Spoiler Warning: Ozark
After four seasons, the Netflix hit series, Ozark, has finally come to an end. The final season debuted in two parts, with the first seven episodes streaming on January 21st and the last seven dropping on April 29th. Ozark's first half ended with a cliffhanger as Ruth (Julia Garner) drove off to avenge her cousin Wyatt's (Charlie Tahan) death at the hands of the Navarro Cartel's new boss, Javi Elizonndro (Alfonso Herrera). This cliffhanger set up one of the primary conflicts in the show's final season. Without Javi, the Byrdes have no deal with the FBI and won't be freed from their cartel operations nor have the opportunity to restart their lives in Chicago as one of the city's wealthiest families.
If Ruth refrained from killing Javi, the Byrds would be home free, but alas, Ruth puts a gun to Clare Shaw (Katrina Lenk), Wendy (Laura Linney), and Marty (Jason Bateman) and demand they call Javi into Clare's office. Upon arriving, Ruth shoots Javi several times without so much as a word, taking a match to the Byrde's plans, forcing them to scheme their way to survival in the show's final half. The Byrds have everything thrown at them at once as Ruth attempts a hostile takeover of the casino, Wendy's father searches for Ben (Tom Pelphrey) and tries to take the kids, Clare withdraws her support of the foundation, and Omar Navarro (Felix Solis) demands the Byrds get him back to Mexico. It's impressive that the Byrds survived all of these obstacles, but like they always do, they make it at the last second with it all on the line. The Byrds get away with it all, but Ruth isn't so lucky, as her killing of Javi eventually comes back to haunt her.
Stakes in the Final Season: Wendy's Father
Much to Wendy's dismay, her father, Nathan (Richard Thomas), arrives in the Ozarks to search for Ben with his church group. Finished searching for Helen (Janet McTeer), P.I. Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg) begins working for Nathan as they begin the search for Ben. Nathan begins trying to get close to the Byrde children while Mel discovers that Ben was last seen in security footage at a diner where Nelson (Nelson Bonilla) is seen walking towards him. Mel tells Nathan that Nelson worked for the cartel, and Nathan puts it together that Wendy likely has some ties with the cartel and knows what happened to Ben. Nathan petitions for custody of the Byrde children and Wendy and Marty attempt to bribe Mel into not testifying, bribing him by getting him his job back in the Chicago Police Department. Mel takes the job, but the judge still grants Nathan the right to take the children if they consent.
Wendy checks herself into a mental health facility to avoid killing her father and asks Marty to tell the children where she is in the hopes of worrying them and getting them to stay. Marty enlists Ruth's help to convince Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) and Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) to stay, stating if she doesn't help, he'll tell Camila (Verónica Falcón), Javi's mother, about Ruth killing Javi. Ruth gets Nathan liquored up and holds him at gunpoint, forcing him to admit to Jonah and Charlotte that he abused Wendy and never wanted them. Nathan had just wanted to get back at Wendy for making him look like a "fool" when she was growing up. Charlotte and Jonah go to Wendy in the hospital, where she apologizes to them for Ben and how she's used them. The Byrds reconcile with one another, and Wendy pays Nathan by giving him access to a never-ending money cache, supposedly going toward the search for Ben.
Stakes in the Final Season: The Deal with the FBI
After Ruth kills Javi, the Byrds scramble to get a new deal in place. Their only hope is to get Omar Navarro extradited back to Mexico, so he can resume control of the cartel. To get Navarro back to Mexico, the Byrds have to get him off the SDN list (a list prohibiting individuals from doing business with US companies). While the Byrds lobby to have him removed, Marty is forced to go to Mexico to secure Navarro's control of the cartel and falsely claim that Navarro had Javi killed. Navarro is almost killed himself when Marty is away in an assassination attempt, forcing Marty to find the orchestrator. Heeding the advice of Camila, Marty kills the wrong person. Marty arrives home to find out someone is attempting to block Navarro's removal from the SDN list, having only mentioned the SDN list to Camila, Marty figures out she was behind the assassination attempt.
