Warning: Spoilers ahead for all seasons of “Ozark”
Leading up to the January premiere of “Ozark” Season 4 Part 1, showrunner Chris Mundy explained the decision to split the final season in half: a typical 10-episode season wouldn’t be enough to wrap up the story, but airing more than 10 at once would risk overwhelming the audience. The solution, he told TheWrap, was to make two 7-episode seasons that felt complete, “even though it’s all on one continuum.”
Minutes into Season 4 Part 1, it’s clear why this bifurcation was necessary. Every second of screen time is stuffed to the gills with plot; blink and you might miss a character death, new alliance, or so-crazy-it-just-might-work Marty Byrde scheme. The penultimate chapter of the blue-tinted money laundering drama began with a glimpse into an uncertain – and potentially deadly – future for the Byrdes, and ended similarly for Ruth (Julia Garner).
At the end of Season 3, Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) Byrde finally secured their partnership with cartel kingpin Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), putting their most turbulent years behind them… or so they thought. In Season 4, Navarro gives his money launderers their most impossible task yet: brokering a deal with the FBI so he can retire peacefully and transfer ownership of his drug empire to his nephew, Javi (Alfonso Herrera). Javi’s violent and volatile personality is matched only by local heroine producer Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery), whose rival business is a growing problem. Meanwhile, the murder of Ben (Tom Pelphrey) at the end of Season 3 puts deep fractures in the relationships of several main characters.
Will the Byrdes make it out alive, or was it all for nothing? All will be revealed on April 29, when the final seven episodes of “Ozark” drop on Netflix.
But if you need a refresher before you hit play, here’s an in-depth recap of everything that happened last season: all the wild subplots, bodies buried, and characters added (and subtracted).
A Cold (Dead?) Opening
Without any clues as to when or why, the season opens with the Byrdes driving their trusty old minivan. Their conversation – which covers meeting with the FBI, packing up to move, and an upcoming event at the riverboat casino they own, the Missouri Belle – comes to an abrupt end when a truck starts speeding toward them. Marty swerves off the road, and their car flips over. This ominous scene hangs over the rest of the season like a dark cloud and does not resurface until the Season 4 Part 2 trailer.
Exit Helen, Enter Javi
When one bloody rivalry closes, another opens – that’s been the status quo for the Byrdes since their first day in the Ozarks, and it proves itself true again after Navarro has his lawyer Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer) executed inches away from Wendy and Marty. Season 4 proper begins right where Season 3 left off, at Navarro’s compound in Mexico. There, they meet Javi, who seems singularly focused on getting rid of rival opium poppy farmer Darlene Snell. Wendy and Marty have a complicated personal and business relationship with Darlene and know that taking her out would wreak havoc on their operation in the Ozarks, so they urge him to be patient and let them handle it.
Navarro then explains the real reason he’s brought (i.e. abducted) them to Mexico: he wants them to set up a deal with the FBI that allows him to a) move freely between Mexico and the US and b) prepare for the next generation of Navarros to take over his empire. Not if, but when they accomplish this, the Byrdes will finally be free of their obligations to the cartel. Yeah, right.
Ruth and Jonah Ally Against Wendy
Last season’s other shocking character assassination was that of Ben Davis, Wendy’s brother and Ruth’s boyfriend who Wendy let the cartel kill when he became a liability to their operation. At the top of Season 4, alliances are split between those who forgive Wendy for this unspeakable act, and those who don’t, with her husband Marty falling somewhere in the middle. After Ruth severs all ties with Wendy and Marty, she goes to work with Darlene and her much-younger boyfriend Wyatt (Charlie Tahan), who also happens to be Ruth’s cousin.
Ruth finds a new ally in Marty and Wendy’s teenage son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), who wants nothing to do with his parents after Ben’s murder. A money-laundering prodigy, Jonah agrees to start working for Ruth after she buys the Lazy-O Motel as a laundering venue. Wendy is livid when she learns about their partnership.
A Warning Written in Blood
When they return from Mexico, Wendy and Marty warn Darlene and co. that the cartel will come after them if they restart their heroin business. The trio – which probably despise Marty and Wendy more than anyone in the Ozarks – outright refuses.
Javi has a more forceful way of doing business. During one of his frequent “check-ins” on the Byrdes, he shoots and kills Sheriff Nix (Robert C. Treveiler) when he starts asking questions about Helen’s disappearance. Unbeknownst to Javi, Nix has a longstanding agreement to look the other way on Darlene’s drug business, so his murder throws a major wrench in her plans. Later, Jonah sees Marty and Wendy dragging Nix’s body to their crematorium, further alienating him from them.
History almost repeats itself when Nix’s replacement, the unbribable Sheriff Guerrero (CC Castillo) starts sniffing around Helen’s old house. This time, Marty is there to stop Javi from gunning her down.
