Ozark was Ultimately About the Consequences of Bad Parenting

This post contains spoilers for the Ozark finale. I am not responsible should you choose to read further! 

At what point in Ozark did you realize that Marty and Wendy were terrible people? I think it was at the moment their kids figured out what was going on and they used them as assets for their business (Jonah laundering and Charlotte as an office assistant) instead of sending them to live with family friends or something.

For the entirety of the show, the Byrds kept saying they were doing what they were doing to keep their family safe, but that was not true. Wendy and Marty were motivated to keep their family together, but at the expense of their safety. And ultimately, at the expense of their morality.

Personally, I liked the ending. It wasn’t the ending we wanted (I bet Ruth’s lake house would have been AMAZING) but it was a fitting ending for the show. Surprising yet believable. It showed that power dynamics and social status rarely change hands and that people are the products of their parents. You might inherit a shitty poverty-stricken upbringing that makes it impossible to pull yourself out like Ruth or you might have all the privilege in the world, but inherit really fucked up values like Jonah and Charlotte.

Even Wendy ended up being a product of a shitty upbringing, which actually made her and Ruth relate for one brief moment. Wendy was shamed and beaten as a child by a man who claimed to have the backing of God, which is perhaps why she is morally bankrupt as an adult. She doesn’t think religion means anything except to keep people in line. In Wendy’s world view, there is not good or evil, heaven or hell. The people who succeed are the ones who can set aside ethics and morals for their own personal gain. Powerful people don’t get there by being good people. Which might be true, for all I know. For whatever reason, manipulating the vote was the one line she wouldn’t cross (which honestly seemed a big ridiculous compared to all the other bad deeds she had committed), but ultimately she crossed that line too. And she had no problem putting the people around here (even those she loved) at risk to achieve her goals. Throughout the show, Wendy continued to reveal herself as one of the most toxic characters on television. She was selfish, reckless, manipulative, and unabashedly power hungry. She says more than once in the final episodes, “I know I am hard to love,” but even more than that, she is the exact kind of person audiences hate to see win.

I think that was ultimately what the car crash was about. If you were like me, you had a brief moment where you thought they all survived except Wendy, and thought— this is it! Now the rest of the Byrds can think clearly and figure a way out without Wendy mucking it up with her need for the foundation! But in that clarifying moment, I think the audience and the Byrd family diverged. The viewers realized that the only way to get the ending we wanted was with Wendy’s death. Meanwhile, the Byrd family was relieved that Wendy survived and their need to remain together was strengthened.

There was also that very telling moment with the priest, who took the car crash as a sign of their impending doom. Whereas Wendy took it as a sign that she was untouchable. Interesting how one can interpret the same event with an opposite point of view depending on your particular psyche— do you have the mentality of a victim or a winner?

In the end, Wendy and her cynical worldview won. On all accounts. Jonah saving his parents in the final moment of the show was not just the Byrds getting away with their crimes. It was Wendy getting everything she wanted— wealth, freedom and the adoration of her son. Not just his support and love, but showing he was willing to kill for her. In the the final scene, Mel says, “You don’t get to win. You don’t get to be the Kochs or the Kennedys or whatever fucking royalty you people think you are. The world doesn’t work like that.”

Indeed it does and indeed they do.

So here’s my main question— what is the deal with Marty? We know Wendy’s motivations are power driven. We know Jonah and Charlotte still want their parents’ approval. But are we to believe that Marty really loves Wendy that much? Or is he completely spineless and just being manipulated by his wife? Or maybe remaining a family and having a successful marriage are his two most important values no matter who he is married to? Or perhaps, Marty’s goals are totally aligned with Wendy and he just does a better job at hiding them? There were several times in the show where it looked like he had an out and didn’t take it. And it was constantly unclear to me how much he was doing with the FBI’s backing and how much was just straight up crime.

In the final scene, when Jonah emerges with the gun, any lingering doubt we may have had about the morality of the Byrds is thrown out the window. Wendy smiles. Marty gives his signature “this is inevitable” smirk, but it’s equally as depraved as Wendy’s. In the end, Marty’s morals are just as compromised and he’s just as guilty. He either sacrificed his kids for success or he sacrificed them for his wife. Or maybe he never had any morals to begin with and we just wanted to believe he did. Which do you think?

Killing Mel is actually interesting on more than one level. Mel represented someone who paid for his crimes (he was thrown off the force for stealing drugs from evidence), accepted a deal he knew wasn’t ethical (but wasn’t hurting anyone by taking it) and ultimately couldn’t live with his choice. Attempting to right the wrong got him killed.

On the contrary, I bet Wendy and Marty slept soundly that night.

Did you like the ending? If not, how would you have prefered Ozark to end? Do you think Marty is just as bad as Wendy? What do you think happens next?

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