Women Are the Ones Who Knock on ‘Ozark’

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As Netflix continued expanding its library of original programming, the 2017 debut of Ozark followed in the footsteps of House of Cards and checked off an essential box for the streamer: the antihero drama. The series premiere finds mild-mannered accountant Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) staring down the barrel of a gun after his business partner is caught skimming money off a Mexican drug cartel, and then saving his own life by proposing a money laundering operation in the Lake of the Ozarks. And so Marty uproots his family from Chicago to Missouri, where he soons discovers that an act borne out of self-preservation might actually be a secret calling: Turns out, he enjoys breaking bad—pun very much intended.

In the Mount Rushmore of television’s male antiheroes—Tony Soprano, Walter White, Omar Little, Don Draper—Marty’s amoral trajectory most closely resembles that of Heisenberg. But while Ozark shares plenty of surface-level similarities with Breaking Bad, the show adds its own unique touches. For starters, Marty’s wife Wendy (Laura Linney) becomes complicit to the money laundering scheme from the jump, and it takes all but three episodes before their kids, Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), are let in on the secret. It’s not exactly smooth sailing, but the Byrdes adjust to their new normal. The family that launders money together, stays together.

But one other tweak to the formula is what truly separates Ozark from Breaking Bad, and the antihero subgenre as a whole. Even though Marty proves to be resourceful, he’s mostly content to just run the numbers. The Byrde patriarch isn’t anyone’s idea of a good person, but he also isn’t getting his own hands dirty. Instead, the compellingly corrupted soul of Ozark is Wendy, whose Lady Macbeth act becomes more gripping—and reprehensible—with each season.

Far from being horrified by Marty’s actions in working for a cartel, Wendy becomes the public face of their operation and all that it entails. With a background in Chicago politics, she transforms the legitimate side of the business, including a riverboat casino, into a reputable local institution before forming a political foundation in the family’s name. Wendy’s big-picture view is using the capital from money laundering to influence national politics, but the character’s justification that doing the wrong thing now will lead to the right outcome down the road conceals an insatiable craving for power at any cost. Wendy has signed off on multiple assassinations in the series—including against her own brother, Ben (Tom Pelphrey), marking a harrowing point of no return. Ozark might’ve begun with Marty as its Walter White analogue, but heading into its endgame, Wendy is the one who knocks.

Subversion has long been a characteristic of the antihero drama, and by giving female characters like Wendy a spotlight historically reserved for men, Ozark is subverting the genre itself. That storytelling choice extends to the series’ answer to Jesse Pinkman. Upon arriving in the Ozarks, the Byrdes cross paths with Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner), a local whose family is routinely mixed up in petty crimes. But Marty sees potential in Ruth, taking her under his wing and showing her, if not a better way of living, then a more forward-thinking life of crime. The series’ X factor and undisputed MVP, Ruth’s unassuming appearance—she’s short, baby-faced, and sports curly blonde hair—belies an explosive temper and arguably the foulest mouth on television. But what has made the character truly resonate is the fact that beneath her profane bark, Ruth is extremely intelligent—her anger stems in part from knowing that she’s been dealt a poor hand in life—and in her own way, full of empathy. Ruth is fiercely protective of her comparatively innocent cousins and sees the good in people even if they can’t see it themselves—including Ben, whom she falls in love with in Season 3 before Wendy has him killed. Of Ozark’s three Primetime Emmy wins, two belong to Garner for her breakout performance, and it wouldn’t be surprising if she added a third for herself later in the year.

While Marty remains a central figure in Ozark’s final season, Wendy and Ruth continue to occupy the show’s most fascinating real estate. Following the revelation of Ben’s death—and Ruth, iconically, referring to Wendy as a “fucking bitch wolf”—Marty’s former protégé has decided to forge her own path by teaming up with local heroin producer Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery). (Darlene is yet another example of Ozark’s uniting philosophy—a secondary villain also happens to be a woman, and who seizes control of a drug empire by poisoning her husband for being too soft.) But switching jobs isn’t liable to end well when your old employer is a cartel, and one of the people standing in your way was willing to kill her own brother.

