OZARK - SEASON 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
By armen pandola
Netflix’s Ozark's premise is as simple as its theme - crime pays until it doesn't.
Financial adviser Marty Byrde and his partner have a nice little second income - laundering money for a drug cartel. His partner gets crazy handling all this money and decides the cartel won't miss a few million - it's the kind of idea that leads to the cemetery. Meanwhile, his wife is about to leave him for greener pastures but her lover gets dead. The cartel is about to kill everybody when Marty talks them into letting them live to launder another 5 million. For reasons you won't remember, the financial advisor has to take his family to the Ozarks to make this happen.
I was never a Jason Bateman fan - he has over 90 acting credits on IMDB and only Arrested Development stands out. I have changed my opinion. Bateman is excellent as said financial advisor, Marty Byrde. Now, he has a lot of good company, namely his wife, Wendy, played by the amazing Laura Linney, his daughter played by exotic-looking newcomer Sofia Hublitz, his employee, Ruth, by the explosive Julia Garner and his boss' boots-on-the-ground representative, Helen, by the ever-threatening Janet McTeer.
The first two seasons have the usual mix of very good plot lines, stories and episodes, but nothing that is out of the ordinary in this new Golden Age of TV. Then, this week, season three was released on Netflix and bam! Ozark has set itself apart with excellent writing.
Mr. and Mrs. Byrde have strongly opposed ideas on the best way to extricate themselves and family from the clutches of a homicidal, maniacal Mexican drug lord - is there any other type?
They bought a casino since casino ownership is Money Laundering 101. Mr. Byrde wants to sit tight, do the laundering and hope somehow they get an opportunity to fly - yeah like a bird. Mrs. Byrde, on the other hand, wants to expand and buy more casinos and in the words of Michael Corleone, go legitimate in the next few years. She reasons that casinos make tons of money (unless your name is Donald Trump) legitimately so eventually they can be 'safe.'
Meanwhile, Wendy's long lost brother, Ben ( Tom Pelphrey) shows up. He's wanted in another state and is somewhat annoying as he goes through various convulsions when he discovers what his sister and her husband are up to. But he is a little crazy - I mean certified - so he falls for Ruth and starts creating havoc wherever he goes. Ben is bi-polar and Ozark is excellent at portraying the problems of dealing with a person you love who is mentally ill. The main problem and what makes mental illness a most insidious disease is that the person who has it denies having it and often refuses all help or treatment.
Meanwhile Helen is involved in a custody battle with her ex over their only child, Erin (Madison Thompson). There's a baby who is being cared for by the poster mother of deranged moms played perfectly by Lisa Emery. Wendy wants custody of that child - it's a long story - and what Wendy wants, she usually gets.
The theme of the season is summed up by the drug lord. He gets enthusiastic about the idea of making money at a second casino and gives Wendy the OK to buy it. When the owners refuse to accept her very generous offer, she explains to Mister Drug Lord that they are acting unreasonably and he offers this piece of advice - if reason doesn't work, try force.
Season 3 of Ozark pits the Byrdes against each other as each of them makes a bid to control their lives. They have to make very difficult choices and the complications of their lives comes close to mirroring the problems of life itself. And isn't that the hope of all dramatists - to write to a story that has some of the complications that real life has? Ozark does that - and it's not pretty, but very, very real.