Somewhere within Ozark and the story and the characters is a great show. Season 4, especially the final part demonstrates that the writers ego got in the way or they're not nearly as clever as they think they are. It's not the ending I have a man issue with. It's the clumsy story telling with no character consistency, its the plot holes as wide as a crator. Just because it's a work of fiction doesn't mean it shouldn't be believable within the confines of the world they'd set up.
I'm going to make a Breaking Bad comparison to demonstrate just how inferior Ozark is. Remember Season 3 or was it 2 with the objects floating in the swimming pool at the start of every episode, we had no idea why we were seeing this or what it meant. But it was only at the end of that season that we learnt that the father of the drug addict who Walt allowed to die was so traumatised by his daughters death, that he caused a plane to crash. I remember it was shocking and a superior use of this kind of story telling set up.
Ozark on the other hand starts off season 4 with a horrific car crash but when we see the after effects of the crash 13 episodes or so later they all walk away with not a scratch on them. In fact they're back being cartoon villains before they've even rung the insurance company.
Then there's Wendy. She could have gone down as one of all the time great characters, a genuine bad ass female Walter White. Instead she becomes a caricature, someone you just want punishing in the most evil horrid way. One minute she's checking her self into an asylum, 24 hours later she's making deals with politicians. It began to get so tiresome. The writers would introduce a new challenge for the Byrds to overcome, and of course, they'd achieve whatever they wanted. Imagine the writers room, 'hey how about Wendy runs for president of the USA?' 'Great idea, let's do it but can we make that happen in one episode?' Even the countless deaths become laughable. A local sheriff goes missing, but law enforcement doesn't seem to care. Darlene and Wyatt are murdered but law enforcement leaves a ton of Heroin behind.
Then there's all those tedious storylines with the FBI who apparently roll over like a dog whenever the Byrds get in touch. They want to visit a Mexico drug cartel leader in prison, five minutes later it happens. The Byrds day jump and the Cartel and the FBI say 'how high?'
Sometimes, Ozark was great, sometimes you get caught up in the absurdity of it all. Some of the storylines were genuinely interesting; Wendy having her brother killed and the after effects it caused, especially the rift with Jonah. But it allowed nonsensical storytelling to get in the way.
I'm going to make a Breaking Bad comparison to demonstrate just how inferior Ozark is. Remember Season 3 or was it 2 with the objects floating in the swimming pool at the start of every episode, we had no idea why we were seeing this or what it meant. But it was only at the end of that season that we learnt that the father of the drug addict who Walt allowed to die was so traumatised by his daughters death, that he caused a plane to crash. I remember it was shocking and a superior use of this kind of story telling set up.
Ozark on the other hand starts off season 4 with a horrific car crash but when we see the after effects of the crash 13 episodes or so later they all walk away with not a scratch on them. In fact they're back being cartoon villains before they've even rung the insurance company.
Then there's Wendy. She could have gone down as one of all the time great characters, a genuine bad ass female Walter White. Instead she becomes a caricature, someone you just want punishing in the most evil horrid way. One minute she's checking her self into an asylum, 24 hours later she's making deals with politicians. It began to get so tiresome. The writers would introduce a new challenge for the Byrds to overcome, and of course, they'd achieve whatever they wanted. Imagine the writers room, 'hey how about Wendy runs for president of the USA?' 'Great idea, let's do it but can we make that happen in one episode?' Even the countless deaths become laughable. A local sheriff goes missing, but law enforcement doesn't seem to care. Darlene and Wyatt are murdered but law enforcement leaves a ton of Heroin behind.
Then there's all those tedious storylines with the FBI who apparently roll over like a dog whenever the Byrds get in touch. They want to visit a Mexico drug cartel leader in prison, five minutes later it happens. The Byrds day jump and the Cartel and the FBI say 'how high?'
Sometimes, Ozark was great, sometimes you get caught up in the absurdity of it all. Some of the storylines were genuinely interesting; Wendy having her brother killed and the after effects it caused, especially the rift with Jonah. But it allowed nonsensical storytelling to get in the way.