Bloodline - S1E8 - Part Eight
Previously on Bloodline, ‘Part Seven’
After a few episodes of reprieve from opening in the rain, we go back to the monsoon and the ominous voiceover. Part Eight opens on Kevin in his ruined marina office, snorting a line of blow, and crying into his hands. This is obviously in the future because we see the extent of his injuries later, and there is no way he’d be lifting his arms that high directly after the attack. Kevin calls John and asks him what he’s going to do about Danny. John tells him that it’s his job to take care of it, then we flash back to current time… or is it the past? I am unsure at this point.
Kevin Got Fucked Up
Kevin is being shaken awake by Jake, his work sidekick, and when he startles awake, he realizes he is in a lot of pain and lying on the floor. The look of anguish on his face when he tried to get up was pretty epic. Later, at the hospital, it is revealed that he has three cracked ribs, his back is one large bruise and he has some extensive tissue damage in his wrist. He struggles to put his shirt on and the doctor helpfully tells him that is going to hurt for a while. Fucking doctors.
After his release, Jake brings Kevin back to the marina. Kevin refuses to call the cops and press charges because of the bank loan situation and his business being used as collateral. Jake looks confused and concerned, but lets it go and tries to bring Kevin to his house to sleep, but Kevin says no. He’d rather sit stubbornly in his shitty office and space out on his painkillers.
Danny Begins To Show His Colors
At the bar, Danny meets Clairol For Men for a drink, and CFM needs to touch up his roots. CFM is telling Danny that he’s an idiot (duh) and that he doesn’t know for sure if his boss is going to use Danny for work. Eric shows up and is butthurt that Danny has a new friend with amazing hair, but CFM is not really all that pleased to see Eric either, so they are even. CFM tells them to follow him to another location, which is one of the most memorable things I learned from Oprah, that you never let them take you to the second location.
As Danny and Eric head out to the truck, Eric tries to give Danny a wad of cash. Danny asks what it’s for and Eric tells him that it came from Kevin’s marina. Danny refuses the money and tells Eric to keep it. Eric points out that it should be his since he called the hit. What a dick.
The second location turns out to be a cock fight. CFM and Eric jump into the fray watching the fight, while Danny sidles off to find himself a beer. I watched this scene pretty closely, and while I know they can do amazing things with CGI these days, I am pretty sure there were actually two cocks fighting in that ring. I think animals were injured during the making of this episode. As Danny sips his beer, he recognizes Carlos as the winning cock’s owner collecting his winnings. Danny goes and subtly threatens him before telling him that they can help each other. I’ll be honest, I just wanted to use the word cock as many times as possible in that sentence. Cock.
Carlos Gets A Pass
After the cock fight, CFM shows up at the bar where the key witness in Carlos’ case is bartending. He tells the bartender that Carlos is a friend of a friend and the testimony needs to go away. Soon after, we see Meg entering an office and the prosecuting attorney approaches to tell her that the charges are being dropped because their witness backed out. Both Meg and the prosecutor assume this is for aboveboard methods, and they are both wrong.
Back at the inn, Carlos meets with Meg. Where the hell is her office and why isn’t she using it? While talking about the charges being dropped, Danny enters and greets Carlos, congratulating him on his freedom. He asks what Carlos will do now, and Carlos says he’ll find himself a jobby job.
Danny Plays the Doting Son
Danny approaches Sally about changing the menu. I’m not sure where they are hiding the restaurant, but I hope Danny doesn’t do the cooking while chain smoking. He’s acting entirely too nice and weird for me to think that whatever he’s planning is legit, but Sally is fooled and tells him to do whatever he wants. He says he’ll take care of lining up some cheaper vendors and give her a revised menu.
Later, after Carlos’ case is dropped, Danny asks if he can hire Carlos to work with him at the inn. Sally agrees and Danny puts him to work. I noticed that whenever he’s asking for something, he calls Sally “Mama” in a weird childish tone. The further we go, the creepier Danny gets to me.
Kevin is Still Fucked Up, and Fucked Over
As Kevin convalesces at the marina, he attempts to measure the hole that Eric knocked in his window before inexplicably hearing the douche son talking from across the whole marina. Maybe his pain pills give him spidey senses. He goes over and spies on the conversation, and whatever he hears (I rewound it twice and couldn’t pick up the conversation) convinces him that the douche is the person responsible for his attack.