Under the Influence(r)
With Nix dead, local mob boss Frank Cosgrove Sr. (John Bedford Lloyd) no longer feels safe distributing Darlene’s product. Ruth proposes that they rebrand it as high-end organic heroin and sell it to a ring of high rollers she knows from working at Marty and Wendy’s casino. One of these potential influencers is Kerry Stone (Eric Ladin), a well-connected Chicago restaurateur. Darlene rejects the idea, but Ruth meets with him anyway and he likes the product enough to promote it. When she brings Kerry to see the Snell farm, Darlene tells him to get lost, foreshadowing major cracks in Ruth’s partnership with her and Wyatt.
The fissures between them grow when Darlene learns that Ruth has hired Jonah, the son of her arch-nemesis Wendy, to launder for them.
But there’s a temporary reshuffle of alliances when Ruth accompanies Kerry and his friends to the Missouri Belle for a night of drug use and gambling. Late into the evening, Kerry overdoses on Darlene’s heroin and Ruth saves his life by injecting him with Narcan. Wendy, already pissed that Marty allowed Ruth to hang out at the casino, is furious. Kerry’s short-lived influencer career is over, putting Ruth back to square one.
Back at the Snell farm, Ruth and her driver tell Darlene and Wyatt what happened. When the driver tries to blackmail Darlene, she shoots him at point-blank range. Ruth and a shaken Wyatt are sent to go bury him, giving Wyatt second thoughts about his relationship with Darlene.
Marty and Maya
Marty and FBI agent Maya Miller (Jessica Frances Duke) have had an ambivalent relationship since she started monitoring the Byrdes in Season 3. At first, they’re determined to get each other to turn, but eventually realize they stand to mutually benefit from their positions on opposite sides of the law. When Season 4 begins, Maya hasn’t been returning any of Marty’s calls, so he shows up to her house and begs her to negotiate a deal between Navarro and the FBI. For some reason, she agrees and goes to live with the Byrdes for a while. When she arrives in the Ozarks, the cartel comes to the Byrde’s house and takes Maya to Navarro’s private jet. During their meeting, Maya tells him that in order to cut a deal he needs to do federal time, come clean to the FBI and surrender his product and weapons. Obviously, he refuses, and no progress is made.
Loose Ends and New Friends
On a business trip to Chicago, Charlotte Byrde (Sofia Hublitz) is tasked with telling Erin Pierce (Madison Thompson) that her mom is dead, and warns her not to tell a soul. Wendy and her political fixer Jim (Damian Young) meet with an old nemesis, Senator Schafer (Randall Davison), who they need to join the board of the Byrde Foundation so they can launder money through it. His price is a favor: he wants to know what the FBI has on his son, a federal judge, and his tech investor grandson. Marty gets Maya to pull the files on them, and Schafer accepts the board seat. However, his family’s crimes are worse than they realized: his grandson is the owner of untraceable voter suppression technology. If this information goes public, it could ruin the Byrdes.
Wendy and Marty fill another board seat with Claire Shaw (Katrina Lenk), CEO of the Purdue Pharma-like Shaw Medical Solutions. In exchange, Marty and Wendy will supply her with raw materials for her opioid production at a good price. By the time she figures out that the opiates are coming from the cartel, it’s too late to back out.
Marty Finds a Way In With the FBI
Marty finally finds a way to end the stalemate between Navarro and the FBI when Javi tells him about an incoming gun shipment. Marty has Navarro tip Maya off about it as a show of good faith to the FBI. The raid is a success. Javi, who is completely in the dark about the deal, is furious that the shipment has been intercepted.
However, this victory is short-lived. Realizing that there must be a mole, Javi decides to halt all opium shipments until he figures out who it is. This is a big problem for Shaw Medical, which relies on Navarro’s supply to meet its production quotas. Wendy calls Navarro asking for help but he tells her she’s on her own. Marty then goes to Ruth with a peace offering and a proposition: he wants to buy all of Darlene’s opium for Shaw Medical to use.
Wendy Gears Up for War
Rather than breaking her, the events of Season 3 have hardened Wendy Byrde into a machine who will destroy anyone and everyone who stands in her path – including her own children. After Jonah starts working for Ruth, Wendy hatches a plan to get him thrown into juvenile detention (and somehow is unaware that this would bring down her entire operation, too).
Meanwhile, she copes with the death of her brother by telling the press that his latest drug bender has inspired her to partner up with Shaw Medical. Later, her arch-nemesis Darlene uses this against her by posting “missing person” signs all over town. Wendy counters by filing a missing person report herself and giving a convincing interview to Sheriff Guerrero.
