The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Ozark’ Season 4 Part 1, Episodes 5-7

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Joanna and Van return give their thoughts on episodes 5 through 7 of the fourth and final season of ‘Ozark.' They also discuss where they would like to see the show go in its final episodes. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Watch is the latest and the greatest in pop culture from best friends Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald. Join them as they discuss TV, movies, music, and much more. Check out The Watch on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson. Join for the third and final time for now to talk about Ozark. Part one final season. It's Van Latham.

Hi, Hi, Van. How are you? I'm well. How are you, Joe? Let's do it. We are here to talk about. the final three episodes of part one of the final season. So that is Ellie, Sangres Soretto, which is directed by Robin Wright, as we mentioned,

and Sanctified directed by Robin Wright. So double Robin Wright to close out the season. So big things happen here, and now we have to wait. We don't know how long for part two. Van, do you want to talk about why you called me at the end? of watching these episodes. So I'll set the scene for you real quick. Sitting down, you know, the deal with Omar Navarro has gone bad.

Maya messed it up. I hate it. But it's true to her character. That's a tough writer's wrong way. We have to have Maya blow this whole thing up. You know what I mean? But it's true to our character. We're sitting down and Marty Bird, of course, comes with an idea.

We're going to bring, put Javier in, whatever. We're going to get to all of that. and they supposedly get it done. And I'm looking around, I'm like, what's going to mess this up? There's got to be a loose thread here. What's going to happen? And I'm like, are they going to kill a bird here?

But then I didn't even realize, like I told you before, that we had seen the car crash at the beginning, but I'm like, what's going to happen here? How is this going to get messed up? Then Darlene and Wyatt come back from their wedding, they come into the house and Javvy's there. And I'm thinking, okay, well, that's the end of it. You know, Darlene's dead.

And then as soon as I say that, I'm like, he's going to kill Darlene. And Kaliga goes, he's going to kill both of them. He's not going to leave somebody that can just say. And I'm like, and I screamed out. Oh, my God! And if you don't believe me, she could come in here. I screamed out when he put one in Wyat's head. Oh my God.

And I called you immediately to make sure you had seen this because this is one of the saddest deaths that I've seen on television in a long time. It's not on the level of a killing Wallace in season one of the wire in the wire. It's not on that level, but it's something right below that. You know what I mean? I think it's maybe even, I don't know, I don't want to say worse, but here's what I'll say. Oh, really? When Harvey puts the bullet in Wyatt's head, he says, and you, whoever you are. And you, whoever you are, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. And that's the twist of the knife, right? It's like, it's not anything that Wyatt ever did in his life. It was just him being there. And what's also true is that, like, we felt like. like why it was so close to getting, like so close to leaving with Ruth, right? Well, that's the same thing with Wallace.

Remember, Wallace was out. Wallace came back in. He almost made it out, which is the real sad thing with characters like this who are caught up in something, but you can tell there's something better to them. It's just, it was right up under there for me, why getting it?

Let me read this a little bit from this interview that the showrunner did with my old colleague, Julie Miller, any fair. He said, I was pretty sure Darlene would die because as reckless as she is, it seemed like something it was going to give. But when we went to season four, I was like, there's no chance why it's dying. I'm not going to let Wyatt have an unhappy ending. And then, as the story broke, it's just the way the story turned. As you start plotting out fake lives that could take unexpected turns, it really was a product of wanting to lay Ruth as low as he could and set her on a path of possible destruction. It's like in her head, I need revenge, but that revenge might destroy me, which is worth more, surviving worth more, or getting the revenge. more worth it, what's going to happen? It was the only thing that could lay her that low, especially after having lost Ben. It's the only thing that could have been more devastating for Ruth. What his death did for us is left Ruth alone.

Suddenly, Wyatt is gone. Cades gone. Russ and Boyd are gone. And that's basically because the birds showed up. Wyatt was the thing she cared about most in the world. So it was really a way to pull Ruth to the bottom. And then figure out what happens from there. So I want to talk about Ben versus Wyatt in terms of storytelling.

I thought Ben's death, of course, was really powerful at the end of season three. But when you go back and do a season three rewatch, knowing where that's headed, I do get a little, you can start to see the strings a little of a character who shows up for one season, and they know from the start

they're going to kill him at the end of the season, and so they work all season to get you to a place where you care. And so you can't have a feel like a little manipulated when Ben shows up and like every scene is engineered so that you're going to, for maximum devastation when he goes. Wyatt was a living breathing throughout the whole series character,

and it's the kind of death. I mean, Wallace died at the beginning of the wire, so it's not like, but the wire is never fearless, fearless show. But this is really kind of an endgame kind of death, Wyatt here. This is how you know you're at the end of a series. And shocking but inevitable and really upsetting. Yeah, so there's a difference to the mechanism, right?

