Ozark

Yeah, that was great. Deep somewhere in the Ozarks, no less.

also shows how completely obvious "hey, we could have some of our employees run the merch booth.." and other questions are to anyone who has any idea about what money laundering looks like

Episode 5: the guy Wendy goes to about intentionally losing money at the casino in exchange for a 6% kickback--I have no recollection whatsoever of who he is. Zero.

Sue the therapist is a great character, so is the guy Wendy keeps calling, Damian Young from House of Cards.

Who’s watchin OZARK..? I just started. This MFs got serious PROBLEMS. But he can Talk his Fn ass off!

— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) April 2, 2020

Sue the therapist rolling up Goodfellas-style in her flashy new sports car killed me. "Mar-ty...trust the process."

So long, Sue.

Helen Pierce is scary. (Ben's commitment was a bit much, though.)

The episode that starts with Ben's monologue in the taxi and ends him in the restaurant--first episode I didn't like at all. He was a great addition early on, by this point he's a simpering annoyance who gets way too much screen time. I wanted Mike Ehrmantraut to show up and say "Shut up, Ben" before plugging him.

"ends with him"

so what you're saying is his plot arc is becoming clear

Unfortunate spoiler typo...

For what it's worth--I'm sure you did too--it was easy to guess where the episode was heading halfway through in the light of how they present Wendy this season. She's well into Lady Macbeth territory by now.

"She wants me to meet her mom."

That ending to episode 10 was incredible.

I didn't even realize that was the season closer till I went to read up on it now...

I liked s3, which I didn't expect as I really didn't like the first series. The writing isn't great but it's not awful. I recently tried to watch the first series of Mexico Narcos and it was appalling, such cornball no-nuance 80s soap opera with a big budget For Blokes trash.

So now I'm looking for something else to fill that Sopranos-style hole - latest series of Mr Robot is waiting but I just know I'll spend the first 3 or 4 episodes utterly clueless as to what is going on (why can't production companies cobble together a 10 minute recap at the start of each new season? WHY?). S3 and 4 of Billions is there but I get the feeling it's going to take a turn for the ludicrous.

What else is there that I've missed? I'm waiting until next week before I binge the latest Better Call Saul, but have I missed any great well-written HBO/Netflix dramas in the crimey non-fantasy realm?

Highly recommend the second season of Fargo--which, except for one connection (fascinating but not crucial) can be watched as a standalone, independent of the first season.

S1 of The Sinner is good. Unbelievable is a fine one and doner.

Would like to anti-recommend Fargo.

oh, i like all seasons of Fargo.

Will check The Sinner, thank you. Loved all of Fargo, really loved it

I don't know if it's a consequence of being stuck inside so much but life on the Redneck Riviera seems pretty ideal.

I've liked the first three episodes enough that I expect I'll be finished in a few days. I will say that I'm surprised by Jason Bateman's direction (can't remember if he directed episodes previous to this season)--quite solid.

He directed quite a few episodes of The Outsider and they were good too

Good news (both that it's been renewed and that it's the final season so won't drag on and should hopefully have resolution)

Netflix's Ozark will return for a fourth and final season, split into two parts. https://t.co/IRiVnYp8OQ pic.twitter.com/WkXr1JxlBt

— IGN (@IGN) June 30, 2020

Cool. This is a good show

I wish they had cast someone more interesting as Wendy

Ruth makes it all worthwhile though

You don’t like Laura Linney?

wtf Laura Linney was so good

I don't like some of the contortions they take her character through, but Linney herself, I always like her.

ffs Ruth is a yank from NY

It took me, at least, four bags of cool ranch Ds, and 2 bags of popcorn and one pint of mint chip to make it through season 2, are you serious there’s another season of this shit

This show is terrible but I can’t stop watching
Season 3 romantic hookups are so dumb
Laura linneys brother just stepped in from a season 3 perfect strangers episode

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2020 season is nominated in the 2020 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2020 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 29, 2021

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

S4 of my junkiest favourite show is up on Netflix now...will have to rewatch that incredible ending to S3 first.

!

Forgot this was tonight!

