TV Review: Ozark

Sincere apologies for missing last week's Worth Reading. I got bogged down in family business and didn't have time to put it together. I should be fine for this Thursday.

This week I was requested to write about Netflix's original series Ozark. given how rare a request is I feel compelled to follow-up and talk about a show that I found very enjoyable.

I have heard a few comparisons between Ozark and Breaking Bad. I think the point of comparison might be instructive given my response to both. I'll return to this idea later.

Ozark has a simple premise (sort of). Chicago-based financial advisors who double as money launderers for the second largest cartel in Mexico. Their liaison, Del, in the pilot arrives at their office to accuse them of theft. The volume of cash involved is difficult to fathom, transported in bundles in oil drums. even a light skim would be an incredible amount of wealth.

Our protagonist, Marty Byrde (played by Jason Bateman), seems like an honest criminal. His partner has been stealing without Marty's knowledge. Marty seems detached, disinterested and the boring one compared to his flashy, fast-talking partner. Del wipes out the whole company except for Marty who, in a desperate moment, promises to launder the entire cartel's money - an incredible sum - through new opportunities in Missouri. The Ozarks offers a massive amount of waterfront property, ripe for investment and development. The show repeats the factoid that the Ozarks have more shoreline than California.

One of the things I like best about Ozark is that it shows a fascinating set of intersections in a part of America that is rarely depicted except in a comedic instance. Ozark is rural, poor, and "Southern", but many of the same themes from the scenes in Chicago carry over: greed, crime, graft, and corruption. Ozark is, in many ways, about crime and how class and geography shape the form crime takes. the trailer park petty criminals exist alongside the high-end cartels, but exist at very different standings.

Marty is a high-end white collar criminal. One interesting aspect to the show is that Marty Byrde avoids violence as much as he can. He has no taste for it. Like many white collar criminals he's in it for the money and perhaps the thrill, but he's not a monster. The show toys with the morality of his and his family's position. How responsible is the money launderer for the suffering and violence of the cartel?

On that note, the show is a simple fish out of water story which features a strong cast of local characters.  Marty, his wife (Laura Linney), his fifteen-year-old daughter and young son do not belong, nor particularly like the Ozarks, but are forced to live double lives in order to avoid utter destruction. The three eldest in particular to adapt to the local culture, which in their eyes are backwards rednecks. Marty must navigate the capitalist and financial realities of the region in order to clean enough money to save his family.

Now let's turn to the comparisons to Breaking Bad and why I think this show could be superior in my estimation. Ozark is chopped full of interesting, fun characters. Jason Bateman as Marty Byrde is perfect in his fast-talking scheming ways. There is hardly a finer moment in the show than when Marty is launching into a monologue trying to bully someone or manipulate them. I found Bateman's haggard, desperate performance leavened with just the right amount of humour. While I never warmed to Laura Linney's character, Wendy, I appreciated her character's motivations and struggles as an interesting aspect to the plot. Even the two children have arcs that reveal more about the family and their new setting. The Langmore family, and in particular Ruth (played by Julia Garner) add grit and consequence to the story of the Byrde's disruption of the Ozarks.

One of the reasons I like this television series better than Breaking Bad is because I enjoy the characters. I can understand Marty Byrde in a way I never could with Walter White. I disliked every character on that show and took little pleasure in their triumphs or failures. Early on I was totally sold on the Byrde family and the people they pull into their orbits. I want to see their journeys and how they end up. Ozark feels grounded in a sort of troubling reality while Breaking Bad felt like it had chemistry and little else to lend it credibility.

I am eager to see what the future of this series is and would highly recommend it to those who think the themes discussed above in a crime drama would appeal to them.