The ongoing tension between Wendy and Ruth—and the other characters needing to choose their allegiances—has propelled Ozark to thrilling new heights as it enters the first half of its fourth and final season. Without future seasons to worry about, it feels like anybody could end up in a body bag—or, more likely given that the Byrdes own a funeral home, tossed in a crematorium to avoid an evidence trail. (This is not a joke: For the second year in a row, the only spoiler note Netflix gave out for press was to not reveal “all character deaths.”)

Marty’s passive attitude—or at best, apathy—to the ugliest aspects of his family’s line of work underlines the series’ uniqueness. Historically, audiences have had a prickly (and at times toxic) relationship with certain female characters in antihero dramas, primarily for the “crime” of reacting like any rational person would after discovering that their husband was, say, cooking meth. But Ozark flips the script by not just making sure that female characters aren’t overlooked, but by largely having them be responsible for the shocking narrative developments that make these kinds of dramas so irresistible to watch.

Of course, the life-or-death stakes in Ozark’s final season will seem quite familiar for television viewers with even a passing knowledge of The Sopranos or The Wire. But by embracing complex, morally conflicted female characters in various positions of power, Ozark has forced the antihero drama to evolve. There’s no reason why breaking bad should be a boy’s club—not when standout characters like Wendy Byrde and Ruth Langmore are just as willing to scheme, shout, and kill their way to the top.

Five questions that need answers in the final ‘Ozark’ season

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There’s something that’s just right about the final season of Ozark being presented by Netflix in two parts, given that Breaking Bad did the same thing. Breaking Bad has always been Ozark’s most obvious influence, along with Justified and perhaps the second season of Fargo. The seven episodes that make up the first half of the fourth and last season (yes, that is convoluted math) will arrive on the morning of January 21, so let’s take a look at some of the things that still need resolution. (Other than: Why so many blue filters, and why is it so dark all the time?)

Please note: Even posing these questions presupposes that you have seen the first three seasons, so if you are still making your way through the series, please stop reading!

What about the criminal enterprise?

At the end of Season 3, drug kingpin Omar Navarro’s (Felix Solis) hitman … well, there’s no nice way to say this, but he splattered bits of cartel attorney Helen (Janet McTeer) all over Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) Byrde. Omar went on embrace them, brain matter in their hair and everything, and say, “Today is our beginning.” Marty’s relationship with Navarro has included everything from tense cooperation to being thrown in a dungeon. But with Helen out of the picture, what does Omar intend for the Byrdes?

Navarro has always seemed to have a certain fondness for Wendy; he has admitted to admiring her determination to get everything she wants. Where does he see Marty and Wendy in the organization, and does he really envision both of them remaining there at all? (The fact that nobody has killed Marty yet is, by the way, probably the show’s most implausible aspect.)

/ Netflix / Netflix Julia Garner and Laura Linney, as Ruth and Wendy, are the MVPs of Ozark, let’s face it.

What is Ruth going to do with Darlene?

Finding out that Wendy was responsible for Ben’s death alienated Ruth (Julia Garner) from the Byrdes, particularly when combined with the fact that Wendy also arranged for the death of Ruth’s father, which Ruth continues to have deeply conflicted feelings about. For her part, Wendy blames Ruth for failing to understand the dangers of breaking Ben out of the hospital.

At the same time that this estrangement was intensifying, Darlene took it upon herself to pick up a gun and colorfully avenge Ruth’s assault at the hands of Frank Jr., giving Ruth something she’s rarely had in her life: someone who acts to, in a sense, protect her. So it’s perhaps not surprising that Ruth has seemingly been persuaded to join up with Darlene and Wyatt (Charlie Tahan) in their revived heroin operation.

Steve Dietl / Netflix / Netflix Skylar Gaertner as Jonah, who has had to grow up just a bit too fast.

What does the future hold for Jonah and Charlotte?

