![]() I call this image “defensible,” because it more or less makes sense why Ruth’s face would be half in shadow. Ruth talks to her dad in the Ozark season two premiere. ![]() Let me explain what I mean by starting with a shot that is, on its face, totally defensible. Ozark is so dedicated to a visual gimmick of swathing everything in shadow that it sometimes becomes incomprehensible Some spoilers follow, mostly in the images, which depict certain situations the characters get into. So intent on being perceived as serious is Ozark that it never stops to shoot anything in a format other than “ultra-glum.” Watching any given frame of this series, which has earned Emmy nominations for directing and cinematography, is frequently like looking through a pool of dirty dishwater. There are still enough good things going on that I could have written off Ozark season two as competent but ultimately not for me - but for one thing. Thus, in season two of Ozark, the Byrdes are too often reactive protagonists, trying to clean up messes caused by others rather than making new messes of their own. TV doesn’t handle the moment where the protagonist “refuses the call” well, because it tends to drag out that moment into long bouts of inaction. The “what if I tried to escape?” story has driven arcs on just about any antihero drama you can think of, though rarely successfully. This is a common thing for an antihero drama to try for a few episodes. Ozark is yet another white guy antihero show. If they leave the Ozarks, then there is no show. The story is about their slow descent into outright criminality, juxtaposed with the way said descent changes their family, sometimes for the better (but often for the worse). The Byrdes are our point-of-view characters. Leaving aside that the Byrdes are frequently the least interesting characters on their own show, perpetually trapped in moral dilemmas prompted by their life of crime (dilemmas you’d really think they would have seen coming had they watched any other crime drama ever made), the audience knows they won’t be leaving anytime soon. They give much less attention to their burgeoning criminal empire. Yet season two of Ozark is mostly about the Byrdes trying to pretend they’re not characters in a TV show, as Marty and Wendy focus on their plan to split with their two kids for the Gold Coast of Australia once the casino is open, leaving behind whatever mess they’ve created. (Darlene Snell, played by Lisa Emery, doesn’t much like “Mexicans,” as she’s fond of pointing out, but she can come up with any number of reasons to stomp on the casino project, some of which she just pulls out of her ass in the moment.) This complicated balancing act, with the Byrdes at its center, would seem to set up a second season all about Marty and Wendy trying to keep the casino on track while trying to keep the cartel from stomping on the Snells and the Snells from fucking everything up in a fit of pique. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark
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