WARNING: There is some spoiler discussion of Bloodline ahead.
After the second season of Netflix’s Emmy-nominated Bloodline, it became clear that this was the kind of show whose mystery needed to be wrapped up sooner than later. Now the show won’t have a choice.
The Hollywood Reporter said Wednesday that Netflix has informed the show’s producers that the upcoming third season will be the last. The number of episodes ordered has also been slashed from 13 to 10. The first season of the show received 13 episodes, but the second season also consisted of 10.
According to THR, the producers of Bloodline saw a five- or six-season show in their mind. To be honest, that seems crazy. Those plans might have been dashed by two things: the quality of the first season and the star-making turn by Ben Mendelsohn as Danny Rayburn. Mendelsohn’s character, who was already set to die in the first season, was the most interesting one on the show and his (relative) absence in the second season sucked a lot of life and intrigue out of the plot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOBrUPASutc
While the remaining castmembers (Kyle Chandler, Linda Cardellini, Norbert Leo Butz, Jacinda Barrett) continue to do great work, especially when it becomes clear that what we’re watching is a family full of “bad guys,” none of whom are worth rooting for, the second season laid bare the notion that this is a story that needs to have an endgame soon before the entire show devolves into parody. You could argue that it’s already skewing too far away from reality as it is.
So in a way, either because of bad ratings or rising costs, Netflix may have done the showrunners a favor. Now, they are forced to wrap up the story in a clean way where each character either gets what’s coming to them or gets away (somehow). There’s still intrigue to be mined out of the characters and concepts. But truth be told, even when Netflix renewed the show for a third season, the expectation on my end was that this was going to be it. If that wasn’t the case in the mind of the producers, then I’m somewhat glad it’s been decided for them.
One random note for fans of other Netflix shows to keep an eye on. Bloodline now becomes the third Netflix show to get cancelled, following Norway crime drama Lilyhammer and the horror entry Hemlock Grove. All three of these shows were cancelled following their third seasons.
[THR]