So Wallace's death is the death of innocence. Wythe's death is the death of almost like consistency, like consistent good. Wallace, for all we know, might have gone on to become one of the fiercest soldiers in West Baltimore. He had chosen the life by that point, right? But he had just done too much to be able to stay in it clean. So by the time, two, three years from now, from then, Wallace might have been Bodie. And even when Bodie died, I was still destroyed, by the way.

But Wallace might have been Bodie. Wyatt made his choice. He made his choice to be good. Now, he was in the drug game or whatever with her, but only out of love. Almost everything he did in this show was out of love. Like, one of the only characters you could say that about in any show. Everything he did was out of love. He liked a girl.

He would do something. He liked this. Everything he did was benevolent in a way. He never was trying to want up anyone. It didn't seem like I can't remember why it ever running a scheme. Wyatt was just like a guy who was like all feeling, all whatever. And he was growing through that, right? He had grown to a point to where he was loving an unlovable character.

To be honest with you. Yeah. And that potential that like, you know, in a story like this, there's always that get out potential. And his had to do with like his intelligence and bookishness, right? He's always, you always seem reading. And Ruth talks about you go back to college. Like this is, this is what he was on the path for. He was like the smart bookish kid who was going to go to college.

And then he just got yanked back into all of this. And I think what's true, this is going to skip to a thing that I want to talk about at the end, but I'm too excited to talk about it. Now, in this final episode, Ruth goes to visit a friend of her mom's played by Ali Stroker, Charles Ann or Chuck, right? and she goes and gets all these seeds. And this is her wedding gift for Wyatt. And she says in the card, like, so you can plant some roots.

And it feels like, especially since they've decided to like ignore, mostly ignore that other cousin, the redheaded one, that they like barely use anymore. Wyatt is like Ruth's last root, right? And it's snapped. And she's untethered now. And we don't know what's going to happen. We're really worried about her.

And I thought it was interesting to have that, that scene with the flowers, with the seeds that she gets, talking about her mom and talking about roots and talking about a foundation. And then it cuts over to flashback to Marty in past. And when he's sort of getting in with his old business partner, the guy who got him all of this in the first place, he's planting tomatoes in his backyard back in Chicago. And I thought that was like a really interesting little peril they were doing.

And like Marty and Ruth are both people who like are interested in grounding a family in planting seeds and making a foundation. And this life that they're sucked into is sort of snapping all those roots out from under them. And the question in the final season is will Ruth's rootlessness, like will that lead to her destruction? Is she going to do something that she can't come back from? Or, you know, in the end, she's got that baby in the car. She's got Zeke, which is the reason that why it wouldn't go with her was Zeke, right? Is she going to build her own root system with this baby and walk away? Like, that's what I want.

I want Ruth to choose instead of whatever vengeance she feels like she needs. I want her to take the baby and walk away and just, like, choose to start her own family. What do you think? What kind of show are we watching here? I think Ruth is like a weird Virgin Mary character. Interesting. Like to where the baby is the Messiah of the Langmore's. It's not even a Langmore.

It's from something outside of the Langmore's. The baby has, like that kid could grow up a prep school kid in Indiana and not know any of this ever went on. You know, and that's like the thing with children. They don't have to be corrupted by your life. They very often are, almost always. but they don't have to be corrupted by the life that you had. Think about what Zeke has already been through and is completely oblivious to, right? And if there's a point where Ruth has to choose,

cleaning up the threads of her old life violently, and then basically throwing Zeke to the wolves, that'll be the defining choice that she'll have to make as a character. Because think about it, all the lambs are gone, except for three, right? Like, all of the Langmore's are gone. In a way, and she hasn't seen it yet, and she will never see it because Wyatt,

she loved him too much. But in a way, Ruth is free. She's free from all, she's free from what it meant to be a lame more, what the Langmore name had on it in that town. She's got probably some money saved up somewhere. in a way, the last thing that was keeping her there and keeping her from forgetting from forgetting everyone and everything that she knew and moving on,

and leaving, which is what she wanted to do anyway, it's gone. She would have never negotiated it where she had to lose wife for it, ever, ever. Nobody would. But these are often the choices that are right in front of you when you come from a dysfunctional background. Sometimes, not sometimes, you never get out clean. You never get out clean. You know, so the question is, like, we talked a lot about the Breaking Bad comparison that the show lives under the shadow of. And spoilers for the end of Breaking Bad coming up right about now.

Breaking Bad is a show where Walter White dies and Jesse Pinkfin lives and drives off into the sunset, right? With one more adventure, which I loved, by the way. Is this a show where the birds die or Wendy or whoever? Like someone dies and Ruth gets to drive off into the sunset? Or are we watching a different show? I don't think you can kill all the birds. A bird in the hand. It's worth doing a flipped man.