One of the creative decisions that separate Ozark from some other family crime dramas like The Americans is that the parents decided to tell the kids what was going on, pretty much right away. So Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) and Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) have long known that their parents were deeply involved in crimes up to and including killing people. Charlotte seems to have almost adjusted to it, slipping into a certain acceptance of the lives she and her parents live.

Jonah, on the other hand, is understandably devastated by Helen’s revelation (at gunpoint) that it was Wendy who allowed the cartel to kill Ben (her own brother). Jonah has also always had an independent streak and the ability to work with or without help. Other shows have been willing to acknowledge that family and crime may not be able to coexist forever as kids grow up and assert their own desires. Charlotte does not seem to be pulling away from her parents at this point — but what about her brother?

/ Netflix / Netflix Charlie Tahan as Wyatt, who has a lot to think about.

What about everybody else?

There is a whole secondary and tertiary set of characters, including Wyatt and Three, Maya, Sheriff Nix, the Franks Sr. and Jr., and Helen’s daughter Erin. And they are still out there just … involved. Not on current clear paths, but involved. Something is going to become of all of them. Heck, even Rachel is presumably still out there somewhere following her trip to rehab on Marty’s dime, and while there’s no reason to believe we’ll see her again, fans certainly have agitated for it.

It remains to be seen how all of these people will fit into the final act, and — let’s not sugarcoat it — how many of them will survive a show that knocks people off as regularly as this one does. I mean, let’s see: Ash, Jacob, Del, Petty, Helen, Cade, Bobby, Mason, Grace, Ben, Sue, Russ, Boyd, Silverberg, and the entire Season 1 Episode 1 massacre … that’s something like one killing every other episode. It’s hard to believe there are not more to come.

/ Netflix / Netflix Jason Bateman and Laura Linney as Marty and Wendy Byrde.

What is the Byrde marriage, in the end?

The very first conflict introduced in Ozark’s complicated history — ever — was Marty’s discovery that Wendy was cheating on him. Since then, the marriage has seemed at times to be merely an arrangement (they’ve as much as said so) and has seemed at other times to contain genuine affection. But how much either of these people would risk for each other, if the choice to do so were presented straightforwardly, is not clear. Would Marty let Wendy die? Would Wendy let Marty die? She did, after all, essentially have her own brother killed, and she loved him.

It often feels like Ozark must all be building to some massive test of their true feelings for each other — whether they will join together or turn on each other if the purely pragmatic “trust” between them shatters. Perhaps with Ruth as the fulcrum: Would Marty let Wendy have Ruth killed, given that he feels largely responsible for dragging Ruth into all this? Would Wendy let Marty have Ruth killed, given the guilt she already feels and her apparent belief that Marty is the cause of everybody’s problems in the first place?

These seven episodes will presumably start to answer all these questions. Seven more — which don’t have a release date yet — will reveal what the writers of the show have in mind, and how cunning they are relative to the world of criminals they’ve created.

Skylar Gaertner age: How old is the Jonah Byrde actor from Ozark?

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Skylar Gaertner is a fan-favourite on Netflix ’s Ozark as he plays the troubled Jonah Byrde. In the crime drama, Jonah has been forced to grow up fast as he accepts his parents’ way of life. Express.co.uk has all you need to know about how old the actor is.

Judi Dench refuses to answer probe over her appearance

How old is Skylar Gaertner?

The Byrde children found themselves in even more danger in the new episodes as Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) fear for their lives.

Worried Navarro’s (Felix Solis) men will hunt them down and kill their family, they ask Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah to run away and hide.

Jonah had not fully mended the relationship with his parents after his mother killed his uncle Ben (Tom Pelphrey).

The actor has grown up a lot since the filming of the third season, and he is now 18 years old.

The young star was born in May 2004.

READ MORE: Why is Ozark ending after season 4?

Where Did We Leave Off on ‘Ozark’?

