Ozark: Season 4 (Part One)

Creators: Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams
Starring: Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Sofia Hublitz, Julia Garner, Lisa Emery, Charlie Tahan, Felix Solis, Damian Young, Alfonso Herrera, Adam Rothenberg, John Bedford Lloyd, Joseph Sikora, Katrina Lenk, Bruce Davison, Richard Thomas
Original Airdate: 2022

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 

After delivering its biggest shocker and best season last year, anticipation has built as to whether Ozark's final one could not only follow it, but capitalize on that momentum to finish strong. Broken into two parts, the first seven episodes of season 4 is all about complications, setting the table for sure the Byrde family, who are sinking even deeper into the control of the Navarro drug cartel. 

With Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) destroying everyone and everything around them just to stay afloat, whatever moral ambiguity existed when the series began has long passed, as are their promises to "get out" and start fresh. Too much blood has been shed and innocent lives lost to argue otherwise, even as they continue to. And while they might resent being used as puppets by the cartel and are justifiably terrified, the lore of money and public respectability proves too alluring for the insecure Marty and completely corrupted Wendy, whose insatiable appetite for power has believably transformed her into the show's Lady Macbeth. 

With the Missouri Belle casino now thriving and the possibility of them starting their own foundation, Wendy's flexing her political muscles, taking full advantage of opportunities not possible in Chicago before Marty made his pact with the devil. After watching Omar Navarro (Felix Solis) have cartel attorney Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer) shot and killed right in front of them, the fallout's immense, with him seemingly now entrusting the Byrdes as his right-hand couple. 

It's iffy how much longer Marty can keep playing both sides of the fence while Wendy still reconciles ordering the murder of her bipolar brother Ben (Tom Pelphrey), now considered a "missing person." What does Navarro want? Surprisingly, to get out, using Marty's FBI connection and Wendy's respectable reputation to cut a deal and make a clean break. But Navarro's volatile, hot-headed nephew Javi Elizondro (Alfonso Herrera) has other plans, angling to take over the cartel from his uncle and is more than willing to kill them both if need be.  

The big hook heading into the end game is a flashforward car crash that raises even more questions as to whether to Byrdes will ever truly be able to escape, with or without FBI assistance. Marty and Wendy have made their bed and all the scrambling and double talking he does or power plays she makes may not be enough. Their elevation into the cartel's inner circle following  is both good and bad in the sense that if Navarro does intend to go straight and Marty can get a deal done with FBI agent Maya Miller (Jessica Frances Dukes), freedom is in sight. But if any of it goes sideways, literal hell will rain down.

The biggest obstacle is Javi, whose trigger short temper and insistence in having his hands in everything threatens the Byrdes' very existence. Whether it's his sloppy methods of covering up Helen's "disappearance," nearly sabotaging Wendy's deal with a Chicago-based pharmaceutical company CEO (Katrina Lenk) or poisoning Marty's arrangement with Agent Miller, he's this series' answer to Better Call Saul's Lalo Salamanca, only lacking the intelligence. Smoothly played by Herrera, Javi does have some of that character's charisma, making it that much more terrifying when he doesn't get his way. Guided entirely by money and greed, with no forethought or planning whatsoever, his unpredictability establishes him as the season's most dangerous character. 

Completely defiant of this threat is the monstrous Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery) who with boyfriend Wyatt (Charlie Tahan) continues to grow her heroin business, which she cut the K.C. mob in on last season as make good for blowing off Frank Jr.'s (Joseph Sikora) genitals with a shotgun. Darlene powers on despite Marty's dire warnings of Navarro cartel retaliation, having recruited a still enraged Ruth (Julia Garner) to join her cousin Wyatt in moving the product. 

Jumping at whatever opportunity still exists to screw over the Byrdes for their role in boyfriend Ben's death, Ruth's tenuous arrangement with Darlene is destined for failure, if not far worse. Just the thought of these two toxic personalities attempting to co-exist without killing each other provides the exact brand of tension the series thrives on. Emery again impresses as the slimy, manipulative Darlene, but she's met her match in the cunning Ruth, who unsurprisingly wants to run this entire thing, even purchasing a sleazy motel as a front to do it.