Yeah, I don't think you can kill all the birds, man. Come on, the birds got some kids too. Yeah. I don't think you can kill all the birds. But I guess as an audience, the question would be, you know, we don't know this because we would, you know, would you be okay? By the time, is Ruth Jesse enough? Because by the time Breaking Bad was over, if Jesse got out or Walter died, you were okay with that. I don't know that we've gotten quite to that point with the birds.

I'm more conflicted on them than I am on old Heisenberg. So if it were to end that way, would that be a satisfying ending? Would that be an ending that people would be like, you know, okay with it? Also, to be honest with you, I hold Ruth in higher regard than I do Jesse for some reason. I don't see her as as much of a victim as I saw him. You know what I mean? Like, I hold her in higher regard. So I don't think.

She's so much smarter, right? Yeah, so much smarter. I don't think her emancipation would equate. to the saving grace of the entire show if she just rode off into the sunset. I don't know if I'd feel as fulfilled, but we got some more episodes to maybe get to that point.

We've got to see what happens. We're going to talk about who might wind up in Heisenberg territory before the end of the season. But you mentioned the birds have some kids. We made a promise last time we talked that we were going to talk about those bird kids, specifically Jonah, but I want to talk about Charlotte too. So let's get into it.

I'm going to make my case. Then you get to make your case, okay? Here's all say about Jonah. First of all, Presti-Sce TV crime shows historically have a tough time with the kids, right? This is a hard thing. I think mostly of like Homeland, some of the most annoying kids in TV history on Homeland. The way that this show got around it is by looping the kids into the crime. pretty early, so we're not, you know.

Something I really like about Jonah this season is as mad as he is, his mom, he's not screaming and whining the whole season. He's commonly, like, severing ties and doing his own thing. I do think it works against the character that the actor, again, is 18. He's supposed to be playing a 14-year-old. So I think if you look at his actions as the actions of a 14-year-old, I think, so when Darlene intimidates him at the farmer's market or whatever, and you think of him as a 14-year-old,

you're like, yeah, he's going to give up his parents. He's a 14-year-old. And I don't know. I like this kid. Like Marty Bird, I'm proud of this kid for his money laundering. And I think I'm going to get personal because you brought your family into the next couple times. I will say, my mom has a lot in common with Wendy Bird.

And so when Wendy is shit at the dinner table, like, tell Charlotte, like, don't bother. He's made his choice. Shit like that. And she's scapegoating. all this stuff on Jonah and not taking responsibility for the way that she put her family in this position. It's not the kid's fault that they are where they are. I got aside with Jonah here. All right.

So you tell me why you're anti-Jona. So I used to watch as a kid, used to watch Mr. Belvedere. This is a cultural thing. That's why I don't like Jonah. Okay. Just watch Mr. Belvedere. Yeah. Uh-huh.

You guys don't remember Mr. Belvedere. Mr. Belvedere was the type of show that'll never be made again, ever. because they don't center kids and sitcoms anymore, but whatever. Mr. Belvedere was like about a fucking, I guess he was an English man servant. He was a butler, I think. Butler, yeah.

It changed the family's life. I remember watching Mr. Belvedere and these kids, like kids, of course, talking to their parents. You understand me, mom and dad.

I hate you. And then turns around and storms out of the living room or whatever. then, you know, the mother and the father look at each other pensively, and Mr. Belvedere hasn't gone and talk to the kids. I remember my mom going, there would have been no Mr. Belvedere. If you ever talk to me like that, I'm going to put some on your ass. Are you crazy?

My parents would look at stuff like that, and they would get mad at me that the kids were talking to the adults that way. All right? And that put something deep inside me. I hate piss ant disrespectful little kids. I can't fucking stand them. And the reality is this. Every single show does something like this, particularly with the male character, where they take this kid and they make him a shadow of his father.

It's a cliche that I do not like and a dysfunctional shadow of his dad. They did this with AJ and the Sopranos. I hated him. Meadow went through her little thing and then she figured it out. AJ was a fuck up until the last show. Some facsimile of his dad that was much weaker and misunderstood because of the shadow that his father cast. They're doing it in a different way here. Your cat just scared the hell out of me.

They're doing it in a different way here where they have Jonah who is highly intelligent, but too emotional to understand the mechanations in his family and is becoming a real roadblock to the plans that could eventually work in his benefit. I don't get it. It really bothers me every time he shows up to squash the plans that they're putting out there where people lives are on the line. I'm like, Jonah, I know.

know emotionally you're upset about something. But fuck, bro. Okay, but you make it sound like he's emotionally upset that he got grounded. He's emotionally upset that his mom was responsible for the death of his uncle. And the way that I see it is that Jonah is the only one telling the truth telling in this family. Like, every time he's talked to Charlotte and he's like, hey, listen, mom had her brother killed. Would you kill me? And Charlotte, I mean, I need to talk about Charlotte.

