Ozark: Money Laundering, Murder, and Mayhem

When NYC went into lockdown, the first thing I said was, “Well, I guess this is when I finally start to binge watch Ozark!” Six weeks later, I have completed all three seasons (the third season dropped in the middle of the lockdown so that was one less cliffhanger for me to deal with!) and now I understand what all the buzz was about. It definitely isn’t a show you can binge watch, but it’s a perfect prestige drama to dole out to yourself throughout the week when you just want to experience some twisty dark mayhem.

First up, confession: I work for a bank and am certified as an anti-money laundering specialist, so that fueled a lot of my initial interest in this show. It is centered on Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), a financial advisor in Chicago, who has a real flair for moving money around. While that flair was initially used for good, it eventually became far more profitable to advise members of a Mexican drug cartel and start laundering their money. However, while the work is profitable, it certainly isn’t safe, and circumstances arise that lead to Marty moving his entire family to the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where he must continue to launder money for the cartel. Unfortunately, the FBI is now onto him, which means he has to placate his druglord boss, whilst evading the Feds, all of which necessitates some pretty fancy laundering techniques. I definitely wished this show had been around when I was studying for my certification because it would have been far more interesting than my study guides about placement, layering, and integration.

While the focus of Season One is more on Marty’s schemes and gradually acquiring the businesses that he will be using as fronts, Season Two and beyond become much more of an ensemble effort, where the women take over. From the outset, the show’s standout character is Ruth Langmore (the incomparable Julia Garner), a bright young woman from the wrong side of the tracks, who becomes Marty’s mentee and right-hand woman. She comes from a family of screw-ups and has no qualms about engaging in illegal activity, but damnit, she’s going to do it well and with a great deal of loyalty. And then we have the glorious Laura Linney as Marty’s wife, Wendy. At first, Wendy seems like a bored housewife who has been swept up in her husband’s drama. But oh boy. This marriage is a partnership and Wendy quickly starts to take over the reigns of the entire operation.

Lest I forget, we also have the Byrdes’ children, Jonah and Charlotte (Skylar Gaertner and Sophia Hublitz), who start off as innocent kids with no idea what their parents are up to, and then quickly become resigned to being part of a vast criminal enterprise. As a friend joked to me when I started watching this show, at times Ozark feels like you’re watching Arrested Development, if Michael Bluth had become a money launderer. Bateman plays Marty as a calm and quiet man; he knows that he has gotten in too deep, but the only way he can protect his family is to keep digging deeper, and as his entire family is roped into his schemes, there’s just a look of comically weary resignation on his face. This show is so dramatic and dark (both figuratively and literally - you might have to turn up the contrast on your TV screens to enjoy every dimly lit scene) but it also features some wonderfully funny moments when everything is so chaotic and impossible that the characters just have to shrug and go along with the madness.

The writing on this show is truly excellent - there are season-long arcs, but each episode is also a self-contained thrill ride, and there is a LOT to keep track of. This can be daunting, but if you let yourself soak in this world, you’ll be able to keep up. I haven’t mentioned even half the cast of characters you will encounter, but suffice to say, every single person on this show is a vivid, complex bag of dueling motivations and you will never know what side they’re on until they’re either murdering someone, or getting killed themselves. Yeah, let me warn you, this isn’t just some academic treatise on financial crime. This show starts to rack up a fairly substantial body count as you go along. And in great televisual fashion, it usually saves up the chaos for the final few episodes of each season, which means you won’t be able to resist hitting Play to see what happens next.

Ozark is a classic example of the golden age of television: intricately plotted, filled with complicated characters, and always finding new ways to pull the rug out from under you and leave you wanting more. Season 3 ended with many cliffhangers and now I will be like everyone else who has had to wait for Netflix to dole out the next installment. It will be a long wait, but it will be so worth it.