truck, ready to follow our flaxen-haired fellow to his secret lair. Danny’s truck is about as stealth as an aircraft carrier, so I am unsure how this worked out in his favor, but it did. Danny follows him back to a tackle shop and takes two incredibly long drags off his cigarette before nutting up and entering the shop.

Clairol For Men is sitting in the back room with his cronies and Danny just goes waltzing in like they aren’t going to shoot his ass, asking who is in charge. I wanted them to shoot him on principle, but they didn’t. After realizing that some old guy was in charge, but happened to be in the bathroom when Danny entered, Danny tells him that he knows that his smuggling operation has drawn the attention of the heat and says he can help with that. Danny, this is how you end up dead in a boat and blown up by your brother. That’s not a spoiler, that was in Part One – so don’t get mad.

Kevin Gets Fucked Up

After his near-suicide mission, Danny cruises by Chelsea’s to apologize for being an utter dickhole the other night. She agrees that he really is the worst. He tells her that he knows about her and Kevin. As he is talking, we start a montage between their conversation and Kevin arriving at the marina. As Danny rambles about clarity, a masked avenger beats the absolute fuck out of Kevin with a baseball bat. In the spine. I dropped a softball bat on my toe once and almost died, so I am pretty sure that Kevin died at least 27 times in this scene.

As we flash back to Danny telling Chelsea that her and her brother are the closest thing he has to family, we see that the masked man steals a large wad of cash out of Kevin’s lock box and trashes the place. I stand corrected from the earlier episode where I assumed Kevin did all of that himself. He is less of a hothead and more of as ass-beating victim. As the mystery man jumps in his vehicle to leave, he removes his wrap and is revealed to be Eric.

The episode ends with Danny in his truck listening to the interview tapes once again. Kevin repeats his story from the beginning of the episode, discussing how Danny was screaming and crying and that he’d never seen anyone hurt so badly.

I have to be honest, that last scene kind of made the episode for me. I have spent at least five of the seven episodes wishing someone would knock the shit out of Kevin and it finally happened. But at the same time… damn. I got absolutely zero of my questions from the last recap answered, and this one raised all kinds of new queries:

• What does this robbery mean for Kevin’s future with the loan to purchase the marina?
• How in the hell does Danny plan on helping them with the police looking into the smuggling ring? It’s not like he can ask John for a favor to just ignore the whole blown up boat thing and look the other way.
• What the hell did Danny whisper into John’s daughter’s ear? And why did it seem so creepy?
• Did Alec and his stupid hair finally leave the Keys?
• Does anyone else hate Chloe Sevigny as much as I do? Hint: it’s a lot.
• Was that washing machine running? Inquiring minds want to know.
• How dead is Kevin? On a scale of Walking Dead Zombie to Prince Joffrey at the Purple Wedding… how dead?
• Did Danny send Eric to fuck up Kevin or did he decide to that of his own accord? Or is he working for someone else like the douchebag son?

Join me on Thursday when I recap Part Eight and we find out if Kevin is alive and paralyzed, dead, or just slightly bruised and inconvenienced like most television shows the day after a brutal attack.