Starring: Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Julia Garner, Sofia Hublitz, Lisa Emery, Charlie Tahan, Skylar Gaertner, Felix Solis, Alfonso Herrera, Jessica Frances Dukes
Season four of Ozark continues the saga of Marty and Wendy Byrde (Bateman and Linney), who launder money from the Ozarks for the Navarro drug cartel. As the superior season three concluded, Navarro had taken the Byrdes into the cartel's inner circle after murdering cartel attorney Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer) in front of them. Omar (Solis) not only wants the Byrdes to continue laundering for them, he wants them to use their influence with FBI agent Maya Miller (Dukes) to work out a deal which would grant him immunity as he attempts to retire from the drug distributing world. His successor, nephew Javi (Herrera) is even less patient than his uncle if that's possible. If the Byrdes are able to broker the deal for Omar, then he will release them from his employ. Like anything in Ozark, things are never that easy.
This is the first season of Ozark in which we see the cracks in the storytelling and consistency. The first four episodes of the final season's first seven episodes (more episodes to premiere later this year) continued the atmosphere of tension around every corner. You think you have a demanding boss? Imagine having to pick up the phone when a cartel leader calls. You don't swipe left on him or let it go to voicemail. Bateman's Marty remains the ever-calm and cool head as his world threatens to crumble around him nearly every waking moment of the day. Linney's Wendy steps up big time and becomes the Lady Macbeth of the Byrde family with her own bad-ass threats and assertiveness which enraptures Omar. She tells some FBI agents late in the season that she doesn't bluff, and you had best believe her.
The members of the cartel, including Javi, blow people's heads off and don't bother to ask questions at all. This brings me to a plot point which is beginning to become scarcely believable. Major characters meet their end this season by way of the gun, but for some reason, these same killers hold Wendy and Marty at gunpoint allowing them to talk their way out of a jam. The Byrdes should be dead ten times over by now, but they are allowed to stay alive mainly because they are the main characters.
Ruth Langmore (Garner) left the Byrdes last season and has begun working for the Byrdes' rival Darlene Snell (Emery-ruthless as always). Can Ruth complete a full sentence without dropping an f-bomb or some variant of same? You know a character swears too often when it becomes noticeable and you are relieved when he or she utters a sentence without a swear word. It's as if Ruth dropped in from a Scorsese picture.
Ozark is full of betrayals and subplots in which even the most moral characters find themselves in quandaries they never anticipated (see Agent Miller). The Byrdes escape from one close shave to find themselves in another quicker than you can say Ozark. The series is still suspenseful and engrossing despite the tropes it has provided for itself, but there has to come a time in which its lead characters run out of good fortune and alternatives to being shot. In the next episodes perhaps?
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