Ozark Season Two Review

I have grown to love the phase of transition and all the change it has the potential to bring, whether good or bad. What is transition but merely a reflection of nature itself? Seasons change, and as time goes on it’s only natural to accept that people will change as well. How fast change can occur is dependent on a couple factors but none more important than environment. By the beginning of season 2 of The Ozarks, the Byrde family have integrated themselves into the community, so much so, that they enter the political landscape of The Ozarks. Before going any further, let’s briefly recap how season 1 had ended.

Marty had tried to mediate a deal between Del, a powerful player within the Navarro cartel, and the stoic, yet vicious Snell family. Del, not being conscious of historical context , leads him to insult the Snells by calling them red necks. Darlene (Snell) does not take lightly to this whatsoever, and at this point, had been looking for any reason to lash out. She blows his head off with a rifle, with no remorse. The steely lookin her eyes gives you the impression that she will die over tradition and respect for her tenured family. Jacob (Snell) gets frustrated, as he sees a potential business opportunity vanish within a second, yet he also knows his wife and is not too surprised. Marty is totally distraught and is dumbfounded as to why Darlene would kill Del off of impulse when he literally had to risk his life as well as his family’s, to even mediate a deal that would get him out of muddy waters. So season 2 starts out with the Snells and Marty in a more precarious, intimate relationship.

Ever wonder how someone can seem unbothered by life although it seems to be crumbling? Marty’s ability to compartmentalize is nothing short of unbelievable when you consider how turbulent his life has been from his wife Wendy’s miscarriage many years ago, to her cheating with a friend from the office, then leaving Chicago with his family without giving even a hint to them as to what’s going on, to having to find legal sources of income to clean the cartel’s money, while making sure his family is safe and trying to be a present father at the same time! When we look at the boat Marty is in from this perspective, we can infer that he has a breaking point and we have yet to see it.

Wendy seems to be a lot more composed and understanding of the situation that they find themselves in this season. Naturally, she has come to start making the Ozarks home instead of viewing it as a pit stop. She also starts to really tune into her skill sets that have pretty much been dormant to us as viewers, but through context, we learn that Wendy is no stranger to canvassing. Coupled with her experience in the real estate market, we see Wendy assume her power and uses it to her family’s advantage. Marty realizes her strength, which is why the season starts out with Wendy and Marty dancing at an event, lobbying for a potential casino. Wendy and Marty make quite the team when they are on the same page and truly compliment each other’s weakness. Wendy really starts to pull strings when she catches he attention of Senator Charles Wilkes, who sees in her a relentlessness and a real knack for politics. As the show further develops into the season, we see Wendy's prowess as a real political power in the Ozark community growing, while Marty becomes more neurotic.

Bridget is still Bridget. She too, is accepting the reality of their new life in the Ozarks yet is finding the new constraints on her life unbearable. Now although, she even makes my skin boil with how she inconveniences her family in ways she does not realize, I am also cognizant of the fact that she is sixteen years old with full access to social media and all the temptations that life has to offer a youth and here she is asked to age far beyond her years and enable her parents to do what it is they have to do for the cartel in order to go back to their regular lives. Bridget does try, time and time again to calibrate to the Ozark lifestyle, yet every time Marty or Wendy impose on her will to live life how she wants, she actually begins to be seen by her own parents as a liability. The ongoing relationship with Wyatt, the only person she has a real connection with, is also from the same family who had originally tried to kill Marty. The value she places on her parents promises drop as each episode passes, and you see her coming into the realization that this is their life and there is a strong possibility that this is how their lives will always be. Bridget has the ideals in her head where she feels her family falls extremely short of yet at the same time, does not realize that Marty and Wendy are trying to do what’s best for them in a very dicey predicament. For as grown as she wants to be, she does not exercise that with her actions. Some of the resentment Bridget may have for her mother for instance is not completely unwarranted, being that she feels that Wendy cheating was the first domino to fall which ensued everything else after but at the same time Marty has forgiven Wendy, yet Bridget keeps holding on to a reason to not like her parents. This is not to say Bridget is dumb, but she is very unknowing and ignorant to the situation they are truly in.

Jonah just keeps showing how resilience and is mirroring his father, Marty. He is more understanding of the situation their family is in, in large part due to spending time with Buddy. Buddy being Jonah’s senior by about sixty years or so, Jonah’s wisdom is expedited in a sense. He takes actions on his behalf to launder $10,000 that Bridget had taken for themselves out of the millions stuffed in the wall under a fake name, and does so with such ease. One could argue that Jonah mimics his father in attempts to get Marty’s attention. Jonah wants to be of help. He wants to be able to service his family in whatever way they need of him, which was apparent when Del’s muscle had came to put them a visit in season 1. Yet, Marty is blinded by the tasks that he must get completed on a daily basis that I don’t think that Jonah or Bridget understand that in order for them to be alive, Marty has to sacrifice the time he would otherwise spend with them, or tend to them, in order to ensure their security. Jonah seems to be naturally introverted as well so he overthinks scenarios; while that may put him in his own personal reverie, it is this same thinking that feeds his entrepreneurial spirit. For instance, Jonah had cornered a market within his school to charge the other children in order to pass their tests for them as if he was them actually taking the test. Jonah’s knack for business becomes evident this season and it becomes interesting to see what larger roles he may play that may inevitably end up saving the family’s lives in the future.

