Written by Michael Vacchiano
Ozark Season 3, Netflix’s backwoods crime series returns right when we self-quarantined folks need it most. While again beautiful to glance upon, the still dark and foreboding lakeside setting is rife with illegal activity, and the stakes appear to be higher than ever. Jason Bateman (The Outsider) and Laura Linney (Tales of the City), the series’ incredible lead performers, continue to anchor the series amidst a cadre of fantastic new characters, and to help cement the show’s place amongst the best of the genre. And if these first few episodes are any indication, then the saga of the Byrde family is only going to get more treacherous by the end of this stretch.
It’s been a few years since former Chicago financial advisor Marty Byrde (Bateman) and his wife Wendy (Linney) relocated their family to Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks resort town. Working for a Mexican drug cartel, the couple have successfully laundered money for their bosses through a vacation lodge, strip club, and funeral parlor. However, season three finds the couple undertaking a brand new endeavor to wash literal boatloads of cash, the Missouri Belle riverboat casino. However, several criminal elements, both local and south of the border, threaten to disrupt Marty and Wendy’s latest operation. Not to mention that the couple’s marriage, while constantly rocky throughout the series, appears to have reached a true boiling point.
Ozark creators Bill Dubuque (The Accountant) and Mark Williams (Honest Thief) have done a stellar job of building and establishing the love/hate relationship between the Byrdes so far. They also know how blessed they are to have amazing actors like Bateman and Linney play these roles, whose chemistry by this point is on another level. With everything from snide glances to verbal outbursts, the tension and volatility between Marty and Wendy is matched only by how well they work collectively at their illegal business.
While their time together is often tumultuous, Marty and Wendy also appear to be dealing with some of the new characters introduced in season three. Felix Solis (Amazing Stories) shows up as Omar Navarro, the new cartel boss who begins to take his own firsthand approach into the Byrdes’ operation. Violent and ruthless, yet also cunning and calculated, Navarro seems to be quite the adversary for Marty. Meanwhile, the family side of the equation features the sudden appearance of Wendy’s bipolar brother Ben, played by Iron Fist’s Tom Pelphrey. Needless to say Ben’s unstable nature may provide some distractions for Wendy as she juggles her side of the money laundering empire.
Matching Linney for steely badassery is the return of Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer, Jessica Jones), the top cartel lawyer who showed up last season. Both Wendy and now Helen have to balance work and family as the latter’s daughter comes to live with her in Missouri. Speaking of children, however, the Byrde children have, thus far, not been given much to do. Jonah (Skylar Gaertner, Daredevil) and Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz, Horace and Pete) are still very well aware of their parents’ criminal activities, but their own storyline arcs are missing from the opening few hours of the season.
The same can be said of series favorite Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner, Modern Love), Marty and Wendy’s junior partner/protégée. Some of the best material in Ozark‘s previous two seasons was Ruth’s own family dynamic with her extensive blue collar clan, namely her wounded relationship with her late father. Garner, in her Emmy-winning breakout role, doesn’t get anything quite as meaty here in the early going, but that is far from a knock on the young actress herself. Equal parts hardened and vulnerable, it’s still a treat to see Ruth verbally sparring with the son of a Kansas City mob boss (Joseph Sikora, Power) and dropping f-bombs in her trailer park twang.
In its first few episodes, Ozark Season 3 is already off to an awesome start. With interesting and developed new characters, as well as those played by leads Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, it has definitively carved its place amongst the top tier of television’s crime genre. As addictive and entertaining as it’s ever been, let’s hope it keeps the foot on the gas towards the season finale.
