Ozark Season 1 Review

Ozark was an interesting Netflix original that provided a dark story to back it. Things open with a duo of financial advisors from Chicago and gives a small look at their lives. From there everything takes a dark turn once a member of the cartel discovers that someone has been stealing. Almost everyone dies except for Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) who was successfully able to talk them out of it with a new business opportunity. This chat ends with him heading to the Missouri Ozarks with his family. It's nothing like their past life and the first season deals with the transition to the new location. It takes place over a number of months and takes many twists along the way.

The main focus is figuring out a way to launder enough to meet demands and it was rather interesting to see how it all worked out. That being said, the episodes felt rather long at times and were stretched out. The series could have easily delivered more tense scenes if things moved along quicker. I also felt that sometimes issues became too convoluted and that nothing would go right. There's an expectation that things won't go well, but at times it was just too much.



The look of the series was dark in design though pleasing to watch. The locations were unique and I enjoyed the wide range of supporting characters. For Bateman's role I was mixed in thoughts as I felt as though sometimes things were supposed to be comedic despite the situation being very dark. The wife Wendy (Laura Linney) was also alright, but aside from that everyone else was solid. I'll give a mention for Julia Garner's "Ruth" and Skylar Gaertner's "Jonah" as both were excellent. The episodes were intriguing for the most part and at the start I felt like I was hooked. About halfway through that changed as too much was going on and if there was a smaller focus for episodes or the season things would have been smoother. There was also a flashback episode that didn't really add anything I cared to know and was very tempted to just fast forward.

The Conclusion

Ozark was fine, it definitely wasn't excellent though an alright watch. Some portions of it dragged on forever, but it had an interesting way of displaying the art of money laundering. I also loved how everyone became slightly more sinister as things progressed while still having logic in decisions. There was some calculation to things despite obstacles always appearing along the way and things were only rushed when the situation called for it. I found Ozark to be mostly enjoyable despite some pacing issues and occasionally overstuffing what was going on.

Review for Ozark at Home with Streamed Viewing
Screening was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 6.7