Season 1

67 | Ozark started in the middle of Marty's illegal activity as a money launderer. Just when everything sounds good and clear, some flies appear to bother his plan. A show that comes close to this probably Breaking Bad, but the difference was the main character in Ozark already developed as a criminal. The difference between Breaking Bad and Ozark is that Byrde's family has better communication than White's family. Marty and Wendy are a great couple or we could say a great business partner. It also portrayed how difficult parents parent their kids in this situation

The characters in Ozark have their uniqueness so it would be easy for us to remember each of them. Even though Ozark has many characters, all of that characters were only focusing on Marty. From Snell, Rachel, Ruth, Petty, and even Del. They all target Marty and put him in a complicated situation. Marty's characters are not the strongest element in Ozark but the people around him are, especially Del. He easily stole this show with his intimidation technique and how he made his words. The only minus point might be the FBI because one of them had meh acting and their romantic relationship was seems off for the story.

This show did not timid to expand the story. Almost every dialogue was significant for the story and the character development. Besides that, the color grading fit the tone of the story, blue as depression with a dark theme. But there was one episode about Marty's past that was not quite worked well presented. It was even worse with the editing structure decision that did not blend smoothly. Ozark sometimes felt like mundane activities from a money launder's daily life. But the directing saved the boringness of the plotline. Jason Bateman never failed to level up this show, either as an actor or a director. The intensity slowly rises up until the end.

Selling heroin in the bible? It was pretty symbolic. We could see it as a devil who ironically tried to lure a human to preach about the religion he believed in order to sell drugs. Whenever normal people see the other side of the world, the dark side, they just could not handle it. They always hope that the world is a good place to live. But the truth is there always will be a constant battle of good and bad until humans extinct. The newborn is hope for a better world.

Rating: 66.57

Favorite Episodes

78.38: E1 I Sugarwood
74.79: E7 I Nest Box
69.79: E4 I Tonight We Improvise
67.88: E2 I Blue Cat
67.63: E6 I Book of Ruth

Favorite Characters

65.00: Martin 'Marty' Byrde
64.55: Wendy Byrde
62.00: Jacob Snell
60.00: Del
57.86: Ruth Langmore

Written by Kornelius Harda Wicaksana

What we have here is a ten episode season that could easily be six. It's a common problem in the television format. We order a set number of episodes, typically standardized. I can't really understand why though. Variable season lengths based upon what your story necessitates seems to me like it would smooth out issues across the board.

It all boils down to a conflict of tone, because the beginning of this season starts with a bang. A goddamn powder keg of suspense and intensity. Truly one of the most memorable pilots because we are thrown directly into conflict. What makes the middle of the season so baffling, then, is that it seems to misunderstand that the greatest strength of the pilot is what the rest of the season seems to think is a mistake. Of the ten episodes in season one, the most vital episodes (1, 2, 9, 10) all function as thrillers, whereas the middle six operate as slow burn true crime dramas. And the issue becomes that those middle episodes don't have a lot of momentum to them because the show has already shown us that we don't necessarily need as much of the explanation to get the fuse lit again. Some, but not all. Episode 8 could have been almost entirely thrown out. It's a flashback episode to characters who haven't really earned that level of interest for me. I'm in for the situation not the characters. Episodes 3-7 can be condensed into two episodes. That's five hours of content that could effectively be two.

I think there's a lot of good potential to this show. When placed into the right hands (primarily, Jason Bateman's. This dude carried the entire season on his back both in front of and behind the camera, sheesh), the thing kind of soars off the rails even when the script feels kind of goofy. Hell, there's a good chunk of this season that feels like a dark comedy. In short, it feels like this show is still cooking. It somehow feels too confident and not quite sure enough of itself. It rests too heavily on Breaking Bad without getting that that show did exceptionally well at creating believable characters. We'll see how season two does. I'm on board for more, but I don't know that Ozark has my trust yet.