Netflix's Ozark, Season 1: Dark, Surprising and Suspenseful

If you have some spare time in your days or evenings and are looking for a series to watch on Netflix, I would suggest a new one, Ozark.  

The Ozark of the title is the Ozark of Missouri in a resort community where the main protagonist family, The Byrdes, moves.  They move from a suburb of Chicago in an attempt to evade the threatening reach of a dangerous Mexican drug lord for whom the patriarch of the family, financial advisor Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), was laundering money. 

The threat, however, follows them and the family, consisting of father, Marty, wife, Wendy (Laura Linney) and two children, Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), are constantly on the precipice of omnipresent danger and suspense. 

Marty must somehow pay a debt to the drug-lord and he starts to initiate new money-laundering schemes to appease the man in question. 

There are some great characters in Ozark.  Besides the Byrdes, there is the Langmore family, a trailer-living bunch of rednecks including young teen, Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner), a fierce, independent-minded young woman who steals the show at times and is a great character to watch.

There is the constant breath of the FBI down Marty’s neck, as he attempts to launder money secretly and in whatever way he can muster.  An FBI agent, Roy Petty, played by Jason Butler Harner, happens to be gay.  His obsessive surveillance of the Byrde family is juxtaposed with the relationship he initiates with an older member of the Langmore family.  It is a source of surprise in a series of many surprises in this first season.

And this is a riveting first season.  As mentioned, it constantly surprises you.  The way the elder Byrdes reveal their secrets to the children comes unexpectedly for what you are use to within the dynamics of typical parent-child relations.  Ruth Langmore takes on the management of a local strip joint in a way that provokes admiration and surprise as well.

Bateman's performance is another surprise.  Typically playing comical roles in the past, he achieves something spectacular in this first season:  a mix of unwavering, momentous determinism with a fractured, damaged credulity.   

At the season’s end, you are left with questions as to what will happen next.  This is the purpose of any great series’ cliffhanging, but Ozarks achieves it on a masterful level.  Some characters don’t survive, others see a glimmer of hope in their horizon.  Regardless of who your like or dislike, what is certain is that you will return for the next season of Netflix’s Ozark.