What I like about Bloodline, and what I don't

The Netflix series Bloodline has the look of a fine series - opening credits that must have been designed by whoever did the fine opening credits for Netflix House of Cards, a cool musical opening track that reminds me of T Bone Pickens's work on True Detective, and even the setting - the Florida Keys - has some of that Southern gothic extremism that gives a series an edge. The first episode was unduly choppy, with so many characters and potential plot elements - as well as a complex narrative structure in which the events of the central crisis get filled in episode by episode, at first opaque and no doubt complete only in the final episode - much as in Damages, which I think was by the same writing team? As the title implies it's a family drama: mom and dad (Spacek and Shepard) get together w/ their 4 adult kids for a celebration of the contributions the family has made to the community, and all centers on the black sheep oldest son, Danny, who creates family havoc wherever he goes: he wants to stay and help on the family resort hotel, the other sibs want him out of the picture as he's never earned a living or done anyone any good. We see in episode one that he dies and that youngest bro., played by a miscast Kyle Chandler, the family peacemaker and successful son, tries to make it look as if he'd died in a fire on a boat. It will take some time before we can make sense of this. I was much more engaged by the end of the 3rd episode - the characters are sharply drawn and there's just enough noir-edge to the plot to keep it floating above the level of family drama, return of the native, prodigal son, etc. The success of the series - I will no doubt watch more episodes - will depend on whether the writers can make all of these elements cohere and make sense - as they really couldn't in Damages, especially after season 1. You do get the sense that they're figuring it out as they go along - for ex., introducing key characters in episode 3 who by all accounts should have been at the least referenced right from the start. Also, Chandler is not the only miscast, as all of the Raburn (?) children seem to be much too old for their parts - the act as if they're in their 20s and they look to be in their 40s.