As all of this is going on, Clare Shaw withdraws from their deal that had the Byrds supplying Clare's pharmaceutical company with raw materials from the cartel in an effort to save her three-hundred million dollars with half going to the Byrde Foundation. Unable to stop Clare from using Ruth to get Darlene's (Lisa Emery) heroin cache, Wendy chooses to work with Camila instead of outing her, getting Navarro to name her acting head of the cartel and using her to intimidate Clare back into the deal. The Byrds get the deal with Clare back and ask Camila to become a part of the deal with the FBI. Not needing Navarro anymore, the Byrds subtly ask Camila to kill Navarro. She agrees to it all, but in a final meeting with Navarro she discovers he didn't kill Javi, turning her suspicions back to Clare and the Byrds. Despite knowing her brother didn't kill Javi, Camila still goes forward with the deal with the FBI and has Navarro killed during a prison transfer.
Ruth's Choice
After Ruth kills Javi in the opener of the series' second half she's approached by Clare Shaw to buy Darlene's heroin. Ruth enlists the help of Frank Jr. (Joseph Sikora) to trick the cops, succeeding in getting Darlene's heroin to Shaw. Ruth decides to track down Rachel (Jordana Spiro) in Miami and convince her to help her take over the casino from the Byrds. After they seize the shares of the casino inherited from Darlene and Wyatt, Ruth goes to Charles Wilkes (Darren Goldstein), an enemy of the Byrds who helped them build the casino, to get him to help their takeover. Wilkes connects Ruth with a judge who has her record cleared, and Ruth seizes control of the casino with her name on it and Rachel coming on as manager. While initially refusing to launder the Byrds money through the casino, Ruth eventually agrees, being promised immunity by the FBI. Now the head of a major casino and building her own mansion where the family trailer used to be, Ruth had finally made herself into something more than just another generational criminal, on the verge of joining the moneyed elite in Missouri. Unfortunately, this wasn't to last.
At the fundraiser for the Byrde Foundation at the casino, Camila threatens Clare into revealing who killed Javi, promising not to kill her in the future if she tells the truth now. The Byrds want to save Ruth, but can't, as to do so would mean to lose everything. Camila goes to Ruth's home and in the show's most heartbreaking moment, Ruth is shot and killed. From the moment Ruth pulled the trigger and killed Javi, she was seemingly doomed to this fate, but was it a bad choice? Three (Carson Holmes) is the only Langmore left and stands to inherit the casino and the mansion Ruth is building. In that sense, Ruth's death can be thought of as a sacrifice to break her family's generational curse and replace it with generational wealth. Without the confidence she gained from going against the Byrds and killing Javi, Ruth wouldn't have seized the casino shares in time, leaving them to the Byrds to take. The Byrds may have succeeded in obtaining generational wealth, but so did Ruth. Unfortunately for her, it'll only be her descendants that get to enjoy it.
The Final Scene
The Byrds are out. Having secured the deal with the FBI and Clare, they will now oversee a massive foundation that holds the keys to all elections in the region and possibly the entire country in the long term. Once home, Wendy and Marty notice their glass is broken and that Mel Sattem is sitting outside with the goat cookie jar/urn containing Ben's ashes and the evidence to put the Byrds away. Mel tells them they don't get to do what they did and then sail off into the sunset as the Kennedys because the world doesn't work like that. Wendy retorts, "Since when?" and Jonah appears with a shotgun in hand, aiming it at Mel. As the show cuts to black, the gunshot goes off.
While it isn't heard, Jonah shooting Mel would have likely resulted in the urn being dropped and shattering. This is symbolic of the Byrds losing their last bits of humanity. Jonah was the most agitated when it came to Wendy ordering Ben's death, unable to see past the cruelty of it. Ruth gives the goat cookie jar back to Jonah, but instead of keeping it, he leaves it behind at the hotel reception desk, leading to Mel stealing it. By shattering the goat cookie jar, Jonah forgoes Ben's memory and the cruelty of his death to accept his family's generational wealth built on blood. It's a happy ending for the family, but it isn't really happy.
The Byrds ruined countless lives, killed many people (mostly indirectly), and of course laundered money for a Mexican drug cartel while helping the government prop up the phony war on drugs. Ozark leaves audiences with a cynical message. Families like the Byrds will always succeed in America over those trying to do the right thing. In a couple of generations, nobody will know how the Byrds built their wealth as their future heirs will speak of "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" and the pursuit of the American dream as to how they achieved their fortune. There are dozens of families like the Byrds in modern society, many of which don't and will never know of the causalities and inhumanity required to achieve that wealth. For the Byrds it's a happy ending, but when people like the Byrds win, it is America who loses.