He calls John in for backup and explains his theory. John urges him to file a police report and Kevin refuses again, still citing the bank as the reason. John asks Kevin why he called if he can’t file a report and Kevin’s responds that John is his brother, and he just wanted his big brother’s help. Kevin started to break down again after this exchange and I’ll admit that I’ve been thoroughly impressed with Norbert Leo Butz and his acting chops in the past few episodes.
After John snaps into big brother mode, he helps Kevin get his shit and go to the inn where Kevin relays the attack to the entire family. Danny sits listening to the attack expressionless while everyone else gapes. Everyone thinks it was a personal attack and Kevin continues to lamely deny it, calling it a break in. Eventually Mama Ray asks where the hell Belle (Kevin’s estranged wife) is and he finally breaks the news to her that they are separated.
While Kevin is overseeing the cleanup at the marina, Debbie from the bank stops by and asks him some questions about the break in. He attempts to lie and tell her that there was no break in, but she tells him that it’s a small town and word travels fast. After telling him they will put a 90-day hold on the loan, he tries to reason with her that he needs the money now or it won’t matter. She apologizes and he gets super pissed and starts yelling “Fuck!” over and over, while she nervously retreats to her car.
Marco’s Family is Awesome
In the midst of all of the drama of this episode, we get some fun shots of Marco with his family at his niece’s birthday party. I still don’t take him seriously in his role as a tough cop, but seeing this actor show his sensitive side while dancing with his niece and chatting with his family made me like him a lot more. Just when he’s finished telling his parents that Meg isn’t there because she had to work, Meg wanders up with a gift making him look like an idiot. He goes over and thanks her for coming and tells her she doesn’t have to stay since he made things awkward between them. She stays and warmly greets his family.
The next day, they meet on the beach and he apologizes again for making things weird. He tells her that he was wrong, and that she went out of her way to think of his family despite him pushing her away. And then pretends like she is a dipshit when she doesn’t realize he’s proposing because he never said anything remotely resembling a proposal until he says, “Let’s get fucking married!” So romantic.
Danny’s Scheme is Revealed
At the inn, after arranging new vendors for the seafood and hiring Carlos, Danny accepts the morning’s delivery of crates of fresh fish out on the dock. As he wheels them into the freezer (which seems counterintuitive to the concept of fresh fish) Carlos plays lookout outside while Danny unloads the fish into the freezer.
After emptying the containers of fish, he and Carlos wheel them out to Papa Rayburn’s old toolshed. It turns out these crates have false bottoms and are filled with cocaine. Danny is such an asshole. Carlos even tells him that he’s really not comfortable with this whole set up, but Danny could give a shit. He unloads the baggies of coke into his backpack and repeats the process the next day with a second shipment.
That night at the inn, the family celebrates Marco and Meg’s impending nuptials and Danny stands in the corner skulking and staring knowingly at Meg. She looks away uncomfortably and snuggles up to Marco while Danny continues to be a creeper.
Marco Gets Shit Done
Now that John has found one of his victims’ missing persons posters, he and Marco are visiting local businesses to try and locate whoever made the posters. They hit gold with a mechanic who, after being shown the missing poster along with the headshot of her corpse, breaks down in tears. It turns out this man paid someone to bring his daughter to the U.S., but she never showed. Through his tears, he relays what information he knows to John and Marco, and agrees to revisit the pier where he met up with the smuggler and try to identify him.
Marco takes the grieving father of the identified victim to the pier and they attempt to recognize the person who took the father’s money. They settle in for the day while the father looks at those passing by. That evening around dusk, he finally identifies the man he met as CFM, who does have a real name, but I am just going to call him CFM because I didn’t write it down.
John Gets Drunk, Danny Gets Creepier
After Marco informs John via phone that their guy made an ID, Danny and John decide to go for a beer to wind down for the day. At the bar, Danny proceeds to get John blitzed and then starts talking about how when he first met Diana, John’s wife, she and Danny had a “moment” but that since he’s such an awesome brother, he didn’t act on it. John starts to get pissed, and Danny tries to talk his way out of it before going over to get a number off of some bar hussy and then stuffing it in John’s pocket, implying that he should get some strange. I assume this is later going to be something, because they spent so much time on it, but it didn’t come up this episode.
