Where Did We Leave Off on ‘Ozark’?
By the time the Netflix crime drama Ozark returns for its fourth and final season on January 21—or, at least, the first part of its final season—it will have been nearly two years since fans last saw the criminal Byrde family. You may have forgotten some of the nitty-gritty of its last round, especially if you watch as many TV shows as we do! So here’s a refresher of where we left things.
As Season 3 begins, Wendy (Laura Linney) and Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) are running a casino business aboard the Missouri Belle—with Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner) helping out when she’s not throwing rowdy patrons overboard—and attorney Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer) moving to the Ozark to oversee the Byrdes’ money-laundering for the Navarro cartel.
Netflix
The Byrde family—which also includes teenaged kids Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner)—might have fared better in Season 3 if Marty and Wendy had been on the same page. But over the course of the 10 episodes, Marty pushes back against Wendy’s ideas for expansion, and Wendy goes behind Marty’s back and pitches legitimate business ideas to cartel leader Omar Navarro (Felix Solis) so that Omar can make sure his kids are always provided for. Husband and wife also fight over the prospect of buying another casino, and they each make secret payments to their couples’ therapist, so there’s toxicity all around.
Meanwhile, Marty gets chummier with Maya Miller (Jessica Frances Dukes), an FBI agent auditing his businesses, but he reneges on his decision to turn himself in and become an informant to the feds. He even engineers a financial windfall at the casino to keep Maya around.
Ben Davis (Tom Pelphrey), Wendy’s brother, moves in with her and Marty, and he falls so hard for Ruth that he stops taking his bipolar medication to boost his libido. But Ben grows erratic, threatening to blow the Byrdes’ cover at a charity event and then revealing Helen’s real line of work to her daughter. By the end of the season, Wendy leaves him at a restaurant for Helen’s henchman to kill.
Netflix
Ruth, now seeing Wendy as a “f—king bitch wolf” for effectively signing Ben’s death warrant, leaves the Byrdes—seemingly for good—and links up with rising heroin queen Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery). Still, Wendy’s ruthlessness may have clinched Omar’s notion of the Byrdes’ loyalty.
For her part, Darlene is expanding her drug-trade turf, with the help of Frank Cosgrove (John Bedford Lloyd), a mafioso from Kansas City. She’s also sleeping with Wyatt Langmore (Charlie Tahan), Ruth’s younger brother, despite their age gap of four or five decades!
Netflix
By the time of the finale, Helen views the Byrdes as liabilities, and she even plots to expose Marty’s dealings with the FBI to Omar. But Omar seems to value the Byrdes more than he does Helen—especially because Marty has been capturing drone footage of the rival Laguna cartel.
So after he orders Wendy, Marty, and Helen to Mexico, he has an associate kill Helen, shooting her point-blank on the tarmac.
And Netflix’s first footage of Season 4 shows Marty and Wendy still covered in Helen’s blood, so we can assume the new episodes will pick up right where Season 3 ended!
Ozark, Season 4 Part 1 Premiere, Friday, January 21, Netflix
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