Martin Byrde seems like your regular old, run of the mill financial advisor, but the Netflix Original drama series Ozark wastes little time allowing you that illusion. The audience is quickly shown how high the stakes are for Martin, played by Jason Bateman (Arrested Development, Horrible Bosses) as he scrambles to save his and his family’s lives. When the drug lord that Martin and his business partner are laundering money for finds out someone has stolen from him and he comes to take his revenge, Martin desperately throws out an idea of how he might be able to launder lots more money for the drug lord. Martin gets a second change when his idea is barely accepted, but he must pack up his family and leave for the Ozarks immediately.
News of moving from Chicago to the Ozarks is not thrilling to Martin’s wife Wendy, played by Laura Linney (The Big C, The Truman Show) and the Byrde’s two teenage kids, Charlotte and Jonah. But the family packs up and they each start trying to fit into their new home. Older Charlotte gets into trouble with the “bad” kids almost immediately and Jonah starts exhibiting strange behavior as he learns more about the men his father works for. And Wendy brings her own emotional baggage from a relationship back in Chicago that had ended very abruptly.
Martin runs into trouble just keeping the money, and laundering it might prove impossible, but he eventually works out a sort of partnership and deals with a couple businesses, but trouble follows his every activity and each time he seems to be out of the frying pan, he finds himself in the fire. Not only does he have the drug lord to answer to, but the business owners he’s investing in, his family, the mysterious hillbilly family the runs the Ozarks and the FBI agents following the trail.
There are many similarities between this show and Breaking Bad. Julia Garner from The Americans and Girls portrays Ruth Langmore, who is the Jessie Pinkman to Martin Byrde’s Walter White. Both stories are about family men who use the bad side of their profession to do questionable things and try to justify their actions by saying it’s all for their family. Ozark gets to be a bit naughtier because it’s Netflix, but while it’s a good story, I don’t think it’ll have the endurance for a run as long as BB’s. But it is definitely worth checking out for those into these types of dramas.
TL;DR: Netflix Breaks a little Badder, swaps meth for money laundering.
-Morgan@1063RL