Ozark “Sanctified”

Well…I didn’t see that character really dooming everyone like that, but I probably should have.

Then again, I have an unexpected minor dilemma caused by this show.

OK, here I am at the halfway point for the final tense season of Ozark, and some characters don’t look like they’re going to be making it to the end.  Actually, two very prominent ones definitely aren’t, and while Wyatt isn’t that surprising, Darlene sort of is.

Then again, she was running a very small time operation, comparatively speaking, and it is almost a wonder the big time Mexican cartel didn’t kill her sooner.  She was constantly ignoring the cartel’s wishes, and it really only took someone as more or less psychotic as Javi to put a bullet through her heart and another through Wyatt’s head.  As mid-season cliffhangers go, it’s an effective one, and it would seem to be Agent Maya Miller’s fault.

I’ve said, more than once, that she is too good or idealistic for this world, and she showed it when, having seen the FBI basically opt to give Omar what he wants in exchange for his continuing to run the cartel for five more years while feeding the feds inside information, something he eventually agrees to do, she decides it is too much, and her next course of action does make sense:  she just has Omar arrested by the local cops since the feds won’t touch him.

And somehow…Wendy and Marty are surprised by this before they both begin to scramble to keep themselves and their kids alive.  Omar, he’s insulted that Wendy would even think he’d kill children.  Javi…well, he puts a gun in Marty’s face after pistol whipping him a couple times, and he might.  Getting Javi to make the same deal as Omar (but for ten years instead of five) saves the Byrdes but not Wyatt and Darlene.

And possibly Ruth who ends the episode vowing revenge against the violent cartel boss that she’s told is untouchable.

Of course, it’s Jonah, who no longer gives AF, that tells Ruth who Javi is, and it’s Maya Miller who arrests Omar.  It’s like two ends of the spectrum.  Jonah doesn’t care at all and Maya cares too much.  My frequent comment that Maya is too good for this world makes a lot more sense considering the Byrdes don’t get her.  Of course they don’t.  She’s the one person they’ve met so far that cannot in any way, shape, or form be bought or sold.  Even Rev. Mason Young was on the take without knowing it.  The only difference between Mason and Maya is Maya will do something legally to fix things while Mason will just go nuts and threaten the Byrdes with a gun until he’s killed himself.  Maybe Maya is friendly towards the Byrdes, but that never meant she was completely down with the plan.  She obviously wasn’t.  Since she didn’t behave the way everyone else Wendy and Marty have encountered so far did, it only makes sense that they can’t predict her actions.

As for the way the season opened, with the Byrdes involved in that car accident that may have killed a few of them, that hasn’t happened yet.  Jonah was clearly back with the family by then, and that hasn’t happened by this point.  Likewise, I am still holding to my personal prediction that the whole thing was just a freak accident after the Byrdes somehow got out of their cartel obligations and they just ironically get into that accident because karma is a bitch.

But now I have a small problem.  I initially went back to Ozark somewhat reluctantly after Succession ended because I suspected the final half of the season would happen much later in the year.  But, well, it drops at the end of April.  I have to somehow fill a few weeks before I can finish the series.  So, that means something short.  I do have something in mind for after Ozark, but what can I cover until then?  I suppose I could finish House of Cards, but I got tired of that show even before Kevin Spacey was fired.  I need something else, something that won’t take up too much time but that I was probably going to watch anyway once I had an open slot.

So, I’ll go with the Hulu mini-series Pam and Tommy about how a certain video tape went public.

I mean, I was probably going to cover it anyway, and once it’s done, I can finish off Ozark, and then…well, you’ll see, hypothetical reader, you’ll see.