As the night wears on, John gets really drunk and really emo. He tells Danny that he stood up for him when they wanted to cut him out of the business, and Danny sarcastically asks if he should thank him before they leave the bar for John to puke all over himself in the parking lot. Danny gives him a ride home and comes in the house purposefully making as much noise as possible. Diana wakes up and helps John to bed while telling Danny to shut the fuck up, but he continues to be obnoxiously loud until he hears his niece wake up and come into the kitchen to see a drunken John being escorted to bed. Danny has a sick look of pleasure cross his face when he hears her door open.
After getting John settled, Diana comes back into the living room where Danny has made himself comfortable on the couch with a glass of water. She asks him what happened, and he tells her that they went out for a drink and then John drank way too much, but he talks in a tone that sounds threatening and aggressive. Eventually she tells him to leave and he goes and put his glass of water in the sink despite her arguments. He stares in her face for a few uncomfortable moments before leaving.
Sally Acts Like Mama
Back at the inn, Kevin is being taken care of by Sally. They share a beautifully simple scene where she asks why he never came to them to talk about he and Belle having trouble. Kevin admits that he felt like he was failing, and that his marriage failed and he didn’t want to tell them about it because he knew he’d disappointed them. Sally tells him that he hasn’t let them down and I love Sissy Spacek even more. He starts to get upset again, and I am starting to theme this episode “Kevin Cries,” but I am not mad at it because again, Butz is doing a phenomenal job here.
The Morning After
John wakes up with a hangover, but he isn’t looking to be in too bad of shape to be honest. Diana gives him a hard time while he gets his coffee and takes some aspirin. Then she gets serious and wants to talk to him about Danny’s behavior the night before. John tries to blow her off when she says that something is off about Danny, and that he seemed aggressive the night before. When she starts to cry, I wanted to shake John and tell him that she’s the only one with any good sense in the entire Rayburn crew. She tells him that she doesn’t want Danny around her kids, and John leaves angry and tells her they will continue the discussion later that evening.
Back at the inn, Meg comes in looking for Sally and comes across Danny sitting at Robert’s desk. He stops her and says that he thought they had each others’ backs. She looks at him confusedly and he continues to explain that she lied to him about the will and him being cut out of it. When he starts to tell her that they had an agreement, she snaps and says, “No, YOU had an agreement. You came into my house and threatened me and then left.”
She tells him that it doesn’t matter anyway because they cut him back in, but falters a little when it’s pointed out that she has yet to file the papers. It kind of surprised Danny that little sister fought back, but he is still skulking around angrily when she storms off.
Danny Needs to Go
Danny and Eric take his smuggled drugs to the beach to meet CFM, who has been identified as Ralphie Quintana (it turns out I did write his name down, but I’m still referring to him as CFM) and hand over the drugs. I want to point out that they did this in broad daylight on a wide open beach making them the world’s dumbest drug dealers ever. Our mysterious old guy from last episode gets out of the back of the truck (thank God for crew cabs) to inspect the product before dumping it on the ground because it’s just sugar. Danny asks if he passed the test and the man says he’ll be in touch.
The episode ends where it began, with a voiceover from John and the scene with Kevin calling him to ask what they are going to do about Danny. As John tells him that they’ve talked about it enough and it’s time to do something, John’s voiceover tells us, “Danny turned us into that family you don’t want to be. He made a mistake, he made a big mistake and now we’re all paying for it.”
In the grand scheme of things, there wasn’t a much action in this episode, but there was a ton of plot development. Meg is engaged, Danny is a full on dickhead, Kevin has been knocked down a peg or ten, and John is spreading his wings as the “big brother” of the family. Since Danny’s various relationships have begun to sour, I have a good feeling that from here on out, things will be happening fast and loose in terms of leading up to the presumed death of Danny. Here are this episode’s questions:
- Why is Danny such a complete DICK to everyone?
- Are we ever going to learn what really happened to Sarah and if it was anyone’s fault?
- Is it John that eventually kills Danny, or someone else?
- How does small town gossip have the ability to affect the outcome of your business loan? Maybe I don’t understand small town politics, but I feel like there is a conflict of interest here somewhere.
- Are Meg and Marco really alter-bound or is Danny going to spill the beans on her affair?
- What are the chances that Sissy Spacek is the killer and she flawlessly kills Danny and I am not even mad at it?
Episode Nine will be up this weekend, and from the brief episode description on Netflix, it looks like everyone is losing their patience, which always leads to good drama.