Re-watched the final episode of S3, but I still had lots of trouble remembering connections in the opening episode of the new season. It's been two years at least--can't remember the significance of Wendy's brother, why he had to be killed, the arrangement between Marty and the FBI agent, why the daughter's so on board all of a sudden (as the son reminded me, she once sued to get out of the family), etc. Javi seems to have wandered over from Better Call Saul--he's so Lalo Salamanca.

Always intrigued the way series that start out with virtually no pop music often seem to give in at a certain point and go semi-Scorsese: Sam Cooke, A Tribe Called Quest, Sister Nancy's "Bam Bam" (which I feel like I know but can't really place how), and--mercifully brief, so I'll give it a pass--the Ides of March's "Vehicle."

Plastic Bertrand!

This season is really not great so far (I'm 3 episodes in). The private eye guy is the latest in the show's string of "how long will this annoying asshole be around before someone shoots him" characters. I do like the addition of Richard Thomas to the cast, as he's very good at playing scary guys who are underestimated until it's too late.

Is Thomas new? I couldn't remember him from previous seasons...such a good actor the past few years.

The thing I find so bizarre about the new season is the two kids. The daughter's about-face is practically Michael Corleone-level (not to mention the ongoing evolution of evil crime lord Laura Linney), while suddenly the son is a central character. And also...well, just about everything is absurd, including Jason Bateman's robotic detachment from it all. And, in spite of all that, or because of all that, I still find it compelling.

Yeah, this season is weird. The daughter's about-face is def odd, but she's also been pretty marginalized as a character at this point, she's not really bringing much beyond delivering messages for the Byrdes without any agency of her own. It also feels like the already not always subtle Breaking Bad comparisons are being made even more blindingly obvious, what with the larger presence of the cartel players, the Lydia cipher working for a huge corporation with shady connections and, not least, Wendy's Walter White moment when she (apparently, I've not yet seen episode 6) watches Darlene die without intervening).

Feel like Ruth Langmore could give Logan Roy a run for his money in artistry in swearing.

She says something like "What the actual fucking fuck, Marty?" in E4. One guy I like is Wendy's behind-the-scenes political operative; the same guy played a behind-the-scenes tech operative in House of Cards. Both characters are shadowy and reptilian and seem to just appear out of nowhere.

Yeah, he's good.

Ruth will never top "I don't know shit about fuck", but she's been good this season.

Yeah, he's good.

have always liked him popping up in things since his roles in a couple early hal hartley films. weird-good presence.

Interesting how the use of music has evolved in this show, from Bob Seger/REO SPeedwagon to Plastic Bertrand/Tribe Called Quest. With shows like this I find myself less interested in predicting the final scene than guessing what song will soundtrack it.

Anyone else watching with the captions on? At the start of every scene: "[insects chirring]." A lot of chirring going on in the Ozarks.

Finished up last night. I get the feeling they're out of ideas and just trying to get to the finish line. New plot twists pretty much amount to "kill someone" every time.

Kinda how I feel about Westworld. New plot twists = "was a robot all along."

I like how in the current season the various overlaps in the Byrde/Cartel/Snell/FBI circles are brought to the fore, family turning on family, etc. Very King Lear.

What the actual fucking fuck, Henry?

(Sorry, you're right--just wanted to say that to someone.)

Wish someone would say that to me from time to time - really wakes you up!

Yeah I don't know about this season - the shifting circumstances and alliances became so convoluted that often all sense of the stakes were lost. Also I absolutely loved Julia Garner previously, but she sometimes tipped over into overacting in this one, particularly in the final ep. I still smashed the whole thing in under a week, mind.

Forgot this still had a half-season to go--resumes Friday.

I'm generally hyper-attentive to how pop music is used in movies and on TV, but for some reason I didn't make mention of this above--ending of season 2, fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZGfbmHapLw

epic show

Laura Linney

Love when she swears, she is the best swearer

I looked into "Drip Drop," the Dion song in the clip above (I have a Belmonts compilation, but not one covering Dion's solo work, so it was new to me). It's a Drifters cover--that is on a compilation I have, but it's not anything I took notice of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIquZiOho14

Dion's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew22aJV3iNU

It doesn't usually work this way, but I like Dion's version better.

agreed that Laura can swear with the best of em

I assumed you meant Ruth "Dice" Langmore.

