Note: This article does not contain any major spoilers.
Five years ago this summer, ‘Ozark’ debuted on Netflix to little advance fanfare. But it didn’t take long for many of us to become absolutely hooked on this series about Wendy and Marty Byrde, a Chicago couple with two kids and a mini-van kind of suburban life.
Domestic bliss is shattered right at the beginning of Season 1, however, as a drug cartel, for which Marty’s employer has been laundering money, comes to kill and maim for reasons you can read about here: Synopses of Seasons 1-3.
To save his family’s lives, and his own, the Byrdes relocate to a vacation resort town at Lakes of the Ozark. There they have spent the last several years staying alive by laundering money for the Mexican drug cartel, always just one step from being killed by the kingpin or arrested by the FBI, and somehow managing to find a way to appease both.
It’s been one hell of a ride. The show is so bingeable, I think, because virtually every character is in peril, at one point or another. Many have been killed along the way; others have escaped more than once with their lives…just barely.
At the same time, most of us can identify with universal family dynamics – the spouses bicker, the sullen kids don’t speak at the dinner table, nobody’s happy with their new home in the “Redneck Riviera.” You name it. And Marty is an accountant, for crying out loud. These people are so normal and relatable.
Except for the fact that they have lied, cheated, stolen, killed and done multiple seasons worth of horrible things. And yet we forgive them, probably because they started of innocent and do most (definitely not all) of their misdeeds in order to keep themselves alive.
Now that we know for sure that the season is ending in 14 episodes, the writers have unlimited freedom. There’s no “next season” so there is no safe character. Repeat: no character is safe. And what does that mean? It means that the loyal viewer’s anxiety has never been higher. We’ve been driving toward a brick wall for these past years, and now it’s getting closer and closer, as we go faster and faster.
That’s what I love about this final season, Season 4.
The kids are older now – that makes them a liability. Jonah is a smart kid, sophisticated, which makes some of his moves potentially dangerous. Is anyone more cunning than Wendy (Laura Linney)? Marty (Jason Bateman) is in Dad mode for most of this final season, part one. You know, peacemaker, the guy who smooths things over. I hope he’ll have more perilous things to do in the final season part two.
The Cartel Kingpin, Omar, with whom Marty and Wendy have been working, wants to go straight. But that can’t be as easy as it sounds. Meetings with FBI will have to take place. Agreements will have to be made. And, as we know by now, nobody can be trusted to hold up their end of any given bargain.
The scariest character for this season is Omar’s nephew, Javier. Educated in the US, he is smart, ambitious and utterly ruthless. He is the heir apparent to taking over the cartel, and if he succeeds, that will only be bad news for both the Byrdes, who are now at the top, and Uncle Omar. Mexican actor Alfonso Herrera is awesomely menacing. I’m scared of him.
Another new character is a private investigator, Mel (Adam Rothenberg), a former cop who has been hired to track down Helen by her ex-husband. We hold our breath as he snoops around the entire town. Is he getting closer to the truth for his client?
The other thing Ozark does about as well as any show in history is creating great cliffhangers. I mean, isn’t that why we can’t stop ourselves from watching “just one more…just one more”? The final season has amped up its game in that department, too.
I’m gonna miss this show. I place it with Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Wire as one of my all-time favorites. How about you?
Keep in mind, Netflix is releasing the final season in two parts – the first 7 episodes begin streaming January 21st, which is all I’ve seen to date. The second and final set of 7 episodes will be released later this year, but Netflix has not announced a firm date yet. Stay tuned.
