By JASON MARTIN (@JMartZone – Sept, 2, 2018)

Not surprisingly, the Byrde-Snell-Wilkes casino bill isn’t exactly a universally favored idea, and why not add the Kansas City mob to the Mexican drug cartel, the local heroin distributors, and the agricultural mogul. Ozark is “on one” early and often this season.

The first scene had enough of a Fargo tinge to it to make me smile, and admittedly also wish I were watching that show. I am certainly enjoying Season 2, so that’s no sleight on Ozark, but one of these two shows is simply better than the other. Anyway, Mercer Lumber and State Senator Mercer himself are spooked by the aggressive message from Frank Cosgrove and his Teamsters, union mob, to the point his swing vote is more than just a little in question.

Helen, who we know means business based on her ability to murder without care, tells Marty in no uncertain terms that he’d better deliver, otherwise her “client” might decide the entire arrangement isn’t worth the trouble. Basically, if you can’t read between the lines (and yes, I know you can, so this is merely for emphasis), the cartel will kill Marty and his whole family, the Snells, and maybe just everybody in the Ozark area just for the heck of it.

Even worse, Jacob and Darlene are at an impasse in their side of the agreement, which Jacob says is all built on a lack of trust. The cartel doesn’t trust the purity of their heroin, which is an insult to the Snells, and the latter counts the money the cartel gives them, which can also be taken as a sign of disrespect. It does get worked out, but it’s a signal of how petty and ridiculous some of this gets. I guess because I’m not a drug smuggler or distributor I don’t see why not trusting the purity of heroin from people I barely know would be too out of bounds, and I always count my change, even if I believe the person who handed it to me.

One quick observation about Darlene Snell, who often has foot in mouth disease and reacts in a cold manner more than even Jacob would like. That sequence in the adoption agency waiting room, where she’s making faces at the black child is excellent. I mention the boy’s race because Darlene is a racist, or she says inappropriate things seemingly all the time, but right there we saw that there’s something real within her that truly loves children. Whether she ends up with one is yet to be determined, but that was a much more interesting scene that it might have appeared. It was the smallest inkling of humanity, past the death of Ash, for a pretty loathsome character.

Wilkes is living up to the billing as the key to the casino deal. He knows how many votes Wendy needs to turn, he’s willing to assist in pushing Mercer (which could mean anything in this show), but that if the KC mob is indeed involved and against him, it might not matter much at all. Something else that we learned in this episode is Buddy Dyker is going to be important in Season 2. He knows Cosgrove from his days in Detroit, and Harris Yulin is actually playing a character named “Jimmy Small,” not just Buddy. Yulin was great, and the sequence with him and Frank worked from start to finish. Bateman did a nice job here as well just sort of sitting in the background but giving off the uncomfortable expression until he was asked to speak.

Jimmy/Buddy tells Cosgrove what the man already knows, which is he’s on thin ice with local officials and his union is in big trouble from a pension perspective. “Management can’t be happy.” That sounds ominous based on what this guy is involved in, and there Marty snaps into action like the businessman he is. Let’s make the casino a union shop, Teamsters staffing it, Cosgrove gets a cut, and then Jimmy Small and his oxygen take vouch for Byrde’s trustworthiness. There’s that word again. This episode was largely about trust, whether for the Snells and the cartel, Cosgrove and the pro-casino contingent, or the Byrdes believing Charles Wilkes wouldn’t screw them over.

Incidentally, he hasn’t yet, but good lord was the stuff with Senator Forman a little over the top. This was Ozark at its nastiest and most salacious. Wendy Byrde isn’t a sympathetic figure, as anyone that would recruit Lulu out of the strip club to lure a swing vote upstairs to be caught in the most compromising of positions is shady to say the least. With that said, Laura Linney is currently doing the best work she’s done in the entire series, and the Wendy character itself has arguably been more interesting to watch operate than Marty’s. “Now who can we get to untie you?” Yikes. But it was effective. This is an adult show, that much we know.

Wilkes telling her there was never a quid pro quo where he expected sex for his assistance with the bill was interesting, if only because it’s not what we expected when we first saw him in the season opener. But, Ozark usually doesn’t go the obvious route. That’s to its credit most of the time, although occasionally the shock factor and the constant swerve backfires and feels gimmicky. “Charlie” got the job done, or so we think. Through this entire rigamarole, we also remember Marty isn’t the best guy. Wendy passes on what she thinks is an invitation to sleep with Charles, and when she tells her husband, his response was more…why didn’t you do it…than thank you for not doing it.

Remember what I said in the first review of the season about Cade Langmore? He’s bad news, and he’s going to destroy all the good we’re seeing in his daughter. Well, from the low class parole pee cup moment to the lies about standing behind Ruth to robbing the diner for no other reason than “because I felt like it,” he’s somehow the character I like least ALREADY, and it’s only going to get worse. Slamming her head into that dash and then dash…ing her hopes about the house or the future or a better life was positively despicable. Julia Garner’s eyes as she stared him down once he let her go and continued driving was a good piece of acting, if only because it’s exactly how we’d have looked at that piece of garbage in the same moment.

Rachel Garrison in a bathtub high as a kite and smoking a glass pipe in the seediest drug den we’ve ever seen? Check. Yep, this is Ozark. That was sad. Maybe I was naive to think maybe she wouldn’t turn out to be so jacked up, even if she got caught trying to escape with the loot from the Blue Cat Lodge wall. Actually, in retrospect, I was a fool to think that. We wouldn’t have seen her for a few seconds during the episode, however, if Jordana Spiro wasn’t about to return to the scene of the literal and figurative crime. And we found out why when Roy Petty (Jason Butler Harner) visits her in jail after her car met that telephone pole.

In some ways, Roy might be the least likable character on the series, but Cade’s giving him a run for his money. Still, all Detective Petty wants at this stage is to take Marty Byrde down. He’ll break the law, threaten people, assault people, maybe even kill people to do it. He doesn’t speak unless it’s disrespectfully, and he’s the very definition of unhinged and obsessed. Once his mother’s drug habit was revealed late in Season 1, we figured out his motivations. But as he lays out to Rachel her future, namely that she’s going to find the details of Marty’s operation, whether through accounting books, computer files, flow charts, whatever it is, he couldn’t possibly care less about the danger he’s putting her in.

He puts out that list of her offenses: DUI, controlled substance, reckless endangerment, a triple felony. He mentions the three strike law and then says she has three options. One, the cartel finds out she stole money from them and she’s dead. Two, she goes to jail for life due to the law. Three, “we help each other.” She finds out all the intricacies of Marty’s work with the Navarro cartel, but again, “I don’t give a sh__ what you do, who you betray, who you f___, but if you don’t give me what I want Rachel, you are going to prison for a very very long time.”

End of episode. Petty’s a jerk. Rachel’s completely trapped. And because of it, Marty and Wendy are about to find themselves in even deeper in their futile attempt to escape. A busy (as always) but entertaining episode. These things continue to be way too long. I mean the episodes, not my recaps, but maybe it’s a little from column A and a little from column B. Sue me. Let me introduce you to my attorney.

She’s a lovely woman. Her name is Helen.

I’m @JMartZone. I told you I only support the things I believe in.