Charlotte's in way too deep into all of this, right? And the fact that she's just like, this is fine, this is fine, I'm fine, this whole thing is fine. I feel like Wendy is completely very, I mean, she's delusional. She's got ice water running through her veins at this point. You and I talked off pod about that moment when Darlene is having her heart attack and why she just sits down and watches her, right? Yeah. Talk about that, yeah. All this is happening.

And I think Marty and Charlotte are in denial of what's going on with Wendy, who I think is the one who's going to be our, like, you know, obvious truth. Heisenberg at the end of this. And I feel like Jonah's the only one who's like, excuse me, can we talk about what's going on here in the family, you know? Okay. All right. Let's take that for a second. All right.

First of all, Ben had to die. Ben made his choice. Like, so, so here's the thing. Like, it's unfortunate what the family finds themselves in. Jonah's smart enough to understand everything else, right? And you're right. Wendy does bear the responsibility of killing her brother, but she didn't have a choice. He made the decision to go off meds so that he could be Mr. Lava Lover with Darlene.

And the reality is going off his meds caused some mental dysfunction that made him do some things that you could not come back from. He confronted Helen and in front of Helen's kid told Helen that she was working with a drug cartel. he was becoming too much of a problem to be left alive. And his fucking antics put the entire family, Jonah included, in danger. So let's keep it all the way real. Let me come back at that and say when you rewatch season three, which I did prepare to talk to you about this final season

because I forgot a lot of things that happened. Knowing that Ben's going to die at the end of it, at the beginning, the very beginning he shows up, Marty's like he's got to go. He's got to go. Ben's got to go. This is a bad idea. Ben's got to go. And he's like, Ben, you got to go. Is Jason Bateman Way, right?

Gotta go. Guy. Sorry. Right? And Wendy's like, no, he should stay. And she convinces Ben to stay. Wendy's the one who kept her unreliable, loose cannon brother close to home in the mix of all the crime. You can't have both ways, though. It can't be that she, it can't be that like, okay, that's because she loved him. at some point Ben's got to take responsibility for Ben and Ben did some shit and the only thing that I'm saying is a lot this is so much fun by the way the only thing that I'm saying is the thing that bothers me about Jonah is

Jonah is acting like Jonah is acting like there's so the reality is this like he looks at his sister and he asks would you ever kill me and in the business that they're in I mean yeah if it came down I mean, look, if it comes down to you or me, which is what it came down to,

he's acting as if Marnie and Wendy went, uh, bends to, bends too much of a problem. He's getting away into business. He's whatever. Like they Fredoed him because Mike could have let Fredo live. He had already won, right? In this situation, there's somebody above him, them that is saying he has to,

to die or else everything stops and you guys die too. And so like it's just a weird situation for me to see him throwing a monkey wrench, especially at the end of the season, when he's, when his, his emotional fucking bullshit actually puts Ruth in danger. Because when Ruth, after Wyatt, Darlane gets killed, after why and Darlene gets killed and some of the best acting I have ever. seen on television. Bone chilling authenticity from her. She comes back.

When they're not telling her who killed him, they're protecting her. They're protecting her by not letting her know who killed. She can't beat them. And when he decides to go off the reservation and do that,

he's actually putting her in danger. Marty is protecting her. Wendy, I don't think, gives a shit about what happens to Ruth. Wendy is protecting her own interests. She's like, don't get mixed up in our business. We've got a tenuous deal with the cartel and the FBI. Stay out of it. You know what I mean?

Marty's, I think Marty's the only one who like really, really cares about what happens to Ruth. But I think Jonah cares too. Jonah and Ruth have this bond. I think you're not wrong that he's putting her in danger there. But I think he genuinely thinks that he's being honest. And he's tired of people not being honest. Fucking kids, you don't know shit. Let's talk about the kid.

Go make a TikTok. Let's say one last thing about the kid is that at the end of the season here, Charlotte and Jonah are hold up in the crypt with shotgun and the money. What's she going to do? Charlotte, yeah. And Charlotte says, Charlotte says, will always be fine is what she says to Jonah. An ominous thing to say in the final season of a crime show. So here's my question. Bird kids, are they going to be fine?

Or if you had to put your money on one bird kid or another, making it out. I have a theory here. Yeah. In that same scene, Jonah intimates that they might be better off or okay if their parents were dead. Yeah. We also see the car crash scene. Is Jonah going to pull a Christopher Monta? Ticante on his family.

