Ozark “Coffee, Black”

Between the Byrdes, the Snells, the cartel, and even Agent Petty, there is one character whose allegiance isn’t exactly clear.  She’s out for herself (OK, so is everyone else, but you get the idea), but she’s been somewhat bucking against what everyone has told her to do so far.

Ultimately, whose side is Ruth Langmore on?

See, it all comes to a head when a few things happen at once.  Marty and Wendy manage to successfully clean the initial sum of money for the Cartel in time for Dell to deliver more.  He’s got a promise to Rachel to leave her out of everything and even records a threatening message on her voicemail to make it sound like she was cajoled into helping if they even get caught.  Heck, Wendy finds another business to use when she learns how much the local funeral home makes for, among other things, services that reduce a corpse to a diamond.

And over in that cheap motel where Petty is staying, he tells Russ Langmore the truth:  that Petty is an FBI agent looking to bring some people down, and he has enough dirt on Russ to send the man away, so he better help get Ruth instead.  Ruth, Petty believes, would then flip on Marty and then work their collective way up the cartel ladder.  Not a terrible plan all told.

There’s one small problem:  Ruth is a little too smart to say something to incriminate herself when Russ starts to demand she say whether she’s going to murder Marty as she said she would.  And the more Russ pushes her to, you know, say something in a room Ruth has no idea is bugged, the more she starts to think something’s up.

So, Russ has only one other plan:  get his brother Boyd and his two sons Wyatt and Three, kill Marty themselves, take the money, and make a run for it.  Wyatt, being a sensitive soul, asks if Ruth is coming.  Told she isn’t, he gives his female cousin a sad farewell hug for reasons he tells her can’t go into.

So, Ruth rigs the dock with the electrical charge that didn’t kill Marty before and instead takes out both Russ and Boyd.  Marty spins a lie to Rachel about what must have happened, and then keeps Del from doing something to Rachel.  He claims it was an accident that happens from time to time on the lake, so call the cops and let them take care of the two electrified corpses.

Then Marty goes to talk to Ruth because Marty also isn’t stupid to basically get her to, over tears, confess she did it on purpose.  Did Ruth do that to protect Marty?  Or herself?  It’s hard to say.  But it does make Ruth one of the more fascinating characters on this twisting, turning crime drama.