Ozark

As a proud Missourian and an avid Jason Bateman fan, the Netflix show Ozark seemed like the perfect fit for me. I was excited to see what picture these Hollywood hotshots would paint of Lake of the Ozarks, and I was surprisingly impressed. They affectionately termed it “The Redneck Riviera” and made it seem like a pleasant place to be.

The show opens with an off-screen monologue given by Marty, the businessman turned criminal that the show is centered around. He discusses America’s perverted relationship with money: we always want to obtain more, but we can never seem to hold onto it for very long. He gives a frightening statistic - only 15% of Americans are prepared for even one year of retirement, much less the average 13 years of retirement.

Stepping a little further into the show, we see that Marty himself has an interesting relationship with money. His wife reveals that she bought groceries earlier that day, and Marty questions why that’s the second time she’s bought groceries this week. When his 15-year-old daughter asks him for $10 for a fishy sounding fundraiser, he firmly refuses to give it to her. He seems deeply unhappy in his suburban life, but we don’t see him making an effort to seek something better.

There was one element of the show that I was surprisingly impressed with: the script. I’ve already mentioned the monologue that the show opens with. In my opinion, that is one of the best written scenes in the episode. Near the end of his speech about America’s relationship with money, Marty ends with a statement that I found worth sharing:

“Money is not peace of mind. Money’s not happiness. Money is, at its essence, that measure of a man’s choices.”

This theme of choices that Marty refers to is one of the central ideas throughout the episode. He makes many questionable choices, including agreeing to help a Mexican drug lord, all in the interest in doing what’s right for his family. I found this interesting, because for a man who’s willing to elude the federal government, he doesn’t actually seem that invested in his family. I think that Marty is a man who wants a life he doesn’t have, and his way of coping with that is by giving in to his inner desires (for money and power) and then covering it by saying that he’s doing it for his family.

Overall, I won’t watch this show again, and here’s why: it’s not new. As the plot of the show continued to unfold, I felt like somehow, I’d already seen this before. I’m almost tempted to call this a Netflix Unoriginal. It seemed like a recycled storyline set with new characters. It had all the basic elements of a movie that you watch at 3am when you can’t sleep: an unsatisfied wife, two disgruntled kids, and trouble with the law.

I will continue to be proud of Missouri (and Jason Bateman, for that matter), but until a more enthralling drama set in my home state is produced, I’ll have to be content with this one.