The ending I wanted was Ruth happy in her lakehouse, the kids happy in Chicago and Wendy and Camilla taking out each other, which meant that the FBI needed Marty in charge in Mexico, so he would live out his days in his own personal hell, committing crime without a family.
I wasn't dazzled by the series finale but I'm not mad about it either. I thought the Byrds' ending was fine, if not inspired or terribly interesting. What I *LOVED* about the ending is that Ruth was so very Ruth right up until the end. She may have been the only character who stayed true to herself. Also, her flashbacks to her time with her family, especially Wyatt, were beautifully heartbreaking.
I can see that working as well. I thought it set the expectation that she would stand her ground though. Wendy would have sold her soul to the devil (again) but I think Ruth's reflections showed that she knew who she was and where she came from.
Marty’s partner got them involved with the cartel. Marty grabbed the brochure and spun this story for Del that he could make him more money than Bruce did. Marty was next to be killed until he claimed the next move was to set up the larger operation to launder the money. Marty saved himself and then involved Wendy (and the kids) when they went to the Ozarks.
Wendy KNEW about the money laundering and it didn’t seem to bother her.
Marty & Wendy’s relationship was strange. He KNEW she was cheating. The viewing he did of her tryst with Sugarwood wasn’t the first he had watched. There was something there the writers kind of left behind in E1
Lastly, correct me if I’m wrong, we never hear about Marty’s past & background. What an interesting choice. We see what made Wendy who she is but not Marty.
In Season 3, there's an episode where they do flashbacks to Marty's childhood while he is being held captive in Mexico. He's obsessed with a video game while his dad is in the hospital. The dad dying seems like it has little impact. The bigger takeaway Marty gets from the flashbacks is that he has to keep on feeding the video game quarters to keep playing, so he realizes he has to keep giving something to Navarro to stay alive. I think this is when he says he says he can turn the FBI agent so Navarro will let him out to try. Maybe the other takeaway from that episode is that Marty really has very little emotion about people and views everything as a game.
I did like they ending of they show, especially because it remained true to its writing, from the beginning Ozark wasn't a show to "please" the audience, hence the death of Ruth. I'm pretty sure that everyone would've wanted Ruth to live and have her dream home and imagine her succeeding in life. We all fell in love with her but I see her death as a reminder not only about power dynamics and social status as you said, but also as a reminder of the fact that no character (except I guess for Three and Helen's daughter) was a saint, ultimately Ruth was also a criminal, even if her motives were different or "better" than Wendy's she still was one and her faith on the show completely changed once she decided to kill Navarro's nephew.
When it comes to Marty, if you really think about it he might really be just as bad as Wendy, after all he started this whole thing, he was the one to get his family into money laundering (do you remember when he taught Jonah how to launder?). I think Marty ended up sucking up so much to Wendy because he felt responsible for the mess they were (always) in, she did a great job reminding that to him so many times. While also I think he understood that making his own decisions would never stop Wendy from achieving her ambitions and she would probably just run over him to get what she wanted or worse, to give her more reasons to keep on blaming him for all of the wrong things he's done and the horrors and dangers he's put his family through, while completely ignoring what she's done. 'cause, at the end of the day, we all knew he wasn't going to leave her, I don't think he ever even considered that. Honestly, if you think about it, it seems more like an obsession than love, or even fear of realizing that leaving her wouldn't (again) stop her, he probably felt disposable.
My pull for the entire series was Marty and his ability to take anything that came his way. It was amazing acting and a great new like “Breaking Bad” narrative. The ending had me thinking about how Marty picked this for his family the moment he started laundering/trying to impress his business partners. I do think the overall story is obv blown out of proportion, but Marty forever trying to fix what he started was I suppose impressive — but all he did was turn Jonah into himself.
I eventually liked the ending. The final episode felt so Great Gatsby to me (even down to the symbolic colors… a red coat in the entry, Ruth’s white dress, I loved that.) I kept thinking how I would’ve changed it, but ultimately it’s an ending everyone deserved.
See I wonder how much he was actually trying to get out of it. Unless it was kind of like a game to him (which they alluded to in that episode about his childhood). He was playing to win (which could have meant either satisfying the cartel or getting out), but then Wendy changed the rules on him, and he had to win on her terms which was much more difficult and compromising.
Ruth’s devastation at losing Wyatt was felt by us all. He was the purest soul on the show. So heart breaking, but I guess that’s why he had to go.
My take is Marty is spineless when it comes to Wendy, even to the detriment of his kids. The ending was fitting for the show. It symbolized the complete absorption of the kids into the family business.
