OZARK: SEASON 2
★★★★
OUT NOW / NETFLIX EPS VIEWED 5 OF 10
CREATED BY Bill Dubuque, Mark Williams CAST Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Peter Mullan, Lisa Emery, Sofia Hublitz, Skylar Gaertner
PLOT Since moving to the remote Ozarks to escape his angry criminal bosses, moneylaunderer Marty (Bateman) has found his life becoming more stressful, not less. His entanglements with local villains are putting him and his family in more danger than ever. SOME SHOWS TAKE a while to blossom. There are few things so annoying as being told you need to stick with a series for X number of seasons “before it gets really good”, but some do need quite a few hours to sow their seeds and then a few more to let them germinate. Ozark’s first season was strong but there was a sprawl to it; a lot of characters to introduce and not always clarity that they mattered in the long run. Season 2 makes it clear that everybody matters, and any of them could destroy a whole criminal network.
The first season saw dour financial planner Marty (Bateman), who had fallen foul of the Mexican drug cartel for which he was laundering cash, move his wife Wendy (Linney) and two children from Chicago to Missouri’s beautiful but deadbeat Ozark mountains. It is a place where crime flourishes in many forms. Marty is now trying to open a casino, which should solve all his problems. In order to do it, however, he needs the cooperation of just about every bad guy in town.
This season shows us everyone playing the same game, but all by different rules. Marty is a numbers man who sees every deal in terms of a specific financial goal. The heroin-growing Snells (Mullan and Emery) are gut-driven and value respect above cash. Marty’s bosses demand they always benefit more than anyone else. They’re the three main players, but various petty criminals keep charging into the game, grabbing opportunistically and moving the pieces. Marty’s trying to drive everyone toward the same goal, but their ideal endgames all differ.
The writers have done a superb job keeping track of everyone involved in this giant plot, bringing back apparently incidental characters from Season 1 to remind us they know enough to upset everything, and leaving lots of new loose threads that might unravel dangerously for Marty later. It’s so carefully balanced, checking in with everyone at regular intervals, that you never feel lost.
What makes this season so fun is seeing how Marty’s attempts to get out of the criminal life have inspired so many others to get into it. Whether it’s Wendy finding a flair for political manipulation (watching Linney coolly destroy lives is an addictive treat) or their son committing his first fraud, Marty’s showing others how to make crime pay.
At this point, Ozark doesn’t have a single truly good guy left. Everyone is at least a little crooked. It’s not about wanting anybody to win, but seeing who will be the one who makes all the others lose.
VERDICT Watching very good actors play very bad people becomes even more satisfying in this second season, as the betrayals and killings stack up and the twists get ever tighter.