If you've finished the season and want to read my thoughts on the ending and other plot specifics, you can head to the Bloodline: Season 3 Spoiler Discussion Page.

Bloodline was never a tale that was designed to last for years without running into a certain turgidity. Season 1 rounded things out with a pivotal murder that represented the crazed culmination of a family that had been living limply atop a fragile lie - their well water poisoned long ago by a tragedy that sent them each spiraling internally. The muggy atmosphere, pressure cooker plot, and expert performances made for a scintillating family drama - but one that also, like its main characters, existed on borrowed time.Season 2 seemed to bask in the anxious aftermath of Season 1, piling on the anguish and displeasure even more so that everyone was now existing inside brutal bubbles of personal crises. The acting was still stellar, but there was no give. It was all boiling point beats, dialed up to eleven, ready to break down its main characters under massive loads of guilt, self-hate and existential ponderings. If anything, despite a handful clever twists, Season 2 made us all realize that Season 3 needed to be the end.Yes, even though co-creators Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman envisioned the series running for five or six seasons, this couldn't go on. It was hard, by mid-Season 2, to not root for the entire Rayburn clan to crumble under the sheer weight of their wrongdoings and, really, get what's coming to them.There's an understanding that the whole family's been on the brink of colony collapse since the death of sister Sarah and the beating that Danny took at the hands of patriarch Robert. This was a fuse lit long ago and only now is the flame catching up to everyone. So then let's get to the gruesome bits, right? How will this all unspool for John, Kevin, and Meg? Ah ah, not so fast though. There are still 10 more episodes of Rayburn despair to dish out and just as Season 2 fed off the agony created by John murdering Danny, Season 2 deals rather intimately with Kevin's bludgeoning of Marco. It's the new murder de jour and it, like Danny's drowning, threatens to tear down the delicate stack of lies/house of cards the Rayburns built their legacy upon.Fortunately though, Season 3 does a much better job of creating sections -- mini-arcs, even -- that help split up the story, giving us, and the Rayburn siblings, a reprieve from the ongoing crucible. The first three episodes deal very directly and darkly with the fallout from Kevin killing Marco while the middle part of the season takes the Rayburns to court. And it's there where things start to more directly tie back to the first season and the family's sordid past of deception and dysfunction. Like all final bows, the story circles back and reminds you of the journeys taken and pain endured.Both O'Bannons -- that's Chelsea (Chloë Sevigny) and Eric (Jamie McShane) -- play major roles during this middle section, and it's great to see the series embracing its peripheral characters and integrating them fully into the madness. Danny may be gone, but the people from his separate, self-exiled life are still overly relevant. Not only to be a constant thorn in the Rayburns' side but also to remind everyone of the people who Danny turned to because his family had abandoned him long ago.Beau Bridges' charming criminal, Roy Gilbert, also plays a hefty role in the endgame, representing the family's newest, and probably most fatal, bad choice. The barbed-wire life jacket he offers comes, as one might assume, with a steep cost and as Roy's icky activities begin to seep into the siblings' lives, Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz) and John's relationship becomes even more strained. Each one of our protagonists is given several opportunities to change course, or do "what's right," during the season but as you can imagine these are the types of moral crossroads the Rayburn clan excels at side-stepping.There may have been some viewers, come the close of Season 2, who were just as exhausted as John with all of the lies and cover ups. He went off for that drive, right as Kevin was confronting Marco, and was ready to be done with it all. Still though, he had so much to lose. His wife, kids, job, reputation, and freedom - they were all on the line. So even if you did agree that, karmically, he should pay the piper, it was still a harsh ending for someone who, at one point, tried to do the right thing more than others in his family.Season 3 eases some of that burden for us, while also diving deeply into John's psyche as the beleaguered brother who everyone always turns to when they screw up and need someone to twist the rules and deliver a miracle. No, John doesn't find happiness this year, if you're looking ones of those rare smiles on this show, but he does experience a type of peace that comes with someone who does actually want to do what's right. John had a ton to lose in Season 2 and so this year, not to give too much away, some of that burden is taken off his plate, allowing him to break free and truly come totems with his his, and everyone's, sins. It's a nice piece of (almost thankless) work from Kyle Chandler, having to play such a repressed and disintegrating character.Just as John and Kevin's bond becomes warped due to Roy Gilbert's interest in all things Rayburn, Meg (Linda Cardellini) and Kevin's relationship -- in fact, Meg's entire relationship with the family at large -- changes in a very surprising way following the death of Marco. The first episode back, the Season 3 premiere, seems to wallow in misery a bit too much as most of the characters play a morose and desperate game of phone tag, but down the line it all blends back into the story and makes sense.A few things don't quite sit right about the ending. I suppose this is a tricky show to pay off fully, especially if the creators were ending things years before they initially intended to, but there were also some interesting things happening. I guess, aside from a few of the wonky detour stories involving John Leguizamo's Ozzy and Owen Teague's Nolan, I found most of my main hangups regarding Season 3 in the final three episodes. There was some good stuff in there, but none of it quite lined up in a satisfying way. Looking back at each character's final scene, the way the show leaves them forever in our memory, it doesn't quite feel right. But that's the risk you run. Creative choices were made and not everyone's going to like them.