I was so sure I knew how it was going to end, and I loved my ending! In my head, Navarro was killed, and then with that done, Wendy, without Marty knowing, had Camilla killed. She then was going to step in and run the cartel in the interim, but her power was never going to stop. At this point, she gave Marty an out, and he took it, and the kids, and returned to chicago and started over. To add to the craziness of it all, Wendy decided to bring Ruth on, and even though Ruth had the chance to be legit, and already had all the money in the world, she couldn’t escape her past, and ultimately put their differences aside and because Wendy’s right hand man in running the cartel.
I thought something similar to this was going to happen. I knew Wendy would never let go of the power and thought her more evil than Navarro. Definitely thought Camilla would die. Didn't see Ruth's death coming and I think that one hurt the most. I was hoping the Byrd's would make it back to Chicago like they always seemed want. Marty sort of seemed to like the power that he got when he was running the cartel so I could have seen them trying to run it all from Chicago with the kids being second in command. I was hoping Ruth would get together with the mob guy- can't think of his name. But they seemed to get along well near the end 🤷🏼♀️
I didn’t like the ending I guess because I always want everything wrapped up in a pretty bow and I knew that wasn’t going to happen. When I first started watching it I just kept thinking how are they ever going to get out of that situation. I was even sure one of them would die in the car accident. It amazed me that they all could just keep going on, day after day, never giving up. Ruth was my fav character and I didn’t want to let her go. Our eternal hope for the underdog is not real life I know. The acting was superb, you couldn’t detest Wendy more, weren’t sure if you should feel sorry for Marty, and no matter how she felt inside, badass Ruth was not backing down for anyone. I’m kinda going to miss them.
I liked how the ending showed us how problematic Marty was - maybe all along. My only complaint about the ending was that I wish an affair between Rachel and Marty could have been the thing to trigger Wendy's mental breakdown, rather than just possibly losing the kids. Now that we know how morally bankrupt Marty really was, it seems weird he'd be so incredibly loyal. Maybe that was the point - we thought Marty cared but all he really cared about was Wendy's opinion of him.
I agree with you. It's very hard to understand why he was so invested in Wendy. Maybe it's because she gave him firm guideposts of what would be considered a win. Marty needed goals to reach and a finish line. I'm not sure he had those on his own.
I did not like the ending. I would have liked Ruth make it and live in her beautiful lake house but her choice to kill Javi cemented her fate. I felt that Jonah being a killer in the end was unrealistic. He was the one Byrd with any sense of conscience. I’m not sure how I view Marty but definitely feel that Wendy was off the deep end.
I liked how the ending really forced Marty and us to see that he was just as morally bankrupt as Wendy. He let her play the “bad guy” way too long and tried to convince himself and others that he was trying to protect Ruth and his family, but ultimately his selfish interest won out. If Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, and Julia Garner don’t win ALL the awards, that’s another injustice. 😊
I was surprised - and weirdly relieved maybe? - that Wendy was so upset knowing Ruth was going to die. As Morgan said it really showed Marty’s true colours.
Reading through this thread and thinking about putting my thoughts together. So much great commentary...but your note about the acting by those 3 is SPOT ON. I was completely transfixed by Ruth and Julia Garner's portrayal of this character. I hope her career gets bigger and brighter! Laura Linney created one of the most ruthless villians in all TV history for me. It is also terrifying to be reminded in shows (which I realize are fiction, but cmnon...) re: government corruption, corporate greed and fear, and how the drug trade controls more than we'd like to think.
Overall...really well done show. Ending was fitting but terribly sad. No happy endings is what was meant to be there in the Ozarks.
I didn't like the ending, but I liked the ending. I love Ruth and since her arc was redemption there was no way she'd make it. That's not the story they were telling. Although I was still surprised, killing Ruth didn't really seem in keeping with "the rules" Javi killed her cousin, she killed Javi. Should have ended there. I was shocked that Mel was killed by Jonah, but Mel was reckless. He completely underestimated how far they'd go to protect their family. Showing up and confronting them like that made no sense.
I don't know. I felt like the thing with the cartel (and with Darlene) was that there were no rules. Ruth lived by a code that nobody else did. Camilla was always going to have revenge on whoever killed her son, even if it was her brother.
Jonah shooting made sense to me because in an earlier season he would go outside and do target practice or kill animals. Back then Wendy worried about what Jonah would become
Didn't he also try to kill someone at the end of that season but was out of ammunition and then Buddy ended up shooting the person. I forget who it was! But at the time, the audience got to feel like Jonah was off the hook and could still go on to live a good life, clear of conscious.
The ending I wanted was Ruth happy in her lakehouse, the kids happy in Chicago and Wendy and Camilla taking out each other, which meant that the FBI needed Marty in charge in Mexico, so he would live out his days in his own personal hell, committing crime without a family.