If Ruth's still devastated by what happened to boyfriend Ben, Marty and Wendy's previously meek and mild mannered teen son Jonah's (Skyler Gaetner) pain far transcends it, made far worse by his mother's expectations that he simply forget that she killed his uncle and fall back in line. His decision to go against his parents and start laundering money for Ruth and Darlene feels less like a betrayal than justice to him, despite the increased danger he's put his family in. Out for vengeance in a way older sister Charlotte (Sophia Hublitz) never was when she had her own teen rebellion phase earlier in the show's run, he's all done covering for them.

We saw glimpses of this new Jonah last season when he threatened Helen, but Ben's death pushed him off the deep end, hardly giving a care whether anyone discovers his parents' misdeeds. This includes private investigator Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg), a disgraced former cop who's arrived in the Ozarks to look into Helen's disappearance and knows something's up. Wendy's excuses and desire to maintain the upper hand only pushes Jonah further away, with Marty flailing in his attempts to play referee. 

As an occasional voice of reason, Jonah now sees his parents as viewers do, knowing that no matter how much Marty and Wendy talk about wanting out, it's hollow. Ironically enough, a now more complicit, Wendy-like Charlotte has drawn the line, insisting he ride this out without putting them in worse jeopardy. But to Jonah, his sister's just the latest victim of Byrde Stockholm Syndrome, despite the fact that his illegal money laundering  makes him more like Marty than he'd ever care to admit. Just because it's for the other side doesn't make it right.

If it wasn't clear before, there are few situations Marty isn't capable of dancing around or talking his way out of, kicking these skills into overdrive when faced with the challenge of cutting a deal for Navarro with Javi breathing down his neck. With a relaxed, deadpan delivery and demeanor, Bateman remains the beating heart of the show and straight man to all the chaos erupting around him, maneuvering his way out of the dark corners the writers frequently paint the character into.

Linney's again terrifying as Wendy, who becomes more drunk on power with each new move she makes, strategically planning her next play while stepping over whomever or whatever it takes to get there. Now utilizing trusted ally Jim Rattelsdorf (Damian Young) as her personal attorney to facilitate this political ascent, the Byrdes still can't get out unless Navarro does, as complicated as that's become due to Javi's interference. 

You know it's bleak when even the supposed "good guys" who could actually help the Byrdes navigate their way out of this mess are severely compromised. Agent Miller is taken advantage of by Marty when Navarro won't play ball and the FBI have their own agenda, which doesn't include giving a free ride to a cartel kingpin. All this while Javi plots his takeover, increasingly viewing Marty and Wendy as liabilities rather than assets.    

One of the show's most explosive moments comes in the Robin Wright-directed mid-season finale (Sanctified"), when Emmy-award winning Julia Garner proves not only how masterfully she inhabits Ruth, but what a great screamer she is, practically summoning up everything available in her soul to convey an unimaginable inner pain in a wildly emotional final scene. It's an inevitable accumulation of poor decisions made by these characters and the likely headline when anyone talks about the first half of this season. 

Simultaneously needing her former employer Marty's resources while still harboring a bitter grudge for everything the Byrdes have done to her family, tragedy strikes and Ruth snaps, setting the stage for what could be Marty and Wendy's last stand. Suddenly, the probability of them crawling out from under the cartel's thumb with their lives couldn't look bleaker. And as these episodes prove, nothing is off the table in terms of who can or can't survive heading into the home stretch.

While the decision to split its final season supposedly resulted from a compromise between Netflix and showrunner Chris Mundy, we'll have to hope this isn't another case of viewers having to wait an inordinate amount of time for what's left. This streaming model of fewer episodes and tighter, shorter seasons have unquestionably led to higher quality storytelling, if you're willing to sacrifice some of the instant gratification. But given all the intriguing events that unfolded to set it up, Ozark's final half can't possibly arrive soon enough.