When that car flips over, do we have a situation where Marty and Wendy are severely injured? And Jonah has to make a decision about whether or not either to alert the paramedics to the fact that they're dead because they're out by then. or does he have to make a decision about whether or not he actually does a really the good son, Tony, fucked up situation deal, like right there. You know, I looked at that scene. I'm like, yo, is Jonah going to kill them? I'd, nah, he would never do that. But he might make the decision not to save them, which is a Batman way to deal with it. I won't kill you, but you're not worth saving.

I wonder if that's going to come into play down the season. This is a stretch. I have a similar but slightly different theory. It has to do with another member of the Bird family. So this is another quote from that interview that I was reading earlier, where Scherner says it wasn't really until we knew we were ending that we can more seriously talk about whether or not they being Marty and Wendy would stay together. And if Marty feels like Wendy's kind of losing the plot, he's such a smart logical guy,

can you attach that logic to the longest, most important emotional relationship of your life? My question is, is it going to be Marty letting Wendy die for the safety of the family in the end, whether in that car crash or somewhere else? It's a couple things going on here, right? Like, so we get the scene with Wendy and Omar in the mall, right, where she's, like, patching him up. And he says that stuff about, like, you know, Wendy Bird, when the wine runs out and your husband isn't home, think of me sort of thing. But, like, this idea that, like, the darkness is always going to be in you. That emotion you feel about going back to your regular life, that's fear.

You're scared of it because this is, you've had a taste of this and you can't go back. So, you know, Wendy said to her brother in season three, she says, when you've, you've, been running for your life, everything else after seems exceedingly boring. There's no going back for Wendy. She can't. She cannot go be Mrs. Marty Bird in Chicago again. That's not an option for her. So my question is, like, if they're out, but Wendy does something that is in danger of

drawing them back in because she can't walk away from that darkness, is Marty going to cut that tie in the end? Okay. So there are a couple of reasons why I think that would be. first of all, that's highly problematic in the times that we live in now. Like, just husband-killing wife. Like, it's like, this is 2020. Now, on 2020, the Byrd family, let's go into their life.

Did Marty do it? Or is it actually progressive? Oh, I want to hear this. How could it be, oh, progressive that he takes her out because they're, because she's actually the dangerous one. Yeah. Wow, you never know, do you? You never know how it's going to spin. You just don't know.

Galaxy Brain whatever we want on this show. Go for it. That could be the thing. Do you, let me ask you this then. Would it be a cop-out to make Wendy the big bad of Ozark in the end? No, I mean, because I think that's the same way that Walter White is the big bad of breaking bad in the end. You know what you mean? I think it makes sense.

And something that I thought was really interesting. So, like, the history of Ozark as a show is really interesting because it was originally an idea from Let me pull out these guys' names. Bill DeBuke and Mark Williams. It was their idea, created by these two guys. But it's Chris Mundy who runs the show now. And then when you hear people talk about the show, they talk about Jason Bateman, who's the EP on the show,

has directed some stuff, as making a lot of decisions. And something that Chris Mundy has said in interviews is that when they got a hold of this show, Wendy was a really underdeveloped character. And they really weren't sure what to do with her. and then it became evident, given that they cast Laura Lini in the role, that this is the direction. She's not just going to be a Skyler White. She's not going to be the plus one to Marty Bird's antics. She's going to be something much more interesting in her own right.

And, you know, as we're watching a fine 2003 film this weekend for another podcast project on The Ringer, Mystic River. Oh, Jesus Christ. When's the last time you watched Mystic River? A couple of weeks ago, and I wish I had To put me in a bad move for like a fucking, it's a God, Jesus Christ, what the fuck? It's a dark movie. It's super dark. But Laura Linney is doing this lady Macbeth shit in that movie.

You know what I mean? The final scene with her in Sean Ben where she's like, you could run this town, this is us, you know, all that sort of stuff. That feels like an Ozark audition. Mystic River, Laurelini and Mr. River. And so I think that I think she is going to have to be the big bad of this in the end. And I think if we're rooting

for Marty to get out, which I am, as of now, I think Wendy might have to go. That's what I think. I always look at characters like, is so, is killing Ben the moment that Wendy can't come back from? Is that her

initiation? Like, I guess it is, right? Like that's that's her initiation. That's the moment she can't come back from because she, because look, she still did call the paramedics to come get Darlene. That would have been a full hill turn because her life is probably easier with Darlene dead. That would have been a full hill turn. And it was an interesting decision to me the next episode that Darlene was still alive

because at that point, I'm going to be honest with you. That was one of the things that way I felt like the writers got cold feet a little bit. I know they needed Darlene for something else, but my point, my thing is, why even have that scene in there

if Wendy's going to end up calling the paramedics? You know what I mean? I mostly agree with you. But I will say all Darlene is for Wendy after that is something to play with. Right? She comes to a hospital and play with her.

