Final episodes a crime against show’s fans
Editor’s note: This story contains spoilers from the final episodes of “Ozark.”
As a movie lover, I’m often flabbergasted at what TV shows can get away with. I could exhaust myself trying to get people to invest seven hours watching a towering classic like “War and Peace” (1966) — a thoroughly entertaining masterpiece that could change your life and stay with you forever. But people would think, “Seven hours? What are you, nuts?”
Meanwhile, those same people will think nothing of doubling down on a bad bet by watching the last seven episodes of “Ozark,” even though the show went off the rails many hours ago.
Yes, I watched the second half of the Netflix hit series’ final season, and, no, it wasn’t good. And I say this as someone who used to like the show. Centering on the husband-andwife team of Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney), money launderers for a Latin American drug cartel, the show was funny, outrageous and surprising — until gradually it became maudlin, self-serious, ludicrous and without impact.
The first thing that went wrong was the destruction of Marty as a character. He was the show’s star and started off as the most interesting person on the show, a seemingly bland fellow with an impressive ability to think on his feet and survive. Over four seasons, Wendy evolved into the flashier figure, transforming into
Lady Macbeth. And for a while that was OK, because it became Marty’s job to get them out of the trouble that Wendy got them into.
But in season four, Wendy became the person who got them into trouble and got them out of trouble, which gave Marty absolutely nothing to do but sit around and look worried. Moreover, the show granted Wendy powers of intuition that bordered on the absurd. Suddenly, she was smarter than the cartel boss
Omar Navarro (Felix Solis) and could anticipate his every move.
The struggle to survive is a huge motivator and creates tremendous audience sympathy and interest. But the struggle to succeed in the drug business? Not much there. As the show shifted to Wendy and her efforts to become a wealthy and legitimate power player, it concentrated on things nobody really cared about.
Then it got even worse, because in the last seven episodes Wendy’s most flamboyant actions made no sense at all. For example, her father (Richard Thomas, who’s excellent) wants his grandchildren to leave Marty and Wendy’s house and move in with him, many miles way. Wendy almost cracks at the thought — oh, what will happen if she loses her kids? — but really? Why should she care? Then, in a meaningless digression, she checks herself into a mental hospital.
Speaking of meaningless, remember how season four began with a dramatic car crash? The rest of that halfseason was basically a flashback, implying that the car crash would become pivotal later on. But it doesn’t. It turns out to be nothing. The crash happens, everyone walks away without a scratch and forgets about it. It was just a cheap narrative tactic.
But the absolute worst thing about the final season of “Ozark” was the transformation of Ruth (Julia Garner), Marty’s former assistant, into a hillbilly Jesus. The elevation of Ruth is the unfortunate byproduct of a whole run of mistakes — the downgrading of Marty, the monsterfication of Wendy, and the show’s inability to ever find any compelling function for Marty and Wendy’s teenage children.
Ruth used to be fun — a vulgar comic character, but one who was smart, merciless and had a degree of integrity. But in season four, the show tries to make her the emotional locus, the person we care about, the rough-hewn yet saintly speaker of truth, and it’s painful to watch Garner struggle (and fail) to make it work.
Then the show compounds the absurdity by having Ruth, who has suddenly become a rich woman, decide to buy the floating casino that Marty and Wendy set up to launder cartel money. And her first act is to forbid the laundering of money. Why? Ruth is wealthy and could live anywhere. She knows how dangerous the cartel is. Her behavior makes no sense. It’s just an excuse for Marty to walk around feeling worried for another episode.
The show’s assumption that we really care about Ruth — enough to want to sit through scenes of her talking to her dead cousin — was the most awful thing in a bad season. And it called forth some of the worst writing. Every time she came on to the screen, she announced everything she was thinking. That’s not the way people talk. It’s the way writers type.
It’s not all bad, though. There is one hands-down great scene over the course of seven hours. You’ll know it when you come to it, but it involves Clare (Latrina Lenk), who runs a pharmaceutical company, and Camila (Veronica Falcón), the sister of the cartel boss. Camila issues a threat, and it’s chilling. I rewound that scene and watched it three times.
Look for it. Watch all two minutes of it. Sooner or later, somebody is bound to post it to Youtube.