By Christopher James
Will Marty and Wendy Byrd's actions finally catch up with them in?I didn’t think Ozark would be my latest binge. The Netflix crime drama was well lauded by the Emmys, winning 3 awards from 32 nominations over its past 4 seasons. In many ways, it seemed like the saturation point for “prestige TV,” an ultra-serious thriller with movie stars brooding in barely lit rooms. From the episodes I watched for Emmy coverage, it seemed like my suspicions were confirmed. However, when doing a fresh binge, the show’s personality and verve shone through the murky cinematography. The pilot sums up the central conflict the best, Ozark is about the clash of two worlds: the upper class city finance family and the brash locals they undermine at their own risk.
It all comes to an end with the final seven episodes of season four, which just dropped on Netflix. As the poster claims, the end revolves around one question: can the Byrds officially go clean?
Feel familiar? It’s a similar tension most crime dramas have asked over the years. The final batch of episodes for Ozark push our central characters further than ever before into the clutches of the cartel. Yet, the goal for the Byrd family remains the same. They want to be clean and over their life of crime, or at least that’s what they tell themselves.
Beyond fights with the cartel and negotiations with the FBI, "Ozark" is a family drama as the Byrd family tries to stick together in the face of opposition.
Many things stand in their way of the Byrd family’s quest for freedom. Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) continue to walk a tightrope between laundering money for the Mexican drug cartel and working with the FBI. With tensions at an all time high, their efforts to stay afloat teeter on disaster at every moment. Complicating matters further is Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner), a disgruntled former associate. Following the murder of her beloved cousin, Wyatt (Charlie Tahan), at the hands of cartel kingpin Javi (Alfonso Herrera), Ruth is on a quest for revenge. Her volatility tests the Byrd’s allegiances and draws new battle lines in the Ozarks.
While Jason Bateman is the face of Ozark, both as the star, producer and a key director, Marty never really takes center stage in these final episodes. Instead, the same dynamic gets repeated over and over. Marty spins a way to handle the increasingly complicated chess game the Byrd family is embroiled in with the cartel. Almost in parallel, Laura Linney’s Wendy takes matters into her own hands, going above Marty with moves that are more complex and diabolical in either measure. Linney has never met a monologue she couldn’t turn into an Emmy clip, and there are plenty of clip-ready moments. It’s riveting to watch her work, as it always has been since she wowed us in 1999 with You Can Count on Me. With Marty relegated to being merely ornamental, Wendy’s main source of opposition is her religious boozehound Father, played by Richard Thomas of The Waltons fame. While ripe with fireworks, Linney’s best work still comes from season three, which examined her complicated relationship with her troubled brother, Ben (Tom Pelphrey).
This final season could easily bring Julia Garner her third Emmy for playing Ruth Langmore.If anything, Ozark’s legacy may lie in being the official launching pad for Julia Garner, who won 2 Emmys for her role as Ruth Langmore. She starts as a troublemaking criminal savant and lynchpin to Marty’s money laundering activities, due to mutually assured destruction. However, this past season has given Garner some of the best material for her to work with as she begins to mend her reputation while also struggling with grief.. The opening moments see Ruth in a rage. Yet, her journey to actually go clean and pave a new way for herself. It’s a fitting arc for the show’s most dynamic and lovable character.
Once a more complex examination of mild mannered people pushed to extreme circumstances, Ozark finds itself in a strangely clear cut battle of good versus evil. Despite past transgressions (which includes moving a LOT of heroin), Ruth wants to take over the Mississippi Belle riverboat casino to gain a new start. To do so, she trades favors with every character that Marty and Wendy screwed over the past three seasons, most notably Rachel (Jordana Spiro), the former Blue Cat Lodge owner. In these final seven episodes, Ruth is reframed as the show’s moral compass, someone with a moral code more in check than the slippery, yet “civilized” Byrd family. Meanwhile, Marty and Wendy fight each other for control of their house at the same time they are fighting to stay one step ahead of the FBI and the cartel. Wendy is clearly depicted as the more ruthless of the pair, as she gets greedy trying to wield political power. This reversal could be seen a mile away, and could be considered lazy. By the end, we’re no longer rooting for the Byrd family, we’re rooting for Ruth.
Is Ozark perfect? No. Most of the supporting characters are drawn with a very broad brush, most problematically when it comes to the Mexican cartel that has acted as the “big bad” of the show. As the seasons have gone on, Ozark has continued to add more FBI agents, political mucky mucks and new, foreboding creeps, all of whom feel interchangeable. While the stakes are incredibly high by the end, it’s hard to properly fear a force that one doesn’t know. Look at Breaking Bad, which reached a new stratosphere of classic once it introduced Giancarlo Esposito’s terrifying Gus Fring. Ozark has a Walt (Marty), Skyler (Wendy) and Jesse (Ruth), but it doesn’t have a Gus. That’s why, as entertaining as it is, Ozark will always be good, not great.
Grade for Final Seven Episodes: B
Grade for Ozark as a Show: B+
How many of you have watched Ozark. What did you think of the final season?