Ozark is a series about a money launderer for a Mexican drug cartel living in the Ozarks of Missouri.
0/10 stars. This is the hate-on-your-mother and blame-your-wife-for-everything season, a season of truly misogynistic writing.
It’s hard to review this season because it’s so badly written. For four seasons, Marty Byrd has laundered money for a Mexican drug cartel. Every time his wife Wendy has tried getting their family out, Marty keeps stabbing her in the back and undermining her plans. And behind her back, he’s told the kids and their colleagues that everything is Wendy’s fault, causing her to have many enemies who hurt their entire family. It’s baffling.
In season 4, all of those birds come home to roost. Marty and Wendy lose their kids to her alcoholic abusive dad and Marty has successfully made the kids hate Wendy so she checks herself into a psychiatric facility. It’s heartwrenching to see the only strong female character constantly dumped on and called names by other characters. I suspect the writers hate their moms and have a trail of ex-wives they also hate.
In season 4, the Byrds are also losing their businesses thanks to the constant attacks from Ruth Longmore, a serial criminal from a hillbilly family who Marty teaches to launder money. Even though she keeps attacking their family, Marty protects her instead of his family. :0 He even tells Ruth that Wendy is the person trying to stop her from taking over their businesses. So whose side is Marty on?
After four seasons of passive aggressive and aggressive behavior of Marty toward Wendy this is really a series about domestic abuse. Yes, it’s mostly emotional, but considering how many times Marty almost gets Wendy killed (and that he is responsible for her brother getting killed), it’s also physical. Marty is the real monster here, not just the cartel.
In addition to the mother bashing which is badly written enough, there are also some serious disconnects with reality in the writing. A Mexican drug cartel isn’t going to put up with troublemakers like Ruth Longmore. She would have been dead in Season 1. And although Marty poisoned the kids against Wendy for four seasons, other people would not be accusing her of being a bad mother. Because she wasn’t and they never saw her being a bad mother. So this is some seriously misogynistic writing.
As for the plot of this season, Navarro is in prison from the actions of the rogue FBI agent last year. His nephew has taken over and his sister (the nephew’s mom) has put a hit out on Navarro in prison. The nephew kills Ruth’s cousin Wyatt who marries the 60 something local heroin grower Darlene, so Ruth kills him. Marty and Wendy cover it up and Navarro takes credit for it, claiming that his nephew was ratting them out to the FBI. The new FBI agent in charge agrees to let the cartel continue as long as they can take credit for occasional seizures at the border (the same deal as before). And Ruth inherits Darlene’s heroin farm because Darlene has no relatives and Wyatt’s only relative is Ruth. She uses this in a hostile takeover of the Missouri Belle casino. Meanwhile, Navarro’s sister wants to know who really killed her son because she knows it wasn’t her brother (Navarro). Ruth convinces her partner Rachel (back from season 1) to kill the cartel henchman Nelson and bury him under her new concrete pool. But Navarro figures out his sister put out the hit on him and believes she killed Nelson. Marty and Wendy make a deal with Navarro’s sister and the FBI. She’s taking over the cartel and a much more compliant partner than Navarro was. Wendy’s foundation has enough money and support by high ranking politicians that she’s pretty much bulletproof and can do all the good work she’s waited so long to do, staring with an anti-corruption campaign against the most corrupt senator in Missouri. The FBI arranges to transfer Navarro and kill him during the transfer. Navarro’s sister discovers that Ruth killed her son. She kills Ruth.
What would have made a better season. 1. Ruth losing everything then being tortured by the cartel for having such a very big mouth. After causing so much misery and causing so many deaths, it would be karmic. One bullet in the chest was just lame and too easy. 2. Wendy getting free of Marty once and for all. 3. The kids going off on their own, having crappy minimum wage jobs, and living in apartments with 12 people like other idiots their ages. 4. Marty ending up all alone so deep in the cartel that he’ll never get out and being some woman’s bitch. 🙂
0/10 stars. Bad writing. Sexist, misogynistic, and illogical. I have to wonder, even in hillbilly logic, who would want a dead Mexican drug cartel hit man under their pool at their own house. If you must watch, put on the subtitles and watch all the sexist and misogynistic remarks fly by. What century is this?
The bad writers list: Laura Deeley, Bill Dubuque, Paul Kolsby, Miki Johnson, Chris Mundy, John Shiban, Ning Zhou and Martin Zimmerman.
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