Ozark “Let The Great World Spin”

I commented on yesterday’s Gotham article that it was a bit surprising that the episode in question would go as far as it did, namely killing a kid.  That doesn’t really fit in with the sort of show Gotham seems to be.  But while nothing like that happens in this episode of Ozark, this is absolutely something that would fit into the world of this show.

It’s almost funny how some characters still seem to think, despite all that, that they’re still untouchable.

Arguably, that is all of the Byrdes at this point, except for maybe Charlotte.  Marty is lowkey about it, but he’s a lowkey sort of guy.  Jonah doesn’t seem to care that he is blatantly flouting his parents right now.  Arguably, Charlotte is the one that, going by early episodes, we might expect to be lashing out, but she seems to have finally come to understand that following her parents’ lead is the only way out of this.  It’s also understandable that Jonah would turn on his parents as much as he has.  He, more than the other Byrdes, bonded with Ben.  While Wendy was clearly agonizing over leaving her brother to die, she still did it.  It would appear cold to a young man like Jonah.  Likewise, it is the thing that lost the Byrdes Ruth, and Ruth is a fairly capable ally in her own right.

True, Darlene doesn’t appreciate Ruth the way she claims to, but Darlene is very set in her ways.

However, by this point, Wendy is the one more or less making demands.  Her plans for after their time with the Narravo cartel comes to an end?  She wants to control elections.  Not endorse candidates.  She wants to be the power behind the scenes, even for people she politically disagrees with.  But more than that, she spends a lot of time in this episode, for lack of a better term, shouting.

She shouts at Jonah when she finally notices Ben’s ashes missing.

She shouts at Ruth to (unsuccessfully) get them back.

She shouts at Jonah some more over the idea he’s laundering for Darlene and Ruth.

She even shouts at Maya when the FBI agent, currently on maternity leave, is reluctant to meet with Omar Navarro at the last minute.  Marty would try gentle cajoling, and Maya doesn’t want to cut a deal with Navarro anyway.  Not the one Navarro wants to make, that’s for sure.  She doesn’t like being in the Byrdes’ pocket, if she in fact is, and she’s far too honest for this world.

About as close as Marty gets to shouting is when he tells Ruth he doesn’t like that she recruited Jonah.  Apparently, no one told Marty or Wendy that Jonah outright volunteered to work for the competition.  He is that disillusioned and angry at his parents, especially Wendy.  And Wendy, right now, isn’t afraid to say stuff just to hurt people.

Then again, the real problem for everyone is Javier.  His murder of Sheriff Nix, a character so minor I barely remembered his name, has a ripple effect that seems to be hitting all of the characters.  Darlene loses her contact with Frank Sr. because he doesn’t trust the distribution without local law enforcement looking the other way.  Likewise, the interim sheriff is honest and turns down a bribe offer from Darlene before she even makes it.  Said sheriff, Leigh Guerrero, is also rather suspicious of the Byrdes, and she finds Marty cleaning up in Helen’s house, the very place PI Mel said Nix might have gone.  And the only reason Marty is even there is because Javier insisted on his help cleaning up the evidence.  Marty’s reasoning to Guerrero is flimsy, but it could work, a statement that can describe so many things in this series.

The more I see, the more my theory on the car crash that opened the season seems to be correct, and the Byrdes may find out the hard way that even if they do manage to get out of this, well, karma can be a real bitch sometimes.