Chad Taylor

If you close the door the night could last forever


I can pick 'em. Netflix has announced it will cancel Bloodline after season three. Bloodline was easily the best thing Netflix has produced but after seeing what happened to House of Cards maybe it's best to stop at the Ewoks. The show's creators say they had a plan for five or six seasons. Josef Adalian at NYMag says it's a sign that Netflix is changing and that the show cost '$70 million to $85 million for a 10-episode season'. I wonder if the big cost had something to do with Florida's film incentives program. (Netflix says it will film the final series without incentives.)

Adalian rubs salt in the wound by going on to describe Bloodline as a 'slow burn' that did not generate a rapturous response. Boo. Slow was the point. Even when it stretched (serial TV is hard and 10 is somehow not a graceful number) the plot was a solid modern noir against a sunny tourist backdrop. It was wrong things happening in the right place: everything was fucked. And tight: this was no 28-episode Danish thing that strung you along with mood. This was story.

Maybe it's better this way. If noir was mainstream happy-clappy stuff it wouldn't be noir. Because for all its gloss Bloodline was about the underbelly and people doing wrong, and if there was a popular audience for that we'd all be stuck with Suicide Squad. Narcos, another supposedly 'dark' Netflix series is supposedly about the bad stuff but it's clear which side the audience is meant to be on. That makes Narcos watchable and renewable for more seasons but it'll never be as fulfilling. Bloodline is genuinely twisted and that's a good thing.