Ozark

I'm halfway through the second season. It's pretty meh. Ruth is the only good character left.

By the way, I know I shouldn't be using "hillbilly"--what is the more acceptable term right now (I honestly don't know--it's not a big issue in Canada)? One of the show's strengths, actually, is that the Ozark locals are anything but what the stereotype is (and how Bateman treats them, albeit solicitously)--Ruth Langmore and the Snells play Bateman more than he plays them, and Wyatt Langmore seems like more of an authentic intellectual than Bateman's daughter.

I think because I watched the new Arrested Development recently, I'm kind of over Bateman's schtick (who I used to like as an actor) and even think Laura Linney is bad this season. I want to bail on the second season. I dunno yet. I might also be mad that they killed off the one other interesting character.

I thought Linney was great as always the first season; also liked the FBI agent, their downstairs neighbor, Ruth, Wyatt, and Rachel (Jordana Spiro--she reminds me of Pamela Reed). And the son fits in well with all the odd, spacey kids his age that have populated movies and TV the past couple of decades: The Ice Storm, The Squid & the Whale, Glen Bishop from Mad Men, there are a bunch of them.

I liked Jordana Spiro in that weird show she used to be on (My Boys?), but she is also grating Season 2.

why is the cinematography all SO DARK tho. can’t watch this in the day time

You wanted a better look at Bateman Butt?

Yerac: felt it starting to slip away in the second episode. Wendy's extortion of the senator's husband was too hokey even for House of Cards, and when Rachel reappears, she's someone who barely resembles her former self (with no indication in the first season that any of this was within her--she seemed quite solid). Something that had to happen sooner or later in season 1: the Ozark Mountain Daredevils on the soundtrack.

Yeah, when Rachel showed up I was like "when did that happen?" I think we are on episode 5 right now. You like the FBI guy, I find him annoying too. Why am I watching this show!?!

This looked so ugly that I didn't make it past the first episode.

I stuck with it, and while I could fill a few screens with implausibilities and problems--the biggest, for me, being that it seemed at times like the same endless argument between Bateman and Linney, each one taking turns one-upping the other--I'm glad I did. The performances stayed generally strong, though the FBI guy lapsed into a cartoon villain, Julia Garner went over-the-top occasionally, and I probably had more tolerance for Bateman than almost anybody else would. Prediction, not a spoiler: the Helen Mirren-like lawyer who is forever making reference to her shadowy client actually is the cartel (she was sinister at first--she's less good the more they try to soften her). I was wondering if there was going to be a third season; there is.

Not sure, but I think the first movie or TV show I've ever seen that used "Wichita Lineman." Fantastically, of course.

The lawyer was also on season 2 of Jessica Jones as more or less the same type of character. It's weird, I assumed they have used Wichita Lineman a lot in shows/movies but I can't think of any off the top of my head. So many versions probably make me think that.

I'm 3 eps into this and kinda debating whether or not to continue...indeed there are some intriguing & fun parts but it's kind of difficult to get past the overt similarities to Breaking Bad and moments like, y'know, the part where Bateman is about to kill himself, but his son just so happens to mention the Blue Cat Lodge, and how nobody goes there, blah blah blah, and he just happens to be at a crossroads, and look there's the Blue Cat Lodge...not to mention the gay FBI agent subplot...not to mention the lack of any interesting characters whatsoever (all I can see is Michael Bluth)...but still...its kinda alright? Does this show get better?

nah not really
every episode I debate the same

it gets worse as it goes on, watch something else imo

I find it so hard to go back to these shows 18 months later (and I'm not going to rewatch the first two seasons). Season 3's up now; going into the first episode, all I really remembered was that Bateman and his family slithered out of some calamitous situation, and they decided to stay in the Ozarks and run the riverboat casino. So I'm watching, and I remember the family and Ruth and Darlene, but lots of people are missing: the old man who lived with them, the preacher, the gay FBI agent, Darlene's husband, etc. I remember Darlene's husband getting killed, and I think the old man died of natural causes, the others, I draw a blank. And I had no idea what was happening at the end of the first episode, as the Radiohead song played.

I came to this show late, so only watched seasons 1 and 2 a couple of months ago. Watched the season 3 premiere last night and enjoyed it basically just enough to keep going.