She calls the Child Protective Services on Zique. It's just like she keeps Darlene alive to further torment her. is what it feels like. That's a fair point, for sure. Let's get off the birds for a second and talk about Maya. Something that you mentioned you wanted to talk about in terms of Maya last time we talked

was the phrase used was the danger of a true believer, right? We see Maya go against her bosses to pull off this big arrest, this public arrest in front of the media so that, you know, her bosses can't cover it up, they can't go back on it. Even her mom's like, um, what did you do? So talk to me about the danger of a true believer. Always. The danger of a true believer. It's always problematic when, because they really believe it, right?

They're not. So let's take Captain America, for example. Any day. Let's take Captain America, for example, both in the MCU and in the comics. There's a very important discussion between Captain America and, and Tony Stark, where Captain America says to Tony Scott, he's Stark. He goes, you're not the kind of guy that would lay down on the wire to let your guy crawl over you. And Tony goes, I would just cut the wire.

And then a cap goes, there's always a way out, right? And that's the way Tony looks at it, right? He's a tinkerer. He's an inventor, billionaire, genius, playboy philanthropist. He's, like, there's a problem. and he figures out an answer to the problem. For him being pliable is the way that you get through stuff. Whatever, take the shape of whatever it is,

you'll figure out how to get out of whatever prison you're in. That's not what Captain America's strength is. Captain America's strength is the fact that he believes in right and wrong and he will never waver. And he trusts himself. You know what I mean? The whole no you move moment. Yeah, no you move, right?

No, you move. In the comic books, John the Hickman's Avengers run, the Earths, the universes are incurringed, they're incursions, right? So there's something that happens where universes, Earths are running into each other. And one Earth has to, one universe has to be destroyed for the other universe to live. Tony Stark is like, hey, man, sorry. We feel like, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah. Like, even Tony Stark, even Black Panther, who has Wuconda think about Namor, who has Atlanta, who has Atlantis to think about. They're like, you know, because the Luminati get put back together and they're like, hey, man, sorry, bro. We got to do it. And guess what?

Steve Rogers is like, no. He was like, we're not going to do that. At that point, Steve Rogers is dangerous to everyone that is living on Earth because he will not ever consider that principle has to be supplanted in order to achieve something on the other end that's better for everyone. That person is always dangerous because you never know when they're going to see you in

the wrong or in the right. Maya is the same way. This deal makes sense for everyone, but it doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of wrong and right. If you had to judge it, wrong versus right, it's probably wrong. It's a situation where the bad guys get what they want, the government gets what they want, but does justice get what it wants? People who have that hardline moral, true belief,

they're always dangerous. Like there's a situation, a real life situation, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam and all of that stuff. And when you look at how Malcolm left and what he learned and how he just couldn't deal with it, it's because he really believed what he was saying. He really believed that he was a true believer. When you come against that, sometimes it's hard to beat.

And if you don't control a person like that, they'll blow your whole shit up. They'll go from a hero to one day, one day to problem to next. So they're very, very dangerous. There's a couple ways to go, right? There's a way to go where she is simply a target. She's simply put too big of a target on her back for what she did, despite the fact that she's got a baby and her mom's in town and all sorts of stuff like that. All that's in danger now because of what she did.

There's another option where, dramatically, the show puts her at odds. Because right now she's not really, really, really at all. Like, she loves Marty. She wants Marty to come work with her, right? She's not really at odds with him. It's funny. Another thing the show owner said, Chris Money said that I thought was interesting,

is that they positioned Maya as Marty's, like, work wife and Omar as Wendy's work husband. And, you know, two opposite sides pulling on this couple from two sides of law, right? And so as it stands right now, Maya is doing everything that she's done because she does like Marty and she wants, she wants him to survive this. But is there going to be a moment where that flip switches and it's her, the rigidity of her belief puts her in the position of being an enemy to a character that we care about like Marty Bird. You feel like that's what we just watched. Yeah. Yeah. With the Navarro situation, that was his family's way out.

Yeah. His family's way out of the situation was the fact that Navarro wanted to have whatever kind of deal and tied to the American government that he did. And she torpedoed that because it didn't sit right with her. So she already made her choice, if you want to be honest. She already did the thing that showed her. And the fucking, the sad thing about the, not the sad, the aggravating thing about the true believer situation in this is that she's that she's not wrong. She's the only one who's actually right. It's just that it's not that she's wrong.

