Netflix has renewed its dark family drama “Bloodline” for a third season. The Sony Pictures TV drama series, created and exec produced by Todd A. Kessler, Daniel Zelman and Glenn Kessler, will return with 10 new episodes next year.
The third season of “Bloodline” will continue to be helmed by the Kesslers and Zelman, and will bring back principal cast members Kyle Chandler, Sissy Spacek, Linda Cardellini, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ben Mendelsohn as members of the Rayburn clan the show centers around, though whether the show will continue to shoot in the Florida Keys, as it did for Seasons 1 and 2, remains to be seen.
“Todd, Daniel, and Glenn have created a riveting family saga featuring one of the most talented ensembles in the history of television. We can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds for the all-too-human Rayburns,” said Cindy Holland, VP of Original Content at Netflix.
While Season 1 was generally well received by critics, Season 2 garnered mixed reviews when it dropped on the service on May 27. According to data from Luth Research, which tracks Netflix viewing on computers, tablets, and phones, a mere 2.4 percent of Netflix’s subscribers sampled the first season of “Bloodline” in its first 30 days of availability, which may have accounted for the length of time between the second season premiere and the third-season pickup. It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of Netflix viewing is done on TV screens.
Of course, for Netflix, what matters is whether its original series keep subscribers sticking around, and so critical acclaim and high viewership aren’t necessarily must-haves. (Nielsen is now measuring some Netflix series, but those viewership numbers have, for the most part, not been made public.)
The renewal is good news for those that want to see whether big brother John (Chandler), who murdered black sheep brother Danny (Mendelsohn) in the Season 1 finale, will in fact be leaving the Keys, as intimated in Season 2. For everyone else, it’s just another show to put on the catch-up list.
