Review: Ozark Season 3

Ozark Season 3 is Tiger Kings’ older smarter rehabbed cousin

As I was binging through the absolute orgy of redneck morons in Tiger King, I saw a familiar icon pop up in the Newly Released section of Netflix. Ozark first hit the scene in July of 2017, which feels like 100 years ago now. I was reluctant to get into the show. I knew Jason Bateman from comedies, like Arrested Development or Horrible Bosses, but drama is no stranger to Bateman, who started young, playing a member of the Ingalls family on Little House on the Prairie and has had all kinds of dramatic roles in his now 40-year career. It must feel like 100 years ago to the Byrde family as well, who have found themselves neck-deep in laundering money for the vicious Navarro drug cartel. It all started when Marty, a brilliant but unfulfilled accountant, discovers his partner is skimming money from the cartel, a fatal mistake. Marty, in an attempt to save his own life, offers to cookbooks for the cartel. The only thing he has to use in this effort is a theory that the Ozarks are a good place to launder enough money to pay the cartel back.

This one desperate decision is the act that pulls the string that unravels the Byrde’s beautiful, normal and boring sweater over the next three seasons. The Byrdes move to the Ozarks from Chicago, much to the chagrin of the two kids, Charlotte and Jonah, and Marty’s wife Wendy, played by Laura Linney. Where many crime shows have gone in the past, Ozark takes another path. Marty tells the whole family upfront, exactly what is going on, why, and what he plans to do to get them out of it. They come up with plans, logical yet insane plans to set up multiple channels of money laundering and to get everything back to a normal they all know they will never see again. The family dynamic is stretched and warped into an uneasy shroud to hide what they are doing from suspicious locals, who immediately see them as untrustworthy outsiders. It turns out those locals are up to a whole lot of wild backcountry crimes of their own.

Season 3 continues watching the Byrdes try desperately to get out clean, while almost every scheme seems to find a way to pull them in deeper. Compared to previous seasons, it feels perfectly on-brand. They try to be reasonable, logical, rational people in the face of something so outlandishly volatile that they should be wearing suits of armor; and yet they take every hit as it comes like a game of full-contact chess. The trauma avalanche is taking its toll. The family struggles to trust and love each other, but they always seem to get back there somehow. Love conquers all, except the cartel. The way this show sets up and knocks down each story piece, and uses it to braid another storyline into such an incredible weave continues to amaze me. Ozark hangs your expectations on a meat hook and laughs while you squirm. It dares you to reason with it. It takes your love and feelings for the characters, which it cultivates like a master, and burns them in front of you. I love the writing, the story, and characters in this show, as well as the scenery. One thing I noticed was that they do seem to over-use the F word, and that’s coming from someone who has Full Metal Jacket in my top 10 favorite films. The cinematography has a way of making bright daylight scenes feel dark somehow.

Season 3 was not as action-packed as I thought they were making it out to be, and maybe that was part of the game they play. It’s a slow, tense burn with twists that feel more like wriggles and squirms of a kidnap victim, trying to find a way out. They tease a gang war all season, and when it looks like it’s all about to go down in a big way, POW, they’ve just hooked you for another season. Hopefully, they can crank it out soon, but considering the state of the world right now, who knows how long it will be until we find out what’s next for the Byrdes.

Season 3 of Ozark is now streaming on Netflix.