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Ozark season 4 part 1 ending explained: your biggest questions answered

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Ozark season 4 part 1 doesn’t pull its punches. The new season of the Netflix show brings in a dangerous new player, Javier Elizonndro (Alfonso Herrera), the nephew of cartel boss Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), and he makes life even harder for the Byrdes.

Navarro also has his own scheme, aiming to wrangle a deal with the FBI in exchange for freedom. While the Byrdes raced to make it happen, they have the furious Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner) to deal with, along with Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery) restarting her heroin business. As usual, things are not smooth sailing.

We’ve broken down the Ozark season 4 part 1 ending, answering all your burning questions on just what went down. Here’s where the latest seven episodes left the Byrdes and their allies – and enemies. Warning: major spoilers ahead!

Ozark season 4 part 1 ending explained spoilers

(Image credit: Netflix)

The Ozark season 4 part 1 ending is a huge cliffhanger. Ruth’s about to go up against the cartel and former boss Navarro is behind bars. But how did we get there?

Throughout the season, Omar Navarro (Felix Solis) aims to strike a deal with the FBI, with the knowledge that his nephew Javi Elizonndro (Alfonso Herrera) is looking for a weakness so he can attempt an assassination and seize power. Navarro also wants free travel between the US and Mexico as a condition of the arrangement. Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) pull off the impossible and get the two parties together for a meeting, with help from Agent Maya Miller (Jessica Frances Dukes), but the FBI isn’t satisfied by the proposal.

Instead, the Bureau wants Navarro to remain in charge of the cartel for the next five years, reporting back to the organization all the while and coordinating on money seizures. Navarro is furious at the change of terms, but, recognizing he doesn’t have a choice, agrees. This leaves Marty and Wendy free from the cartel, to their immense relief. They’d been planning on relocating the family back to Chicago once their work was done.

But, just as Navarro is about to board his private plane and go back to Mexico, sirens blare and the authorities descend. Agent Miller arrests him, and he goes to jail. She was unhappy with the deal and believes that it’s her job to apprehend criminals like Navarro. The FBI’s hands are effectively tied by the turn of events because the arrest is splashed all over the news. So, Navarro goes to jail.

Wendy pulls some strings to get a meeting with Navarro, and asks him to ensure Javi meets the FBI. She tells him Javi will be arrested, and Navarro can be extradited back to Mexico and freed. He agrees.

Javi, meanwhile, wants the Byrdes dead. In fact, he’s wanted that since the beginning, and believes Navarro made the wrong choice killing Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer) at the end of season 3 – instead, it should’ve been Marty and Wendy gunned down. Navarro’s arrest by the FBI agent Marty was working with is the excuse Javi needs to go after him. Before he can kill Marty, though, Navarro’s call comes through.

But the Bureau doesn’t arrest Javi, and instead strikes a deal with him, after Wendy promises more cash if they work with Javi, and later blackmails those in charge of the deals by threatening to make their recent behavior public. The Byrdes can once again exhale – or so they think. They tell Navarro that they kept his betrayal of the cartel secret to protect him from Javi, and remind him his nephew is unstable, and may attack his children. Essentially, they’re blackmailing him, since they didn’t make good on their side of the bargain and have Javi arrested.

(Image credit: Netflix)

Meanwhile, Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner) has been working with Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery) and her cousin Wyatt (Charlie Tahan) after Wendy gave the go ahead for her own brother Ben’s (Tom Pelphrey) death. The cartel, particularly Javi, were not happy about Darlene’s decision to press ahead with restarting her heroin business, but Marty and Wendy try to deal with the situation themselves. Jonah, shaken by Wendy allowing his Uncle Ben to die, has turned against the family, and is laundering money for Ruth.

Darlene and Ruth have a strained relationship all season, but things come to a head when Ruth agrees to supply heroin to Marty so they can make a drop with pharmaceutical boss Clare Shaw (Katrina Lenk) on time. Unfortunately, Darlene has already sold the drugs through Frank Cosgrove Jr., who sells everything on again. Ruth manages to wrangle the drugs back, though, and the deal goes ahead as planned.

