What to Watch While Quarantined #3 - OZARK

What To Watch While Quarantined

Series #3 – OZARK

Streaming Service- Netfilix

Seasons – 3 (2017-2020)

Starring – Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Julie Garner, Jordana Spiro, Esai Morales

Tone and Feel – Breaking Bad

Memorable Quote: “If I want to put all $7,945,400 into a hot tub, get buck naked and play Scrooge McDuck, that is 100% my business. Now, where’s my money?”

— Marty Byrde S01E01

Ozark is the first pure drama/suspense series on the list, and it is definitely a must-see. I wanted to write about it now because season three will be released on Netflix in ten days (March 27). That should give you just enough time to power through the first two seasons. Unless, of course, you’ll be busy at the office, gym or maybe travelling overseas.

Too soon?

Ozark tells the story of Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), a Chicago-based financial advisor and family man who happens to have one special talent. He’s the best money launderer in the region and has used this gift to enrich both himself and a Mexican drug cartel for quite a while. As cartel drug money launderers go, he is a fairly straight arrow.

Without spoiling too much, let’s just say things go a bit off-kilter for Marty and his operation and the ensuing circumstances lead him to the Lake of Ozarks. Sometimes, known as the ‘Redneck Riviera’, the area is a holiday destination resort for people from all walks of life from the Midwest and southern states.

Marty has been tasked with uprooting his family and setting up a new, higher volume money laundering operation in this bizarre new land. What makes the series special is it is both a family fish out of water story along with the most gripping crime drama in recent memory.

Ozark likes playing in the grey zones with its characters which is what makes the show so compelling. It’s not a good guys versus bad guys dynamic but rather a really complicated group of people stuck together in a difficult and stressful situation. Jason Bateman has never been better (sorry Arrested Development fans but it’s true) playing Marty, the moral centre of this universe. When you consider the moral centre is a money launderer you begin to see what makes the series so interesting. Laura Linney plays Marty’s wife Wendy who has her own checkered past that complicates their façade as a typical happy family.

As the series evolves, Julie Garner’s character Ruth Langmore begins to steal the series. Ruth is part of a notorious family of local petty thieves but unlike her kinfolk, she strives to be better and years for something more. She attaches herself to Marty because she sees a class and dignity in him that she hasn’t seen in her family. Garner won an Emmy for her season two portrayal of Ruth Langmore this past fall. I believe Ozark has the strongest ensemble cast of any series in the past 20 years.

The hillbilly locals are just one side from which Marty and his family are being squeezed. It seems at all times, he is feeling pressure from the cartel, law enforcement, and the locals, all while trying to keep his family from unraveling at any moment.

The pilot episode is a masterclass in setting up a drama series. There is so much I want to say about it, but I fear I may have given away too much already. I’ll just say this – watch the pilot episode and if after that, you aren’t completely hooked on this series, then Ozark was never your bag in the first place.

If you love suspenseful crime dramas, I highly recommend watching Ozark while quarantined.