It just doesn't make any sense of what she did. And I did not see that coming. I really didn't. Like I should have seen it coming because they telegraphed it a little bit, but I didn't see that coming. So we'll see what happens with Maya in the final season. There's also the political angle that's running through all of this, right? Wendy has gotten herself involved in some sort of voter suppression scheme. Classic Wendy Bird.

great stuff. The Mel thing. Where do you see that going? And so we had backstory for Mel that he was like a former cop. We get like a cold open just for him. We find out that it's his like Coke problem that got him kicked off the forest.

Just sort of like snorting some Coke in the evidence room. Got him kicked off the forest. Now he's a persistent PI hanging around town. He called Maya to tell her he was a fan. What function can Mel serve in this? final stretch of episodes. The one scene in the history of Ozark that makes the least amount of sense is the male coaxing. Cops do not discipline each other.

They do not snitch on each other. There is a thin blue line that they do not cross. There's no fucking. We have seen too much corruption in policing to think that any cop is going to go tell on any guy in any situation like that. they don't they don't they don't they don't police each other like that he could have been in there beating some person up and they still wouldn't do it they would they they don't do that they don't do that i watch that scene i was like all right that's bullshit um i i'm in the dark with mill i know that mel is a yeah i don't know what's going on i know that mel is another wild card and wild cars are always bad in situations like this but i don't really know i don't really know what to make of the character because they're all they're essentially two males now because the female sheriff who took over for our guy whose car got crushed or buried like someone said in remember the Chris Pine movie, Heller High Water. Yeah, yeah.

Remember they were burying the cars? That's right. Maybe they buried the car. So because she's also another male now. A good investigator who knows that there's something, who knows that there's something going wrong. So I don't know what the male thread is going to be because it seems like now, He realizes that something dubious happened to Helen,

and now he wants to know what's going on in the town. Listen, he just needs a signature. That's all. Just a signature or a body. Just a few more things before we go. One is to say I really liked the Marty Ruth drug deal episode, right? Episode 5, where we see Marty and Ruth doing whatever they need to do to get the deal done. That felt like an old school sort of breaking bad episode.

It also revealed Marty's like, you know, you talk about like, is it problematic to make Wendy the villain, have Marty kill his wife, all of the gender questions. And I think that's a good thing to keep in mind. Something that they've done for a long time in the show is make Marty the nurturing one. And Wendy is going to send Jonah, give Jonah to the feds, right? That's something she's going to do. Marty puts himself in front of a gun for Ruth, who's not even his blood daughter, but just so many things of as a daughter. On this drug deal, he puts himself in front of a gun for her, you know?

And so it's just sort of like, it's hard not, it's hard not to be rooting for Marty. I don't want to vilify one man necessarily, but like, I don't know, stuff. You're right. The last thing that I want to talk about is this idea of the birds in those, I mean, like, I just love that they're called birds, first of all. The showmen are called them an invasive species. And I really like that idea. and I'm wondering what you think of this idea of Ozark.

We talked about crime families and families and this thing, but I'm wondering something that Breaking Bad didn't have is this idea of like gentrification almost. The birds from Chicago come to the Ozarks and just fuck all these poor people. Just bodies everywhere have just like decimated this community with their, you know, we're going to build a better casino and we're going to do this and, you know, like all that's our stuff.

Do you feel like Ozark is trying to do some sort of commentary and gentrification? And if it is, is it successfully doing that? Yeah. There's this idea in American society that you'll be better off when the rich or wider people get there. Your place where you live is fucked anyway, right? You're all fucked up. You live in a food desert. You live in a place with high crime.

You live in a place with gang violence. You live in a place with, you know, if you're living in Appalachians, your kids got mountain dew mouth because the nutrition, you know, all of that stuff. When the richer, wider people get there, you'll be okay. Like, things will be, things will be completely cool when they get there because that's America's answer to everything, richer, wider. They bring different problems. They bring bigger problems. They bring problems that kill, not generationally, but right away. Like, they come in, they put, I'm from Baton Rouge, right? So when they come down there and they do all this development,

they build a plant, they build a sewage thing, they'd have to do all of this stuff. And now your kids got cancer stuff, like where I'm from. Now your neighborhoods are over-policed. The police are doing crazy things because they're trying to kick you out to bring more people in, you know. Now there are all kinds of political problems. And you become a prisoner in where you used to live.

So maybe the answer isn't more rich white people. maybe the answer is developing the people that are already there, right? You know what I mean? So what I looked at that because now, you know, Wendy is becoming a cog in a machine that she has no idea about. Like she, she's now fucking trying to rig Dominion voting machines and shit like that. Like it's really getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And the landmores were shit in that town forever, but at least they were alive. You know, they had all of these problems.

and all of these things that were going on, but at least they were breathing to give them a chance to figure it out because in that situation, when they come in, you know, you can't exist all at the same time. Somebody's got to go in order for the birds to be able to do the things down there that they're doing. And these problems are often problems

that these people don't even have very much initiation into. So their decisions that are sometimes foreign to them. And so, you know, like, yeah, I think, of course it does. Like, being from where I'm from, people say that all the time. People say, that's going to be cool. Like, it's going to be awesome. We're going to come and we're going to build a Starbucks on the end of the block. That's going to be great for everyone.

