If you’ve spent anywhere near as much time as I do scrolling through Netflix, hoping to accidentally land on the TV show of your binge habit’s dreams, you’ve probably landed on Ozark a few times. Maybe you even landed on it long enough for the trailer to automatically play and give you a glimpse of what this unfamiliar series is all about. Do you hit play? Do take the risk of settling into an hour-long episode of a brand-new programme without really knowing what the Ozark is or mean? Probably not. Well, I didn’t.
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Whether it’s again or for the first time, I personally don’t think it does the series justice. But I suppose that’s the whole point of a trailer… It comes across as very dark and tense and scary, which it is at times. But very intermittently might I say. It’s actually pretty funny every now and again too, in a dry, awkward, Jason Bateman kind of way.
It’s not not like Breaking Bad
Okay, I hold my hands up and admit that I wasn’t on the Breaking Bad band wagon. I missed it, watched it drive off as literally everyone I knew sat smugly aboard learning all of the in-jokes and series specific references that I would never understand.
So I can tell you as someone who’s never watched an entire episode of Breaking Bad, that I have no idea how similar Ozark is to it. But from my understanding of why people loved Breaking Bad and the Walter White character so much, you’ll probably find a similar rapport in Ozark and protagonist Marty Byrd. They both fall into the world of drugs in that heartbreakingly yet borderline comical way, to try and protect/support/save their families.
Jason Bateman is peak Jason Bateman
Name a Jason Bateman film. Right now. Got one? Is he the main character in it though? Didn’t think so. Until now, the lovely Jason Bateman has been everyone’s favourite side man. Nothing wrong with it, of course. Loved him in Horrible Bosses 2. Identity Thief and Hancock were pretty close. But otherwise, in all films, he’s just the solid good guy just trying to get by and do the right thing. In Ozark, he’s essentially exactly the same thing but his wife has cheated on him and launders money for an international drugs cartel. No big deal.
The full Ozark cast is great too
You recognise Laura Linney, don’t you? She was in Sully, The Truman Show and, most notably, of course, played Sarah in Love Actually who was in love with Karl but also has a brother in hospital who occupies lots of her time. She now plays Wendy, Marty’s wife. Then there’s Julia Garner off of Perks Of Being A Wallflower as the resident bad girl of the Ozarks and Sofia Hublitz, who plays Wendy and Marty’s daughter.
Ozark is in a real life place
Well, the Ozarks are. It’s a region in Missouri. There are mountains and pretty lakes and stuff and also happens to be where Marty (Jason Bateman) moves his family to live in efforts to clean a shit load of drug money for a cartel he got on the wrong side on. Aptly beautiful yet daunting setting if you ask me.
Ozark season two is happening
If a Netflix series gets the go ahead for a second season, take it as a really bloody good thing, because if this year is anything to go by, that doesn’t happen all that frequently. Variety reported that the series has been renewed for another 10 episodes so once you’ve gotten through the first lot, you’ll have some more to look forward to.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.