I wrote a bit about her above, but Sue the therapist ("She was a good listener"--Nelson) has got to be one of the funniest-weirdest incidental characters I can think of in a series like this. Marty's expression here says it all.

https://i.postimg.cc/FHprZ2S2/sue.jpg

A scene, by the way, that basically reprises this one from Goodfellas.

https://i.postimg.cc/8P1XSn0C/coat.jpg

“What’d I tell you, huh? What did I say?”

Marty: What's this?

Sue: It's a car.

Marty: It's a Transformer, and I spoke to you about conspicuous spending. Send this back.

Sue: Now, see, Marty, that's your problem.

Checked above, and my reaction to S3 was same as the first time: really strong through the first eight or nine episodes, then Ben, Wendy's brother, turns into a basket case and the show stops dead (not recovering until the incredible last scene). Ben's monologue in the cab is interminable and really over-the-top in mannered acting.

Something I find implausible (Ozark is a very realistic show, and I found something implausible): that this powerful, terrifying drug cartel is so preoccupied with the comings and goings of the Byrde family.

Another pop song I didn't mention first time around--weird, because it's one of my faovurite songs ever. (Wendy: "This song sucks, by the way"--and Laura Linney directed the episode!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cbaa8t5jrk

Ozark is the third series where I've picked up on a recurring line that turns up again and again. In Friday Night Lights it's "all right," which can mean a whole bunch of different things depending upon context (skepticism, impatience to end the conversation, etc.) In Mad Men it's "That's true," usually said with a wry smile--a counter to all the stuff people say in Mad Men that isn't true. In Ozark it's not words but "hmmmn." Often skeptical or sarcastic, sometimes intrigued, sometimes just processing.

I enjoy this show but it must be maximum blue filter

This show is absolutely bonkers

… and a few months after finishing, I have no idea what to think about the experience of having watched it. It’s just a black hole in a deeper, emptier way than the actual “prestige TV” shows I’ve watched.

Would be interested to hear more. For me, it was definitely going after the crazier aspects of Breaking Bad, but without any real attempt at something more artistic, something that left behind the sensationalism and aspired to something more. (Which BB did, I believe.) It was five seasons of the whole family getting pulled deeper and deeper into the slime pit, so that by the time it ends, everything has been flipped on its head and Jason Bateman is actually about the closest thing there is to a voice of reason. (Or maybe Ruth.)

I think I’ve watched BB up to the middle or end of the second season before tapping out. (I know, I know - that’s when it’s supposed to get exciting, right?)

One thing Ozark had going for it l, which was much appreciated: it was too harried to brood. The characters had shit to do - so there was little time to waste, on to the next scam or setup. BB has too much of that for my liking, and it was a drag, and I had to force myself to watch as long as I did (and I only did so because a loved one is obsessed with BB).

Watching BB was stressful and unpleasant in a way that wasn’t fun - Jesse was comic relief, and it’s not as though TV show characters need to be likeable, but I kinda hated everyone so much (and how they were filmed) that the notion of seeing the series through to the end became unbearable

But, back to Ozark -

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Clemenza - if anything, it’s about the banality of evil. And it ended more or less when it should’ve, because in the reality of the narrative, this family will never leave this area. They’ll just sink deeper and deeper into what they’re doing, amass more power, ruin more lives.

As I've said elsewhere, I'm what I believe is a minority now, someone who still likes Breaking Bad better than Better Call Saul. If you ever find the time, I'd give it another go. Some bumps for sure, but at it's best, I think it had moments of brilliance that haven't lost anything.

Ozark had some memorable moments too--a few episode closers that I'm sure I posted about above--but they were all sensation, the most obvious being the finale of S3. I don't know if they ever, for a second, has designs on prestige, which did save the show from any pretensions, for sure.

My BB watching was 2023/2024 - I wonder how I’d have felt about it closer to real time.