I'm like, well, what about Mr. Carruthers, who's had his little coffee, coffee shop that we go to all the time? You know what I'm saying? Even if we still not layers out of that, everyone now and now and again, he's been there for 25 years. You know, so it's, it is. I didn't even see that coming, but it is because now they're becoming a part of the big guys who crushed the little guys. And Wendy very directly is going to become a part of that because she's taking votes from people. You've got the political machine coming in.

You've got the capitalism machine coming in with like the businesses that they're running. You've got the Shaw Pharmaceutical, another sort of like white glove, white color crime. The opioid epidemic is like, who is it ravaging? It's not ravaging Chicago, you know what I mean? And so it's, I think it's really interesting to have started with this whole idea of the Mexican drug cartel, but the real insidious issue are, as you say, these rich are whiter people from Chicago coming into the Ozarks. Okay, one last thing about season two. There's a character we haven't met yet.

Veronica Falcone has been cast as Camilla, who is Omar's sister, Hobby. mother. Veronica Falcone was in the, I think, Queen of the South, which we were talking about, I think last week. We were talking about crime stuff with strong female leads. So that's going to be an interesting element. And then Ali Stoker, who played the friend of Ruth's mom, who was in this final episode, is going to have a bigger role in the back half.

I thought she was a great addition. I really like her. Yeah, I thought I really like her. All right. Anything else you are thinking or feeling about the back half of the season? I have to pay homage to one scene. Okay. The funniest scene in the history of Ozark.

Which is? When they are trying to secure the funeral home to have the meeting, and Marty walks in when the dude is selling the casket to the other guy. Yeah. Marty comes in. He's like, yeah, yeah, we got everybody got to leave. get out, whatever. The guy goes, this is what's his face?

Like, he just lost his life. And Marty goes, yeah, we're going to give you 25% off. Yeah, yeah. Basically, like, yeah. I know it was such a good line delivery. I know it. I know it was so. Gotta go.

Yeah. I know it. He goes, he goes, all right, 20% off. He's like, look, I'll make it 25. I don't care. Just get out. God damn it. It's like, I watched that scene back like five times.

Jason Bateman is fucking great. He's so good. No one can do that thing like in the air. Yeah, I know it. Have you seen Game Night? No, I haven't. Okay, Game Night is one of my favorite movies of all the time. I'm not even kidding.

You know, I've watched the movie so many times. Incredible Jason Bateman wrapped up in over his head about with some crime. And Coach Taylor's there. I really recommend. It's a different tone, but there's still death and then just that like bone dry Jason Bainman delivery. So good.

I love it. I love it. But yeah, so I'm just, I've been floored by what they've been able to do. And I think we're in a while ride for these last episodes. How many more episodes are there? Seven more.

So there's seven more. Okay, cool. So they split it and have seven more. Seven more. All weekend. I don't know how many texts you got from Mallory. I got a lot of texts from Mallory Rubin about how hot she thought Harvey was. but I think you and I both know that Hobby's got to go

for his crimes against Wyatt if nothing else. Hobby not going to make it, man. By the way, fuck Harvey, bro. Harvey sucks, man. Like, Harvey, I'm trying to think of someone. I like Gus more than Harvey because at least Gus had some sort of, there was something about Gus that was cool. Gus was an asshole too.

I'm trying to think of characters. Like Gus Fring. Yeah, Gus Frang. I'm trying to think of characters. Yes, Gus Frang from Breaking Back. bad, I forget that I'm on a podcast. I guess Gus Frank. I'm trying to think of characters that I've hated more than Javi.

And it's Richie Appreel, grinding my gears, Richie Appreel. I fucking hated him. But I'm trying to think of characters I've hated. It hasn't been very many that I've hated as much as Javi. All right. So we will look forward to the hopefully very disgusting way that Javi dies. Cheese, wax, whacks, hate him. But, yeah.

All right. That's enough for me. Until then, you can catch Van Ami on the Ring ofverse feed. If you want more Captain America talk, that's where you'll find that from us. The producer of this episode, another member of the Ringerverse fan, Steve Allman. Thanks, Steve. And, yeah, I mean, I assume let's do this again, I guess, when part two is out. Of course, yeah, we'll be back.

We've got to finish it up for the people. We'll have to do things. Joan will grow up. All right, bye. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium.

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