Whoa 😆
I wasn't dazzled by the series finale but I'm not mad about it either. I thought the Byrds' ending was fine, if not inspired or terribly interesting. What I *LOVED* about the ending is that Ruth was so very Ruth right up until the end. She may have been the only character who stayed true to herself. Also, her flashbacks to her time with her family, especially Wyatt, were beautifully heartbreaking.
I kinda wish they had saved the Ruth flashback until the end, so it was like, that was Ruth's version of heaven.
I’m not so sure Ruth was going to heaven though! 😂😬
That would have been so beautiful, I wanted the peace for Ruth so bad.
I can see that working as well. I thought it set the expectation that she would stand her ground though. Wendy would have sold her soul to the devil (again) but I think Ruth's reflections showed that she knew who she was and where she came from.
Yes!! Totally agree!
Marty’s partner got them involved with the cartel. Marty grabbed the brochure and spun this story for Del that he could make him more money than Bruce did. Marty was next to be killed until he claimed the next move was to set up the larger operation to launder the money. Marty saved himself and then involved Wendy (and the kids) when they went to the Ozarks.
Wendy KNEW about the money laundering and it didn’t seem to bother her.
Marty & Wendy’s relationship was strange. He KNEW she was cheating. The viewing he did of her tryst with Sugarwood wasn’t the first he had watched. There was something there the writers kind of left behind in E1
Lastly, correct me if I’m wrong, we never hear about Marty’s past & background. What an interesting choice. We see what made Wendy who she is but not Marty.
In Season 3, there's an episode where they do flashbacks to Marty's childhood while he is being held captive in Mexico. He's obsessed with a video game while his dad is in the hospital. The dad dying seems like it has little impact. The bigger takeaway Marty gets from the flashbacks is that he has to keep on feeding the video game quarters to keep playing, so he realizes he has to keep giving something to Navarro to stay alive. I think this is when he says he says he can turn the FBI agent so Navarro will let him out to try. Maybe the other takeaway from that episode is that Marty really has very little emotion about people and views everything as a game.
You are right! I never realized this!
I did like they ending of they show, especially because it remained true to its writing, from the beginning Ozark wasn't a show to "please" the audience, hence the death of Ruth. I'm pretty sure that everyone would've wanted Ruth to live and have her dream home and imagine her succeeding in life. We all fell in love with her but I see her death as a reminder not only about power dynamics and social status as you said, but also as a reminder of the fact that no character (except I guess for Three and Helen's daughter) was a saint, ultimately Ruth was also a criminal, even if her motives were different or "better" than Wendy's she still was one and her faith on the show completely changed once she decided to kill Navarro's nephew.
When it comes to Marty, if you really think about it he might really be just as bad as Wendy, after all he started this whole thing, he was the one to get his family into money laundering (do you remember when he taught Jonah how to launder?). I think Marty ended up sucking up so much to Wendy because he felt responsible for the mess they were (always) in, she did a great job reminding that to him so many times. While also I think he understood that making his own decisions would never stop Wendy from achieving her ambitions and she would probably just run over him to get what she wanted or worse, to give her more reasons to keep on blaming him for all of the wrong things he's done and the horrors and dangers he's put his family through, while completely ignoring what she's done. 'cause, at the end of the day, we all knew he wasn't going to leave her, I don't think he ever even considered that. Honestly, if you think about it, it seems more like an obsession than love, or even fear of realizing that leaving her wouldn't (again) stop her, he probably felt disposable.
My pull for the entire series was Marty and his ability to take anything that came his way. It was amazing acting and a great new like “Breaking Bad” narrative. The ending had me thinking about how Marty picked this for his family the moment he started laundering/trying to impress his business partners. I do think the overall story is obv blown out of proportion, but Marty forever trying to fix what he started was I suppose impressive — but all he did was turn Jonah into himself.
I eventually liked the ending. The final episode felt so Great Gatsby to me (even down to the symbolic colors… a red coat in the entry, Ruth’s white dress, I loved that.) I kept thinking how I would’ve changed it, but ultimately it’s an ending everyone deserved.
See I wonder how much he was actually trying to get out of it. Unless it was kind of like a game to him (which they alluded to in that episode about his childhood). He was playing to win (which could have meant either satisfying the cartel or getting out), but then Wendy changed the rules on him, and he had to win on her terms which was much more difficult and compromising.
“Deserved” is a bad word, meaning the ending society has built for these people. And I wish it wasn’t true.
Ruth’s devastation at losing Wyatt was felt by us all. He was the purest soul on the show. So heart breaking, but I guess that’s why he had to go.
My take is Marty is spineless when it comes to Wendy, even to the detriment of his kids. The ending was fitting for the show. It symbolized the complete absorption of the kids into the family business.
