Ozark

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