I love Ruth Langmore because up until this point, her character has changed the most while simultaneously having so much further to go in terms of character development. At the start of season 1, Ruth embodies the poor redneck mentality, with no remorse for any urge to rob, set up, or even kill those whom she may feel pose a threat to her or her family’s way of living. She is young but it is apparent that she is a leader by nature and very strong willed plus hard headed. Her weakness is the love she has for her father, which clearly shows itself once he gets out on parole. Ruth enters the second season in a peculiar place since she has been enabled by Marty to feel as if she has a purpose and is valued. These are feelings that Ruth has never been accustomed to, and initially only made her more defensive. She realizes that Marty recognizes her for her strengths and puts her in a position where he has to trust her to run the strip club business. Although Ruth generally does not like to show emotion, it is evident she has grown some type of gratitude toward Marty for making her shift her perspective on what life can actually be. Yet, as much as she tries to grow as a person, it is continuously stunted by her own father, who is continuously strengthening her insecurities and is dead set on making sure she never thinks there's more to life than being a Langmore. As Ruth's life becomes more turbulent, she's really in need of emotional support in which she can receive with toxicity from her father, but one could surmise she wants that from Marty. The irony is, Ruth is still a child in the grand scheme of things, so even when the viewer can see what she desperately needs is a genuine friend looking out for her self interest, she has to continue to maneuver in a very tumultuous situation she finds herself in. While simultaneously being the rock for her two cousins and being the constant driving factor to make sure Wyatt goes to college.

Roy Petty is arguably the most troubled, mysterious character in the Ozarks. A couple of things we can surmise from Petty from season 1 is that he is a very focused, manipulative individual. He operates from a very dark internal place, and from the tidbits of context that we can see within the show, his behaviors are directly correlated to his upbringing; with his single mother being a drug addict. He uses any means of deception to make those that could even consider themselves close to him, believe that he know what he is doing. Petty goes as far as using his sexuality, in which he is a homosexual, to procure information regarding the Byrde family, by getting close to Russ Langmore. Fast forward to season 2 where he finds a weak link in Rachel (spiraling character), by blackmailing her and bribing with drugs. Petty as his name would describe sink pretty low to discover any incriminating information on the Byrde family that he does indeed use Rachel's life as a means to an end, showing a real vile side of himself. The reoccurring theme with Petty though is his mother is his only weakness that prevents him from successfully going about putting all the pieces together. Despite the wickedness of his character, no one should doubt this character's fortitude.

Rachel is one of the more enigmatic characters in the series, as we don't even have a last name to prescribe to her . Her eyes speak more volumes than all other characters, and her unstableness can be tracked back to when Marty had initially told her of his plans to renovate her bar by the lake, and she had told him in a very solemn tone, to not let her down. This moment alone, should of shown us as viewers that Rachel must have had a very troubling past and finally she has found some type of solace running this bar. Marty has intentions of making sure revenue increases drastically in order to clean up cartel money but Rachel just wants life to be simple; money does not drive her. Yet, as season 1 progressed and her constant feeling as if she was left in the dark grew larger, she made drastic decision and decides to leave with some of the cartel's money Marty had hid. Season 2 starts off for her very hectic, as we join her on drug filled drown in sorrow type of night. She crashes and wakes up in the hospital to see none other than the grim reaper himself, Roy Petty. It is here where she starts to succumb to his manipulation and play out the majority of the season as his pawn. Her addiction is her key weakness which drives her to only self sabotage more because she actually has feelings for Marty, and the guilt become unbearable the more she has to find any type of evidence to bring down him and his family.

Wyatt Langmore is a fairly interesting character as well. He has engrained in himself this facade of appearing dumber than he is, and this most likely due to the fact that his family has been historically known to be downtrodden miscreants. He doesn't behave how any of his family members does but that does not mean he doesn't share the same beliefs as them about the world around them and their place in it. He has been conditioned to think of himself as less than, which is why he never takes pride in the fact that he excels academically. Ruth sees this in Wyatt, and if not for her, he might of very well continued down a path like his father Russ. Yet, he too, has to go through his own personal dilemma of finding out just how his father and uncle died i the last season. As much as he wants to follow up with school, the mystery of his father's death prevents him to evaluate opportunity lying at his doorstep. Through this confusion, he finds solace in his friendship with Bridget, Marty's daughter, who 's life has also been severely altered in a span of a year.

Overall takeaway from this last season of Ozark is it exemplified great character development and placed a scope on who these characters truly are. You do not know the real Marty until you watch all of season 2. You do not know the real Wendy unit you watch all of season 2. Their children discover more about their station in life and exactly what it is that they want. The header at the top of this article shows a family portrait but each of their faces speaks a thousand words. There ability to make a living in the Ozarks is correlated to their knack to compartmentalize and process the trauma that their actions cause at a later date. How do the experience that the Byrde's have experienced until now change a family? Can they ever go back to living a conventional life? Are relationships permanently altered/severed? I'd love to hear any comments or questions you have on the series or the characters in general as well! Let's talk!