Plot
This series is nothing but a rollercoaster of emotions! And I'm going to get down to all of it, mainly the bits in S4 part 1, so be advised that it’s best to be up to date on Ozark to avoid spoilers. Anyway, it’s on Netflix and it is basically about a financial advisor named Marty trying to make amends in the Ozarks after a money-laundering scheme goes horribly wrong for a Mexican drug cartel.
Currently
Like I mentioned earlier, I'm going to be discussing and reviewing season 4 part 1, so if you haven't watched the previous seasons, I strongly recommend that you do. Anyway, season 4 part 1 starts off with a great hook right out the gate. We see Marty & family in their van, presumably heading to Chicago. A few minutes in Marty swerves pretty hard to avoid what looks like an 18 wheeler & they crash.
Now I will say that I feel like we lost someone here. I can't prove it, but it's just a feeling that I have. And to be honest, it's a pretty good opportunity to write someone off.
Anyhow, after the accident, the scene cuts and we see that Marty & Wendy are cleaning themselves up from Helen’s blood.
Like that caught me completely off guard and I’m sure it did the same to everyone else too. Especially since Helen has been working with Omar and family for a while; she seemed untouchable & she seemed pretty much molded into what the Navarro family wanted.
She seemed almost robotic and somewhat by the book. I had really found myself wondering what was going to happen this season & how this season was going to top the previous one.
I get kind of nervous sometimes because the longer a certain series goes on, the more room for error it seems.
Especially if there might be long breaks in between.
But I was far from disappointed.
Off rip, I see that Jonah is going to be a problem. As well as Javi and that random private detective named Mel. Now with Jonah, he is acting out towards his mom, Wendy, as he is not over what happened to his Uncle Ben. Now we saw in the previous season that Jonah was willing to end Helen over this, but Helen escaped this fate by outing Wendy and saying that Wendy was the one that set her brother up and that it was Wendy that made the call.
Even though I like Ruth as a character, I honestly fault both her and Wendy for what happened to Ben. Ruth because she released him out of the care he clearly needed & Wendy because she okay’d it. I can't remember it entirely, but I don't think it was smart for Ben to get mixed up with the Byrdes at all. It wasn't as if they were living a normal lifestyle anymore, as it was far more dangerous.
But sadly there's nothing that can be done about that now.
Even still, we see that things are pretty intense between Wendy and Jonah because of this. Like, throughout the entirety of this part; it gets kinda annoying and frustrating in my opinion. I mean at the end of the day, Jonah is 14, so he really shouldn't be acting out as extreme as he is. Wendy is his mother at the end of the day and while I do understand Jonah's fears and emotions, the Byrde family had bigger problems and a bigger threat to worry about.
Maybe things will get better between them when the next part of Season 4 is released. That's one of the things I'm looking forward to seeing. Will he and Wendy's relationship ever be restored? And how long will it take? We already saw what it took for Wendy's and Marty's relationship to be somewhat restored. It feels like it took literal life & death to bring those two back together and even still their relationship doesn't seem too intimate anymore.
Another thing I'm looking forward to seeing is how will things end up for Javi. Javi has been very hot-blooded, impulsive, and impatient; we've seen that many times throughout this part. I think the very first of many memorable instances was when he went after the Sheriff.
It was at this moment that I realized that Javi was not quite like the other Navarro's - mostly due to his personality.
And again when he went after the FBI agents; this was also a very memorable instance.
It was getting to the point where Javi could have jeopardized things for Omar Navarro because we could see that Omar Navarro wanted out. Well, Javi did jeopardize things to a certain degree because maybe if he didn't go after those FBI agents, Agent Miller probably wouldn't have ignored the deal Omar initially made. This led to him being publicly arrested on television. If I remember correctly, Omar and Javi did manage to work things out with the FBI beyond that point, but I'm sure they'll expound on it later on in more depth.
One thing for sure is that Javi has been an interesting character this season and had me on edge. I think the most memorable scene involving Javi is the very last scene with Darlene and Wyatt. For starters, their relationship kinda grosses me out. If Wyatt was a bit older, like maybe 35 or something, then fine. But it's pretty gross to see someone that looks about 20 with someone that's probably in their 60s or 70s.
But to each its own, I guess?
Anyhow, they come home and they are immediately confronted with Javi.
This wasn’t something I expected & I’m not sure why, to be honest. Like Javi has demonstrated multiple times that he is hot-headed and impatient so I figured if Javi didn’t take care of Darlene earlier, he wouldn’t bother.
But I was wrong.
Completely wrong.
He was waiting for the somewhat newly/old weds to come home. Immediately, Darlene told Wyatt to get Zeke. And I’m not sure if he could’ve or not, but he definitely could’ve run away. Like he was right by the door, nearly one foot in and one out, but Javi waved them both in. Darlene barely had time to finish her sentence before he popped her AND Wyatt a few seconds later.
Darlene, I expected because not only had she been warned, but she had a bad habit of piling on bodies. Including her late husband Jacob. To be honest, she kinda reminds me of Love (from You) a bit. At least in that regard. Anyway, Wyatt’s death caught me off guard because I viewed him as innocent to a degree. Not to mention that he was still pretty young. Incredibly young.
My heart dropped even further as if watching Javi shoot Darlene and Wyatt wasn't enough, when we saw Ruth making her way to their house. And as soon as she heard Zeke crying from outside, she increasingly became alarmed. She goes in, and I can only imagine her face when she sees her cousin’s corpse. Immediately, Ruth runs out and we see her hauling ass to Frank Jr. she had just had a conversation with him about Darlene and Wyatt’s, so it’s natural that she called him up.
I was kinda worried because I kinda felt like Ruth and Frank Jr were developing great and I didn’t want their relationship to be strained, but it quickly got cleared up because she luckily called him up to get his whereabouts & ask him why he didn’t leave Wyatt out of it.
Only to find out that Frank Jr had nothing to do with it at all.
Ruth whips her car around and heads to Marty’s after piecing two and two together & she confronts Marty. I’m guessing Ruth remembered when Marty and Wendy had her, Wyatt, and Darlene sit in the casino and warned them of the cartel. And she figured that the cartel had finally made good on their promise.
Which was right of her to assume.
But they were warned for a reason. If only they took that warning seriously, Wyatt may still be alive now.
Anyway, this then leads up to one of the most emotional scenes yet in Ozark. When we see Ruth is angry, hurt, and is wanting answers out of Marty and Wendy that they aren't willing to give. I understand this on Marty's and Wendy's end because this can complicate things for them. After they had just narrowly got of the mess with Omar and Javi after the stunt Agent Maya Miller pulled on TV. They had managed to make things right okay, as far as we can tell.
But again, Jonah did not care.
He told Ruth who was responsible.
And now Ruth has someone to unleash all of her anger on. I can only wonder if Javi has met his match & if he's prepared for what's to come.