After suffering a heart attack outside the Byrde home, Darlene is hospitalized. When she’s released, she orders Ruth to leave her home. Ruth seems to convince Wyatt to run away with her after he discovers the body of Frank Cosgrove Sr., who Darlene shot dead after he arrived furious about her dealings with his son. But when Wyatt learns Darlene is at risk of losing her foster son Zeke (thanks to Wendy’s efforts to remove the baby from Darlene’s custody), he decides to stay – and marry Darlene. Ruth is devastated.

She heads up to Darlene’s house after the wedding to give the happy couple their gift, but before she arrives, Javi surprises the newlyweds.

He informs Darlene she should have stopped her heroin business, and kills her with a gunshot. Before Wyatt has a chance to do anything, Javi kills him, too. Ruth arrives and finds their bodies, and immediately blames Frank Cosgrove Jr. (Joseph Sikora) – she’d already told him Darlene killed his father, but managed to convince him not to retaliate after learning Wyatt planned to marry her.

Frank convinces Ruth of his innocence, so she races to the Byrde house, furiously grieving all the while. She storms in with a shotgun and demands to know who killed her cousin. Jonah tells her Javi’s name, and when Marty tries to warn her off, Ruth screams that he’ll have to kill her to stop her.

Why is Navarro arrested by Maya?

(Image credit: Netflix)

After Navarro strikes a deal with the FBI, it seems the Byrdes are home free. One major development complicates their plans, though: Agent Maya Miller arrests Navarro before he can depart for Mexico.

At the earlier meeting with the cartel leader, Maya challenged her boss, questioning why they would strike a deal with someone they should be arresting. She’s told that, if the Navarro cartel goes down, another will just take its place – the War on Drugs won’t end with his arrest, but working with him could lead to overall progress. Maya isn’t satisfied with this, so arrests Navarro at the airstrip.

Who is Javi and what does he want?

(Image credit: Netflix)

Javi is the very ambitious nephew of Navarro, who the cartel boss believes is testing him for weakness so he can launch an attempt to take over. Navarro heads any rebellion off at the pass by handing the reigns over to Javi ahead of the planned FBI deal, though, but Maya throws everything into disarray with the arrest.

He’s also deeply distrustful of the Byrdes, and would have preferred them dead over Helen Pierce. With Javi now in control of the cartel, although also in cahoots with the FBI, it remains to be seen if Marty and Wendy can escape a grisly fate at his hands.

What is Javi’s deal with the FBI?

(Image credit: Netflix)

Javi, like Navarro, strikes a deal with the FBI that would leave him in charge of the cartel, but co-operating with the Bureau, in exchange for eventual freedom from prosecution. Unlike Navarro, though, Javi will remain as head for 10 years. “Fiscal stipulations” are also in place, and nobody can ever learn of the deal.

Before the deal, Wendy tells Navarro that Javi will be arrested, and then Navarro will be extradited back to Mexico. Of course, that’s not what happens, and Wendy and Marty subtly blackmail Navarro by telling him they didn’t reveal his betrayal of the cartel to Javi – but if they ever did, Navarro’s children could be in danger, considering Javi’s temperament. Despite everything, Navarro takes the moral high ground by telling them they needn’t have hid their own children, because he doesn’t kill, or threaten to kill, kids.

Why does Javi kill Darlene and Wyatt?

(Image credit: Netflix)

The new cartel boss makes it clear throughout season 4 that action needs to be taken against Darlene. The restarted heroin business doesn’t exactly get off to a flying start, with suppliers hard to come by, but Javi clearly still feels strongly enough about the move to personally put an end to the whole thing.

After making his deal with the FBI, Javi goes straight to the Snell house to confront Darlene and Wyatt. The duo are at this point newlyweds, but the marital bliss doesn’t last for very long – Javi shoots them both dead.

What happens to Ruth?

(Image credit: Netflix)

Luckily, Ruth was not present at the wedding or its aftermath, so didn’t meet the wrong end of Javi’s gun. That doesn’t mean she’s out of danger, though. Throughout the entirety of Ozark, Ruth has looked out for her cousin Wyatt and wanted the best for him. The shock of finding him dead, after failing to talk him into running away, obviously cuts Ruth deep.