I was so sure I knew how it was going to end, and I loved my ending! In my head, Navarro was killed, and then with that done, Wendy, without Marty knowing, had Camilla killed. She then was going to step in and run the cartel in the interim, but her power was never going to stop. At this point, she gave Marty an out, and he took it, and the kids, and returned to chicago and started over. To add to the craziness of it all, Wendy decided to bring Ruth on, and even though Ruth had the chance to be legit, and already had all the money in the world, she couldn’t escape her past, and ultimately put their differences aside and because Wendy’s right hand man in running the cartel.
I thought something similar to this was going to happen. I knew Wendy would never let go of the power and thought her more evil than Navarro. Definitely thought Camilla would die. Didn't see Ruth's death coming and I think that one hurt the most. I was hoping the Byrd's would make it back to Chicago like they always seemed want. Marty sort of seemed to like the power that he got when he was running the cartel so I could have seen them trying to run it all from Chicago with the kids being second in command. I was hoping Ruth would get together with the mob guy- can't think of his name. But they seemed to get along well near the end 🤷🏼♀️
I didn’t like the ending I guess because I always want everything wrapped up in a pretty bow and I knew that wasn’t going to happen. When I first started watching it I just kept thinking how are they ever going to get out of that situation. I was even sure one of them would die in the car accident. It amazed me that they all could just keep going on, day after day, never giving up. Ruth was my fav character and I didn’t want to let her go. Our eternal hope for the underdog is not real life I know. The acting was superb, you couldn’t detest Wendy more, weren’t sure if you should feel sorry for Marty, and no matter how she felt inside, badass Ruth was not backing down for anyone. I’m kinda going to miss them.
I liked how the ending showed us how problematic Marty was - maybe all along. My only complaint about the ending was that I wish an affair between Rachel and Marty could have been the thing to trigger Wendy's mental breakdown, rather than just possibly losing the kids. Now that we know how morally bankrupt Marty really was, it seems weird he'd be so incredibly loyal. Maybe that was the point - we thought Marty cared but all he really cared about was Wendy's opinion of him.
I agree with you. It's very hard to understand why he was so invested in Wendy. Maybe it's because she gave him firm guideposts of what would be considered a win. Marty needed goals to reach and a finish line. I'm not sure he had those on his own.
I did not like the ending. I would have liked Ruth make it and live in her beautiful lake house but her choice to kill Javi cemented her fate. I felt that Jonah being a killer in the end was unrealistic. He was the one Byrd with any sense of conscience. I’m not sure how I view Marty but definitely feel that Wendy was off the deep end.
I liked how the ending really forced Marty and us to see that he was just as morally bankrupt as Wendy. He let her play the “bad guy” way too long and tried to convince himself and others that he was trying to protect Ruth and his family, but ultimately his selfish interest won out. If Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, and Julia Garner don’t win ALL the awards, that’s another injustice. 😊
I agree with you! Marty hid behind Wendy's more outward evil. And at the end, it was Marty who said Ruth had to die, not Wendy.
I was surprised - and weirdly relieved maybe? - that Wendy was so upset knowing Ruth was going to die. As Morgan said it really showed Marty’s true colours.
Reading through this thread and thinking about putting my thoughts together. So much great commentary...but your note about the acting by those 3 is SPOT ON. I was completely transfixed by Ruth and Julia Garner's portrayal of this character. I hope her career gets bigger and brighter! Laura Linney created one of the most ruthless villians in all TV history for me. It is also terrifying to be reminded in shows (which I realize are fiction, but cmnon...) re: government corruption, corporate greed and fear, and how the drug trade controls more than we'd like to think.
Overall...really well done show. Ending was fitting but terribly sad. No happy endings is what was meant to be there in the Ozarks.
I didn't like the ending, but I liked the ending. I love Ruth and since her arc was redemption there was no way she'd make it. That's not the story they were telling. Although I was still surprised, killing Ruth didn't really seem in keeping with "the rules" Javi killed her cousin, she killed Javi. Should have ended there. I was shocked that Mel was killed by Jonah, but Mel was reckless. He completely underestimated how far they'd go to protect their family. Showing up and confronting them like that made no sense.
I don't know. I felt like the thing with the cartel (and with Darlene) was that there were no rules. Ruth lived by a code that nobody else did. Camilla was always going to have revenge on whoever killed her son, even if it was her brother.
That's true, I'm trying to apply logic to an illogical scenario lol
Jonah shooting made sense to me because in an earlier season he would go outside and do target practice or kill animals. Back then Wendy worried about what Jonah would become
Didn't he also try to kill someone at the end of that season but was out of ammunition and then Buddy ended up shooting the person. I forget who it was! But at the time, the audience got to feel like Jonah was off the hook and could still go on to live a good life, clear of conscious.
I forgot about that!