I have a feeling I will end up watching season three now. Damn you lockdown !

Ok. I think this show got laughably bad... But it won so many awards for the last season!

The lead actors probably deserve awards for pulling it all off with a straight face, but that is a surprise. Like unperson, I enjoy it in spite of itself.

Second episode was good!

That pre-credit sequence was just wow (and trying to figure out how it connected to anything just added to it). Wendy's brother looks like a great character. Laura Linney's "Okay" when he said Ruth was cute was priceless.

I'm still trying to piece together stuff I've forgotten. "Zeke? Oh yeah, I think remember something about that..." "Uh, Ruth and Helen clearly know each other..." I don't quite remember Ruth being quite so Andrew Dice Clay-ish the first two seasons.

It helps, as always, to turn your brain off. Wendy's scheme at the end is quite preposterous.

It's quite important that I stop overusing certain words.

I think my season three summary would be: Everyone's life gets progressively worse!

You watched the whole thing already?

No comment

(Yes)

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.

The plot with Wendy's brother becomes the source of much stress once you find out what's really going on

Agreed, his direction was good

Ben reminds me of Jason Lee in Almost Famous. The REO Speedwagon stuff in episode 3 cracked me up. "Are there any dentists out there?!"--right out of a Simpsons episode. The metal torture in episode 4 was a nice reference back to Noriega. Didn't find the scene in episode 4 where Maya visits Wendy at home all that credible (I mean even within the incredible world of the show). She's sharp enough that surely she must know Wendy's deeply involved in everything.

One of the first concerts I saw as a kid was REO Speedwagon at a large outdoor event in 1991!

They might have had one of the shortest "few minor hits transitioning to playing primarily community events and conferences" careers.

I cracked up at "Hey, this guy is wondering if we could do some money laundering.." as if it was a normal ask for their booking

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

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.

She’s back

I've only watched the first episode, so maybe your comment looks ahead; I kept waiting for Helen to show up, with an explanation that her entire death was staged.

One thing I liked in a typically meandering episode (another long testimonial to how awful the Byrdes are--there's one every episode) was the scene where Ruth talked about Nas with the hip-hop guy she spotted in the restaurant.

One thing I liked in a typically meandering episode (another long testimonial to how awful the Byrdes are--there's one every episode) was the scene where Ruth talked about Nas with the hip-hop guy she spotted in the restaurant.

That scene felt super cringey to me. (That was Killer Mike from Run The Jewels, btw.) I didn't really like the use of pretty much the entire Illmatic album in that episode either. Although it's rare that a character in any TV show is shown having specific taste in music.

Missed that that was Killer Mike. Anyway, I liked it--I thought the two questions Ruth asked were pretty interesting.

Still on the fence if s4 is worth my time

I'm not even sure if S1/2/3 were worth my time, but I'm still here.

Line I wish they'd included --

Killer Mike to Ruth: "You really have to cut down on the profanity."

Lol Clemenza.

Finished it, both definitely not worth anyones time but also I enjoyed watching this? Like eating KFC, I know its bad before/during/after eating, but damn I’d probably do it all again.

Not stoked on the ending. Maybe I was too inattentive but I didn’t see the show pushing the “power wins everything” card harder than the “power will destroy you” card. To have the former be the key message in the last scene felt like an about face. Also, any illusion of Marty possessing humanity is destroyed, and that illusion was still very much real until that last scene. Disappointing, depressing, and (hopefully) distant from the truth of things.

Obviously the truth of things involves the Byrde story as presented to this point (power does cover a multitude of sins), but my understanding is that Byrde-like power always ends in immense failure/pain/loss (death comes for all, humbling the powerful more). Would have liked the show to acknowledge this rather than give the Byrde’s a victory lap and pat on the back.

The Killer Mike scene was Ruth daydreaming, right? Like (VERY MINOR SPOILER) the two coyotes she saw in the rv mirror right after, which then disappeared when she got out?

Interesting, hadn't even considered that. They did make it clear that the coyotes were fantasized, but I guess it's possible.

they draw the line at election fraud! lol

I was thinking today that the only time I've seen a TV show use a single artist the way Nas was used in E8 is a great Freaks and Geeks episode that had three or four different Who songs.

