By JASON MARTIN (@JMartZone – August 30, 2018)
We forget how good we have it when we watch a series like Ozark, where even attempts at hope and redemption are often snuffed out by a gunshot, a stab wound with a crowbar, or the unpleasant loss of toenails. Marty Byrde and his family are back, as are Jacob and Darlene Snell, Roy Petty, and of course, the clan of Langmore.
As I rewatched the last three episodes of the first season before jumping headlong into 2018’s sophomore effort, I found myself enjoying the proceedings more than I did originally. Anyone who read my Season 1 review knows I was not a big fan, but I admit, this week I have shifted and softened somewhat. I still feel in some ways the same, but I was probably too harsh. The main reason is because Ozark, co-created by Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams (both created 2016’s The Accountant as well), came with a lot of lofty promises and more meandering results. Generally, you want to underpromise and overdeliver, and this show did the opposite, using the words “Breaking Bad” in its own advertising, as well as The Walking Dead and others that lended creative talent to the show.
Ozark didn’t come close to Breaking Bad, even with the similarities between Marty and Walter White, and the massive talent of both Jason Bateman and Bryan Cranston. I believed it to be some mix of Bad and FX’s excellent drama, Justified, but not as good as either of those shows. But that’s an impossible bar to reach, particularly attempting to mirror Vince Gilligan in this case. Ozark was a show I found so difficult to watch, so absent of redeeming figures or even a bright color palette to help ease its misery. The setting worked to create the dread, but sometimes the darkness would just be too much and what could be entertainment instead became a pathway to feeling like garbage myself.
But, one year later, though I still do not love it, I did enjoy it far more than I did in 2017, and thus when I reached the end of the extended season finale, which I will have more on a bit later in this article, I was back up to speed on all the characters and where they stood…or where they used to stand before they were killed, in the case of Russ and Boyd Langmore, Del, and others. I expected Season 2 to be roughly the same as the first, and after working through the newest ten episodes, I can report to you that’s exactly what you should anticipate.
Ozark‘s second season picks up almost immediately where its predecessor left off, with the Byrde family together despite the risks and engaged in risky dealings all designed to ultimately get them out of the area and out of the game for good. The season opens with an interesting few minutes that places Marty and Wendy Byrde (Jason Bateman and Laura Linney) in a different setting that gets explained before the end of the episode. Del may be gone, but “cartel” connotes far more than one person. Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery) made a choice that reverberated throughout the woods and the hills and trees, and if one quote summarized the entire first season, it was her husband Jacob (Peter Mullan), who said life is nothing but a series of choices, decisions which hold consequences.
And so, as much as we might wish to root for Marty (and Wendy for that matter, as we’re far removed from the sex tape and the affair and the two are closer at the end of Season 1 than at any point in years), we are constantly reminded he didn’t have to say yes to Camino Del Rio. That one choice led to the death of his friend and Chicago business partner, Bruce, and a host of others. It wrought misery everywhere Marty walked, both inside his family and in the circumference around him.
What I like most about Season 2 is it remains true to form, but does pull back on the style over substance concepts that drove me away from the show last year. Ozark was committed to throwing as much at the audience as possible, going as salacious as humanly possible in the process, and the substance didn’t match up for the majority of the first two thirds of the season. The series tried to do too many things and in the process didn’t do as much as it could have with a more limited, tempered focus.
While nothing has really changed in Season 2, it does feel a bit more refined and I like the new stories that have branched from the one we already knew. There are now a few legitimately rootable characters, beginning with Jonah Byrde (Skylar Gaertner), who was written to make us wonder if he was about to end up a serial killer, but then pulled back on and brought to life. The 13-year-old boy becomes not just one of the smartest players in the game this year, but also one we can get behind and hope to see succeed. We also get to see Wyatt Langmore (Charlie Tahan) deal with his father’s death, which takes him to new places in his life…and leads him to a lot of weed.
In addition, there’s Buddy Dyker, who becomes the emotional center and the wise elder. Harris Yulin went from playing a skinny-dipping weirdo to someone that owns almost every scene he’s in throughout Season 2. He’s a steadying force for the entire family, and his involvement and relationship to everything that occurs in the new batch of episodes is a gigantic improvement over what came before. Yulin isn’t just good in his role on Ozark this time around, he’s great.
Trevor Long’s Cade Langmore plays a much bigger part in his daughter, Ruth’s (Julia Garner) life, and unfortunately stymies her spirit through his cynicism and unwillingness to believe in something better. The lasting theme of Ozark appears to be centered around a world where no matter how hard one may try to escape past mistakes or an unclean life, he or she ends up digging deeper into the swamp, into the muck, and is worse off for it. Garner, along with Bateman and Mullan, was the star of Season 1, and adding Yulin and Gaertner (and Sofia Hublitz to some degree) to that mix, plus much more range in the Wendy character for Linney and much more unhinged and out of line from Jason Butler Harner’s Roy Petty balance out the top end of the cast exceedingly well. Lisa Emery’s Darlene is also a bigger player with more motivations than ever, and she’s very good as well. Finally, Jordana Spiro shines brighter than in the past as Rachel.
As for Ruth, the more of her we saw, the better off we were. That’s still the case, as Garner owns the role. She was the best character in Season 1, and it’s arguable she still is. There’s a little less of Marty this year, but more of some other characters that are up to the task. Jonah Byrde might be my favorite character in Season 2, although Buddy makes a real run at it.
Some new characters will remain mysteries for you to find for yourself, but Janet McTeer arrives early as Byrde’s attorney, and she’s flat out awesome to watch, but only in an Ozark way. That will make sense to you soon enough. You’ve got ten new episodes to see, and if you liked Season 1, you’re still going to like Season 2. If you loved season 1, you’re probably still going to feel that way also. It’s very true to what it was from the beginning, both for better and worse.
One thing that continues to baffle me are the length of these episodes. Folks, these things are simply too long, and because they’re filled with “stuff” all over the place, they’re exhausting. Ten episodes is usually the Netflix sweet spot, but to binge Ozark will leave you breathless, and the series is much better experienced at a slower pace than I was able to watch it. Virtually every episode is near the 55 minute mark without credits, with multiple installments over an hour. For instance, episode six is 1:05:52. Why that’s necessary, I have no idea. The show can do what it wants on Netflix, so why not at least take Sharp Objects‘ idea of limiting length to around 43-45 minutes. If you need more episodes, do it that way in the future. It all just feels so bloated, overpacked, and it detracts a bit from the enjoyment.
That said, Season 2 of Ozark is entertaining, slyly funnier than the original (though that’s low praise, as this is not a show of levity), but it’s still Ozark through and through. There will still be many bigger fans of the show than me, but overall, I’m giving the second season of the show a B-, with some C+ tendencies. There’s enough here to satisfy and the new characters, including those not mentioned in this review for spoiler purposes, add much to the proceedings. The drama ramps up and the stakes are just as high as ever, the performances remain strong, as does the show’s setting, which is a character in itself.
Still hard to watch, still with content I could live without, still with some eye roll cliches, but also still with a cast led by the always solid Jason Bateman, who continues his work behind the scenes as well, Ozark builds upon its first season with ten worthy episodes that will keep fans invested and entertained. It’s too long, it makes mistakes, and it still doesn’t live up to some of its comparisons, but it’s a wilder, slightly more focused ride than the first.
(I will be writing on each episode individually, with plans to release the first three before the end of the weekend, then daily or every other day until all ten are up right here at the Big 6 Blog. Ozark hits Netflix tomorrow, August 31.)
I am @JMartZone. And I’m still never going to the Ozarks.
