BLOODLINE: new netflix florida noir drama starring kyle chandler, sissy spacek and ben mendelsohn (2015)

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this looks interesting! coach taylor, da sleazeball character actor GAWD ben mendelsohn, sissy spacek (!), linda cardellini (!!), chloe sevigny at some point later in the show apparently - great cast for starters

as a complete noir addict i'm absurdly predisposed to like this, about to fire up the pilot. anyone else watching?

cast looks great, premise sounds awful. so sick of DARK and GRITTY dramas about SSSSEEEECRETSSSSS

that said I'll watch the first couple

that is a fair concern to have. i will say that thus far, voiceover aside, it seems like it's more pulpy and scuzzy than ponderous and (faux)profound. like it's played straight but i don't know just yet how seriously it's taking itself.

hopefully not very. and the voiceover, on 2nd thought, might actually be laying it on thick intentionally, as so many noirs have.

Just added it to my queue, but I've still got a couple other things I'm backed up on and need to get through.

i would not be interested in this at all based on the trailer/premise, but a contemporary novelist i really like (Arthur Phillips) is on the writing staff, and the cast does look interesting.

liked the pilot enough to keep watching. the acting, especially mendelsohn and chandler, and the visual atmosphere are the best things about it. the premise isnt anything groundbreaking, to be sure, but noir is all about execution anyway.

dialogue - the crown jewel of all good crime fic & noir imo - is good for the most part if occasionally way on the nose. mostly in the narration. I can already sense the mockery that will befall the pilot's closing line, "we're not bad people BUT WE DID A BAD THING" once the more zing-centric critics and viewers get their hands on it. and I sort of understand a desire to roast that line & the antihero epidemic that leads to such lines. but if that's the worst thing I can say about something I otherwise like, it's an acceptable watching risk, imo.

well tbf that does make it sound like the fake prestige crime drama the characters on The Good Wife watch

yeah I watched two and I think that's it for me

I've also watched 2, will give it a bit more time bc of mendelsohn, chandler and the all too brief chloe sevigny appearance. the "hothead" brother is fucking annoying as hell

He is awful. The self-seriousness really kills this for me. And yeah, needs way more Sevigny.

five in & currently watching the sixth. it gets better as it goes along, but the real trick - if that wasn't readily apparent from the pilot - is viewing danny as the main character and not kyle chandler.

i am on the last one

def riding the trashy prestige drama wave

the worst sibling is the excitable lil pig kevin

ha he just behaved poorly right as i said that

Is this what you'd call 'southern gothic'?

nah, it'd have to be a lot weirder to fit that bill imo

the worst sibling is the excitable lil pig kevin
--lag∞n

so loud and so dumb and so macho-whiny (the worst kind of whiny)

im enjoying this, about 5 eps in. this isn't really all that *fun* for a noir or a "southern gothic" or whatever it is and doesn't really seem to revel in its location as much as it could--maybe that's a good thing but the plot is pretty thin so far as well. so it's stuck halfway between plot-driven and atmosphere-driven with neither really delivering so far. still, im interested!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inB4esNoNTo

kind of just want this to be about sam shephard and sissy spacek running a hotel in florida... maybe having some fun adventures.

kinda unclear what the second season wld be about maybe they cld do a prequel

got to the ep where john apologizes to danny on the dock. was like "well that sure was nice, i bet this show is over" but then danny chopped that fish's head off after john left and the dramatic music plays and was like "oh is it".

bloodlines part 7: in which danny tries an even crazier drug

i love danny he is cool

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lol watching the final ep i was all to myself howre they gonna do a second season with no danny maybe they cld have a character played by the same actor show up all like hi im cousin dougie, just then who arrives on the scene but... his son lmao

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i'm scared to watch. coach taylor deserves a show as good as nashville.

not reading that spoiler. so very tempting, but I won't. *nurses old arm injury*

nashville is still good? i liked season 1 but the start of season 2 left me cold even tho connie britton is good in anything, ever, at any time (it's a law)

(xp)

i finished the drug trip/bender episode last night, thought it and the one before it were the best eps thus far. there are pretty clear flaws even in the better episodes, but it's remained entertaining

#stillneedsmoresevigny

i kinda can't stand norbert leo butz for some reason. maybe it was all the singing and dancing with john lithgow on t.v. years ago...

yes, still needs maurice vignier

and watching the trailer thing makes me sad cuz freaks and geeks looks so sad! yeah, can they redo this show where freaks and geeks, coach taylor, sissy, and sam have a cool show.

i don't think i know who the british bad boy brother is. was he in lock stock and smoking barrels?

notable Ben Mendelsohn roles:
-bad person and criminal in The Place Beyond the Pines
-horrible person and criminal in Killing Them Softly
-absolutely despicable person and criminal in Animal Kingdom

all brilliant roles imo, esp. animal kingdom. he is one of my absolute favorite character actors.

also jessa's dad on girls!

yeah, he's great

scott, you should def see Animal Kingdom

i'll check it out.

one of the best $3 used dvd purchases i ever made!

ya ben mendelsohn is good stuff

yeah he pretty much single-handedly makes this show addictive, and I like Coach and Lindsay Weir

and Carrie and Chuck Yeager!

really liking the back half of the season for its increased charles willeford/late 80s elmore leonard feel

(lot more serious/straightfaced than those guys though, to its partial detriment)

ya feel like they approached some leonard vibes and almost reached out and touched faith but ultimately dealing wit leonards plot mechanisms is too terrifying for every filmmaker, having the story turn on that tape of the childhood interrogation is nearly leonardian tho i will admit

shark tooth necklace perhaps the best

hes a salty dog

i'll take salty hothead ANY day over snakeshark.

