If the premise of Netflix’s hit crime drama, Ozark, seemed simple – a mild-mannered financial advisor moves to rural Missouri to launder $500m of Mexican drug cartel money – then the execution has been anything but. The tale of the Byrdes, Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney), has taken them from victims to perpetrators, and back again, several times. “A middle-class family clinging on for dear life” may have been the elevator pitch, but that elevator now contains more spilled blood than its counterpart in the Overlook Hotel.
As things pick up in this, the final chapter of the Ozark saga, new supremo Javi (Alfonso Herrera Rodriguez) has just murdered local heroin producer Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery) and her young husband, Wyatt Langmore (Charlie Tahan). It is the latter killing that will prove more consequential, lighting the blue touch paper for a tale of revenge and its repercussions. Wyatt’s cousin (and Marty’s estranged protégé) Ruth (Inventing Anna’s Julia Garner) is off to Chicago, apparently willing to ignite all-out war in pursuit of some small justice for one of the few people in the world whose company she could stomach. “Sorry,” Javi had said, as he turned his gun on Wyatt, “whoever you are.” This simple act of mindless psychopathy – an attempt to tie up loose ends – sends the whole business unravelling. Marty cautions Ruth against an attack on Javi: “Everything that we worked for just falls apart.” “Welcome to my f***ing world,” she deadpans back.
