Ozark Season 2: The Web of Crime Grows Ever Wider

Ozark Season 2: The Web of Crime Grows Ever Wider

Note: This review will contain spoilers for Ozark season 1. If you haven’t seen the first season of this show, I highly implore you to do so before looking at this review. It’s a fantastic, suspenseful thriller that I would be remiss to purposefully spoil for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. If I had to describe it using pre-existing shows, it’s like Breaking Bad meets Twin Peaks (minus the supernatural elements of the latter). Go watch it if that sounds interesting to you. You have been warned.

One of the things I enjoy about Ozark is that it never seems to let up on the number of events that are happening throughout. It’s impressive to see how many different storylines can impact one another. The first season indicated how this was possible through the interweaving narratives of Ruth’s familial loyalty and Agent Roy Petty’s plan to catch Marty Byrde, as well as the conflits Marty finds himself between regarding the ruthless Snell family and his own cartel employers. The first season ended with a very literal bang, as a deal with finalized between Marty and the Snells to build a casino using funds outsourced from the cartel. An insulting comment by Marty’s liaison, Del, puts this deal up in the air, after Darlene Snell’s pride gets in the way of business: She kills him, blowing his face off with a shotgun. Even so, the deal has been made. Plans for it to go into effect don’t stop now that Del is—at least as far as the cartel is concerned—missing. So it’s up to Marty to juggle the relationship between the cartel and the Snells from here on in.

Which is where the second season of Ozark begins. After having finalized the casino deal between the cartel and the Snells, Marty must set to work funding the operation while also laundering $50 million that was given to him at the end of the previous season. At the same time, though, Agent Petty has not stopped his crusade against Marty and his family, deciding to use as many avenues as he possibly can in order to use Marty as a tool to take down the entire Navarro Cartel. This proves a larger danger as the season progresses, especially after one of Marty’s old business partners—Rachel, who had previously owned a business he invested in called the Blue Cat Lodge—returns after having stolen bags of cartel money from where Marty was storing it. If all of this sounds like a lot, that’s because it is, and that doesn’t even touch on all the insane plotlines that play out during the season’s 10-hour runtime.

Season two manages to maintain the same level of quality as the first season, though the stakes become larger as the conspiracy surrounding Marty’s involvement with the cartel grows. New players include influential politician Charles Wilkes who the Byrdes recruit in an attempt to get approval of their casino, Kansas City Mafia head Frank Cosgrove whose influences play a background roll throughout the season, and Helen Pierce, a Chicago-based attorney who becomes Marty’s new connection to the cartel after Del’s death. Each of these characters alongside returnees from the previous season play a crucial role in the overarching story of the show. While it’s clear that the presence of some characters acts more as setup for the upcoming second half of the series, their presences are nonetheless necessary for what happens in this season.

Because while this season maintains many of the qualities that made the first season so great—the unending edginess, the non-stop story beats, and the fantastic character writing that blends seamlessly with everyone’s perfect performances—it’s clear that this season is focused more on buildup for the next season. As such, it creates a sense of intrigue that feels quite different from the previous season’s. Instead of constant tension surrounding the money Marty has to launder followed by the problem of the Snells becoming more tangible in the finale, this season has a singular goal that the family is trying to achieve: Get the casino built and operational so the money laundering can essentially take care of itself. The fact that this scheme takes ten episodes to build to its thrilling conclusion isn’t what this season focuses on, though. Rather, there is an increased emphasis on where each of the characters are heading by season’s end. Everyone’s story has a more focused path than before, the connective tissue of which grows stronger with every episode—most especially by mid-season. This slow buildup to what might be a very climactic third season was unexpected but well worth watching, as it helped to develop everything about Ozark in a much broader, more conspiratorial way.

That deepening conspiracy and involvement of multiple characters is what makes this season feel so alive. The events of the previous season all come back to haunt people in some form, sometimes changing characters for the better or setting others on a path of total self-destruction. It’s interesting to watch play out as the decisions of every character impact the rest of the cast in such an intriguing, domino-like fashion. The introduction of new characters and further development of previously-established conflicts works in tandem with this, creating an ever-connected web of lives that have been forever changed by Marty Byrde’s laundering scheme. It gets to the point where it feels less grandiose as a row of dominos falling over and more like the butterfly effect. Even the little things that happen because major reasons for what transpires. And I’m excited to see just what comes next.

Ozark’s second season is just as good as its first. There’s not much to say here that wouldn’t feel like repetition when compared to my review of the first season. If you enjoyed season 1 then season 2 will be just as dark, anxious, and character-driven as the previous one. I’m very much looking forward to the third season as there are sure to be a multitude of changes to how the show progresses. A review for that will be up in two weeks. For now, the first two seasons of this show get the highest recommendation from me. The series is on Netflix if anything I’ve said about it piques your interest.

***

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