you don't think Danny seems tragic in any way? maybe even just a richard III way?

i don't think danny is inherently a snake at all but def has it in him. he's an abused animal lashing out at the people who actually and directly abused him (his father) and because of either inborn issues or being too far gone is roping in people who indirectly hurt him & who he perceives as directly hurting him.

hes a salty dog

― lag∞n, Wednesday, April 8, 2015 1:08 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah man he's a pig, you tweeted about this weeks ago and ever since it's been an unshakable perception of mine because his face is so thoroughly piglike!

http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0gyiqqzBO1rr5f7co1_400.jpg

i have, you know, empathy for people in general. and most fucked up people have a good story as to how they got that way. but the snakeshark is just my least favorite fucked up person to deal with. because of that snakey/smug grin. like they want to tell you an amusing story and then eat you.

nah man he's a pig, you tweeted about this weeks ago and ever since it's been an unshakable perception of mine because his face is so thoroughly piglike!

― slothroprhymes, Wednesday, April 8, 2015 1:48 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

but the snakeshark is just my least favorite fucked up person to deal with. because of that snakey/smug grin. like they want to tell you an amusing story and then eat you.

― scott seward, Wednesday, April 8, 2015 1:54 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya i know something fascinating that you dont is one of the worst vibes for a person to project

imho the key thing the show did was to make the origin/true nature of dannys terribleness ambiguous

an ex-junkie manipulative hard-done-by snakeshark acquaintance of mine was making grand statements on FB about how he'd never identified intensely with a fictional character until seeing Danny so I think Scott's onto something

butz is just a broadway baby thus a big ham...

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Even though the Danny character is compelling and Mendelsohn so clearly owns whatever scene he's in, I kept wondering if he got the wrong notes or something...like he was playing on-the-nose snakeshark instead of the pro sociopath who successfully manipulates people precisely because he doesn't SEEM snakesharky. Like has no member of the Rayburn family ever been exposed to sarcasm before? He sits down at dinner and he's like, "Yeah, this should be A LOT OF FUN, I really LOVE you guys," and they're all "Oh, that's nice, welcome home."

I chugged this show down and feel like it got better +/- with each episode, but I think they really dropped the ball not making Danny harder to read.

you could make an argument that all that reflects a kind of wishful thinking on the family's part--avoidance of fate, wrongs forgiven, and all that.

oh for sure

xxp think Danny plays it pretty well on the edge the whole time before the tape pushes him over

I was pretty shocked by the check scene. I think that scene was designed to be shocking, and it wouldn't work if you think Danny is full snakeshark by that point.

http://youtu.be/_tVOqZIC8qU?t=33s

otm

xxp yeah i agree with that he doesn't like, have all his plans in place then even if he prob would be fine with selling some dope to pay off his debts. the check & the tape are what seals the deal w/him to not only take care of his biz but also do so while potentially fucking his family over by making them accessories after the fact

i liked the last two episodes of this and part of me kinda wishes they would just take the mini-series approach sometimes and let something be one and done.

season 2

hearing decent things about it, and while i'm sure the mechanisms involved in bringing flashbacks to the show will be deus ex machina as all hell i can't really complain about more ben mendelsohn, will check some of it out soon

this show makes me wanna go fishing

It's exhausting. Same pacing as the first season. Watch the first two episodes and the last two episodes and you'll be good.

but then you miss out on chloe sevigny

will watch after i finish easy living. and lady dynamite.

lol @ frosty and rollins band

God this show is glum. Not even "dark"—just completely bereft of humor. In real life, even (especially?) in grim times, people do and say funny things. A little comic relief would go a long away.

That said w/ the Danny stuff resolved I didn't expect to get into this season, but they've put together a tight plot and the acting is excellent across the board. Leguizamo is a pleasant surprise and I'm digging the Cape Fear vibe

Low point of every episode remains the titles with that godawful song, specifically when the words Norbert Leo Butz appear over time-lapse thunderstorm

getting a real bass player from van halen vibe off kevin in this series

otm

But needs to smile more to really pull it off. Why were those guys always laughing w/ their instruments?, weird dudes

they were really stoned. and drunk.

either way i would not trust them to run a marina

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"on tonight's episode, a dangerous visitor from the past..."

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nudge from the judge

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I enjoyed the second season but then again I am a sucker for slow burning noirish crime dramas

I did think the bit at the end with Kevin killing Marco was a bit much though. Did he think that this would save John and Meg or did he just panic?

he just panicked

I thought that was the case but it seemed very out of character as Kevin hasn't been violent before if I remember right. Great show overall though, very atmospheric

Can someone clarify something for me, having just finished season 1? the first few episodes lean pretty heavily on a flash-forward scene of John dragging Danny through the swamp in striped seersucker suits. At about episode 8-9 you see that the suits are for Meg's wedding but Danny dies and Meg doesn't actually get married. Did I miss something major (like a whole episode!!) ?

cancelled, from what I read....did season 2 end on a cliffhanger?

It's been cancelled after season 3.

We chained eight episodes of season three yesterday - the bent coroner is straight into the pantheon of great minor characters.

I hope the cancellation doesn't mean they haven't brought the whole thing to a satisfying conclusion.

First half of the last series was quite good but those final episodes were a complete crock

I enjoyed the bleakness of the conclusion well enough but the second series had clearly set a number of plates in motion that they weren't able to resolve in time. I got the distinct impression that a number of plotlines had been very hastily rewritten once the series was cancelled - characters just suddenly keeling over and dying or shooting themselves in the head etc.