After Jonah gave her Javi’s name, the set-up for Ozark season 4 part 2 becomes clear: Ruth has the new cartel boss in her sights, and whether she can survive the showdown or not remains to be seen.

Why does Wendy want Jonah arrested and will he go to jail?

(Image credit: Netflix)

Jonah, furious after Ben’s death, turns against the Byrdes in season 4 part 1, and starts laundering money for Ruth, Darlene, and Wyatt. Wendy tries to put an end to the whole operation by cutting the power to the basement and padlocking the fuse box, but Jonah simply moves out to Ruth’s motel.

Wendy, not one to be outdone, attempts to deliberately get Jonah caught. Her reasoning is that, with her connections, he won’t serve time in jail – and, as a minor, it shouldn’t hold him back too much in later life. Naturally, Jonah doesn’t see it that way when he discovers his mother’s actions, and Marty isn’t happy, either.

For her scheme, Wendy flags one of Jonah’s accounts as suspicious. Jonah, in a panic, calls his father for help, and Marty resolves the situation in just a few clicks. It’s looking like the youngest Byrde will avoid prison, then.

Jonah discovers what happened when Sam Dermody (Kevin L. Johnson) slips up and reveals Wendy came by Jonah’s room earlier that day, apparently to collect some homework he’d forgotten. Instead, she found the information she needed to report Jonah.

What happens to the Byrdes and are they going to Chicago?

(Image credit: Netflix)

The Byrdes make it through the season unscathed, despite Marty’s close call with a gun-wielding Javi after Navarro’s arrest.

Their plan still appears to be returning to Chicago now they’re free of the cartel, but Jonah still has no intention of accompanying the rest of the family. It also seems that they’re bound for a disastrous-looking car crash before they can make it to the city, too.

What happens in the car crash?

(Image credit: Netflix)

Ozark season 4 part 1 begins with a catastrophic-looking car crash involving the entire Byrde family. They’re nearly struck head on by a giant truck on the wrong side of the road, but swerve out the way. This flips their car, though, and they roll a fair few times before eventually coming to a stop.

Does the crash have any fatalities – or survivors? That remains to be seen, because none of the seven episodes released so far included the crash in real time. The opening scene is a flash forward, with Marty and Wendy discussing a meeting with the FBI that’s set for the next day, as well as their casino. It seems the family hasn’t yet made the move for Chicago, then, but Wendy seems to be open to letting Jonah stay behind.

When is season 4 part 2 coming and what will happen?

(Image credit: Netflix)

There’s no ETA for part 2 just yet and it could be a while yet till the next seven episodes arrive. It’s hard to predict if there’ll be a longer or shorter wait, considering it’s not a brand new season but instead the second half of season 4, but previous seasons of Ozark have all been spaced about a year apart, give or take. According to THR, though, part 2 is expected this year.

As for what might happen next, that’s also hard to guess. It’s clear that Ruth is on a collision course with the cartel, but how that might shape the next episodes remains to be seen, and if Frank Cosgrove Jr. will be willing to come to her aid or not is another question. Then there’s the issue of the Byrdes’ car crash, which is a total mystery for now.

Navarro looks likely to remain in prison for the time being, though, and with Javi such a loose cannon, things could get chaotic in the former boss’ absence.

Plus, private investigator Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg) called Maya in the final episode. While he’s investigating Helen’s death, it’s possible he’ll stumble across the bigger picture.

Then there’s the matter of Wendy’s political ambitions. While the foundation appears to be in a strong position, the grandson of a former politician she’s relying on has developed technology that can suppress votes, and her lawyer Jim Rattelsdorf (Damian Young) doesn’t seem to be keen on dealing with the cartel.

Ozark season 4 part 1 is streaming on Netflix now. If you’re all caught up, check out our roundup of the best Netflix shows to fill out your watchlist.