I don't mind what they were going for with the ending from a character perspective honestly, but I felt that the events themselves were a bit anticlimactic. As did many I guess. Something even old fashioned about Ruth's final scene in particular, with Camila walking out from behind a random tree and Ruth being all "whelp the jigs up, ya caught me fair and square, just answer me this see, how did you find out whodunit?". I feel like if they had a draft of the script where Ruth gets into something more intense regarding Camilla... a chase or a fight or something etc. that would trigger shit hitting the fan this would have been a better payoff. As the party was getting into full swing and everything was going well and they were all talking optimistically about the future, it felt as if they were setting things up, overtly telegraphing even, an inevitable shit-fan-hitting. The fact that everything held together (aside from the Langmore curse delivering its ultimate punishment) seemed like the writer's way of "subverting expectations" or something?

Finally finished. A lot of the time, as often happens with me in S4s and beyond lately, I'd lost the plot. Things like the Foundation, or the urgency near the end of laundering money through--and only through--the casino, these things had long since lost meaning.

One good thing: in the final episode, I actually cared about the fate of Ruth. In this big convoluted mess, there was a character I cared about. And I liked "They Reminisce Over You" in the car just before she got to where she was going. How I thought that'd end: Camila admires that Ruth did the right thing by her family, and lets her go, maybe even enlists her for the cartel. I was looking for a storybook cartel ending--that's how I think.

As for the actual ending, standard Godfather stuff. It was okay

Wendy got off one great line to that guy Sam (the purpose of whom I never quite figured out): "I'm sure she'll be willing to teach you a lot of things."

The ending was, fine, whatever. I've spent time with worse shows and Ruth was a joy to watch to the end.

I only have really two complaints about it:
1. The Camila/Ruth resolution was fine but way, way, way too rushed. Oh look, here's Clare Shaw to conveniently spill the beans at the most opportune moment!

2. Worse for me was the whole framing of the Byrde's car wreck. I get that they were going for a Gilligan-verse style flash forward thing, but holy shit was that pointless. Build up to a car crash that everyone walks away from without a scratch and is never referenced again, not even by the next scene, and had absolutely zero narrative implications. Just terrible and really soured me on the finale.

Shit! Why did that not work? Mods?

You need individual spoiler tags for each paragraph.

I watched s3 and the first half of this season + the finale and my primary takeaway from the show is that everyone is awful, everyone is bad and not part of your team

Glad you mentioned the car wreck--yes, totally pointless. (Had actually forgotten all about it by the time it happened.)

Everyone's behavior is so arbitrary and in service of generating more misery, it's a somewhat fascinating exercise in how much contempt you are willing to endure from your entertainment

And--basically the same point--too cynical by half: make sure that the two characters who seemed decent, Ruth and the detective, get punished, and use all the bad people in service of the Godfather ending (Wendy's last line + Jonah = Michael Corleone).

lol this last season (and especially the last half of it) was such a slog, I had to force myself to watch an episode every couple of days just to get it over with. clemenza OTM that all of the big plot points lost all meaning and it just felt like an arbitrary series of events that I could not invest anything in no matter how hard I tried. I could be mistaken but I feel like Wendy actually started out as a pretty smart and crafty Claire Underwood type in the first season or 2 but imo her feud w Jonah was a real shark-jumping moment for me, she made soooo many stupid rash impulse decisions at odds w like any sort of long-term goal achievement. also watching her turn on her like stammery charismatic manipulator voice with ppl grew v v tiresome. the final scene was incredibly disappointing, I truly wished the Byrdes had just fuckin died tbh, or at least some of them. For a second I actually thought they'd be daring enough to go there, shame on me.

I thought Wendy early on was a lot like Skyler in the first two or three seasons of Breaking Bad: she seemed to be rational and moral, trying to hold the family together in the face of stuff she was trying to figure out. Skyler wavered some for the rest of the show's run; Wendy just got silly.

Rewatching--insane comfort viewing...Missed this the first time around; S2, E6, played by Rachel off a jukebox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj71uB2j9gE

Can't seem to pin down the date--sometime between '66 to '73 is the best I can do (Bear Family compilation).

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