However, they aren’t the only ones poking around Ben’s disappearance. Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg, who bears a confusing resemblance to Agent Petty from Seasons 1 and 2) is a private investigator who has been hired by Helen’s husband to track her down. He snoops around the Byrde’s inner circle, eventually learning that Ben did not have addiction issues and spying on Charlotte and Jonah. Going into Season 4 Part 2, he’s the only outsider who seems to be onto the Byrdes.
Snell v. Byrde, Again
Darlene has no idea about the deal Marty and Ruth struck behind her back, to supply her product to Shaw Medical. Still thinking she needs a distributor, she convinces Frank Cosgrove Jr. (Joseph Sikora) to distribute her product behind his father’s back. Before Ruth can deliver the goods to Marty and Wendy, Darlene gives her latest batch to him. Marty promises Ruth a huge bonus if she can retrieve it from Frank Jr., her former enemy and now quasi-friend. Marty and Ruth secure the first heroin shipment, but the second delivery man gets cold feet and leaves. Ruth pays a visit to his drug den, and after a tense standoff and mild beating, she comes back with the second shipment.
That night, Darlene goes to the Byrde’s house to confront Wendy about Sheriff Nix (thanks to Jonah, she knows they buried him). Wendy reveals that she and Marty have been working with Ruth to sell her opium, prompting Darlene to have a heart attack. Wendy takes her sweet time before calling 911, savoring the moment.
Triple Sabotage
The FBI truck raids are going swimmingly until Javi fills one with explosives, sending several agents to the hospital. Navarro once again asks the Byrdes to set up a face-to-face meeting with the FBI. Wendy, realizing that she and Marty will need a lawyer, asks her political aide Jim to represent them. Like Claire Shaw, he doesn’t quite understand who the Byrdes work for or what he’s signing up for when he agrees to help them.
The FBI tells Marty that in order for them to consider meeting with Navarro, they need proof that he wasn’t behind the truck bombing. Around this time, Navarro names Javi his successor and tells him he can do whatever he wants with the Byrdes once he’s in charge. Eventually, Marty gets Javi to admit to the crime while wearing a wire, and the FBI agrees to meet with Navarro.
In the aftermath of Darlene’s heart attack, Wyatt is mad at Ruth for working with Marty and Wendy. Ruth proposes that the two of them and Wyatt’s younger brother Three (Carson Holmes) get out of town, but Wyatt says he has a life in the Ozarks with Darlene. He reconsiders when Darlene, fed up with Frank Sr. about their business dealings, shoots and kills him out of nowhere. But she reels Wyatt back in when she tells him that Child Protective Services are coming for Zeke, the orphaned baby they’re raising together (thanks to a call Wendy made, but she doesn’t know that). Since married would increase their odds of keeping Zeke – plus, Wyatt really does love her – he proposes.
A third betrayal is carried out by Wendy against her own son. She breaks into the motel room where Jonah runs his laundering operation and gets his accounts flagged. Fortunately, Marty comes to save the day in the nick of time. When Jonah learns that his mother almost got him arrested, he confronts her and storms out.
The Final Shootout
At an abandoned mall in Jefferson City, FBI agents meet up with Navarro, Jim and the Byrdes. They negotiate to have him stay on as cartel leader for another 5 years and feed the FBI intelligence, after which he’ll be granted immunity from prosecution in the U.S. The FBI will take over the Byrdes’ role in the cartel, enabling them to move on with their lives. As always, the relief doesn’t last long, because on Navarro’s way home, Agent Maya Miller arrests him. Knowing that they are about to face the full wrath of the cartel, Charlotte and Jonah go into hiding in the crematorium, while Wendy and Marty beg the FBI to let them talk to Navarro.
Marty and Wendy try to convince Javi that they were blindsided with Navarro’s arrest, but he doesn’t believe them. Marty is blackmailed into coming to Jim’s house, where Javi is waiting to kill him. Seconds away from Javi pulling the trigger, Wendy convinces Navarro to call Javi and admit that he was working with the FBI. She promises Navarro that she can get him extradited back to Mexico within 48 hours; he agrees, on the condition that if they fail, the cartel will execute them. The next morning, Marty and Wendy get Javi to take the deal originally offered to his uncle. For now, the Byrdes are safe – emphasis on “for now.”
Wyatt and Darlene get married. Though it breaks her heart, Ruth begs Frank Jr. not to kill Darlene as retribution for her killing his father. He agrees, but it ends up not mattering. In his first official act as head of the cartel, Javi shoots Darlene and Wyatt. When Ruth finds their bodies, she demands that the Byrdes tell her who did it. Marty and Wendy try to dissuade her from going after Javi, but there’s no use trying to reason with her: she gets in her car and drives off in pursuit of her cousin’s killer.
“Ozark” premieres April 29 on Netflix.
