A Quick Ozark Refresher Ahead of Season 4

The following story, obviously, contains spoilers for Ozark Season 3, ahead of the release of Season 4, Part 1.

It’s been nearly two full years since Season 3 of Ozark debuted, and while that certainly marked a high watermark for the series—it’s easily the best Ozark has been yet—we couldn’t blame you if you didn’t quite remember everything. It’s been a long time, and it’s not like we aren’t all watching about 100 different TV shows per year these days. That’s a lot of story to remember, a lot of characters to learn to love (or hate), and a lot of plot twists and turns to keep straight. And we don’t always have time to rewatch either—that’s why we’re here to let you know the main thing you need to remember as Ozark gets ready for the first part of its final season: the Byrdes are fucked.

We’ll get into a bit more detail than that, but that’s it in a nutshell. Ozark has come far since Jason Bateman’s Marty Byrde first revealed his money laundering ways in the show’s first season; in case you forgot, the final scene of Ozark Season 3 found our troubled lead couple literally hugging the leader of a mass-murdering Mexican drug cartel. Probably not exactly where a money manager from Chicago planned to be.

There are a lot of characters, and while there are plenty of details that you may not 100% remember, we’re going to cover all the bases here. The following characters are the ones you need to remember, and the details are what will be touched on again in Season 4. Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered.

Here’s everything you’ll need to remember.

Marty Byrde

Netflix

Ah yes, good times. Marty and Wendy went down to Mexico having no fucking idea what was going to happen, and wound up in a bear hug with mass-murdering cartel leader Omar Navarro (with Helen Pierce’s blood and brains splattered all over them). How did we get here?

In a nutshell: the latest money laundering adventure for Marty and company found them investing and opening a casino boat in the Ozarks. And it was a big success! With Ruth running things and Wendy a full partner, things seemed to be going well. But things got messy with Helen Pierce, and Wendy’s brother Ben made for some trouble. Hence the whole…Navarro situation. Wendy and Marty also had a basically failed time in couples therapy where both were bribing the therapist to take their side. We’ll say this a few more times in this article, but it was a whole damn mess.

And, oh yes—Marty has also been working with Agent Maya Miller of the FBI. He is very good at identifying financial crimes, et cetera, and she thinks he can be a real asset! They are working on some ideas to get him out that involve jail time. But that’s probably easier said than done.

All things considered, Marty hasn’t changed from the start of the series: he’s involved in bad stuff, and he knows it. He wants out—but he doesn’t want to pay the consequences that probably come along with that.

Wendy Byrde

Netflix

Wendy, meanwhile, kind of seems to love it? She’s always been a power player of sorts—her character background found her working on the democratic side of the political world. But ever since Marty brought her deep into the business, she seems to getting colder and colder, crescendoing with the moment in Season 3 of Ozark where she sets up Ben, her own brother, to be killed. Wendy also openly plots against Helen, and talks regularly with drug lord Omar Navarro. Nutshell: Wendy is the one Breaking Bad here.

Ruth Langmore

Netflix

In case you’ve forgotten everything you’ve ever seen on Ozark, we’ll just spell it out for you: Ruth Langmore is the best character on the whole show. Julia Garner is fantastic (and has won two Emmys for the role), and brings so much to the role every season as essentially Ozark‘s Jesse Pinkman to Marty Byrde’s Walter White.

Season 3 opened with Ruth managing the Missouri Belle, Marty and Wendy’s casino boat. And it was going well! She had some problems with Frank Cosgrove Jr., of the Kansas City Mob, who was a general asshole; she threw him off the boat, literally, and then Frank had her beat up. Eventually, Darlene Snell shot Frank Jr. between his legs. Bad, but problem solved for now I suppose.

The most significant storyline of Ruth’s in Season 3 is that she entered into a relationship with Wendy’s brother, Ben Davis; the two had a real connection. When Ben and Ruth got intimate, though, due to his bipolar medcation, he couldn’t perform. This led to his stopping his medication, and eventually led to some manic episodes. After one particular confrontation with Helen Pierce, Wendy allowed Ben to be killed by the cartel’s hitman. Ruth was not OK with this; at the end of the season, she went off to work and join forces growing and selling heroin with her cousin, Wyatt Langmore, and his weird-ass girlfriend Darlene Snell.

Jonah Byrde

Netflix

Jonah has been an odd bird for all of Ozark but kind of remains the moral center of the show. He bonded at first with Buddy, the old man who lived in their house, who taught him to shoot guns. Then Buddy died and Jonah felt out of place again. He also had a little romance in Season 3 with Helen Pierce’s daughter, Erin, which was probably a bad idea. He also had a tight relationship with Ben Davis, which…made Ben’s death quite the strain on the family. He also held a gun to Helen Pierce’s face, in her own house, believing her to be responsible for Ben’s death/disappearance. Helen, then, told Jonah that it was his mother’s call.

Let’s also remember that Jonah, under the name of “Mike Fleming,” is now a money laundering financial crypto criminal just like his old man. Something to keep in mind.

Charlotte Byrde

Netflix

Charlotte Byrde is a character that Ozark doesn’t seem to 100% have an idea of what to do with. She’s had plots where she randomly hooks up with older men (while she’s only 16), another where she tried to get emancipated from her parents (remember that one?), and the one that probably worked the best, where she bonded with Wyatt Langmore (because, you see, both are smart). In Season 3, Charlotte put that whole emancipation thing behind her and was working closely with her parents. All things considered, she’s probably the best-adjusted person in the whole family.

Omar Navarro

Netflix

Drug cartel leader! Bad guy. Has gotten friendly with Wendy and thinks Marty is OK, but very capable. Decided to have Helen Pierce killed and to throw his lot in with the Byrdes—we’ll see how it shakes out.

Helen Pierce

Steve Deitl/Netflix

Dead.

Despite an initially amiable relationship with the Byrdes, things wound up going very sour. She made a power play to take over everything the Byrde family had built in the midwest, but after being threatened by Jonah Byrde with a gun, all three of our power players wound up with Navarro in Mexico. And Omar likes the Byrdes better! So Helen took a bullet to the head. Her brains are currently splattered all over Marty and Wendy’s faces.

Ben Davis

Netflix

Dead.

While Ben (played wonderfully by actor Tom Pelphrey) and Ruth had grown close, due to the prescriptions he had for his bipolar disorder he was unable to perform in intimate situations; in response, he stopped taking his medication. This led him to manic moments, like the one that saw him ruining Wendy’s event, and also the one that found him blowing up on Helen Pierce in front of her daughter—exposing to Erin Pierce that Helen was working for the Cartel. As a result, Wendy made the difficult (but very evil and wrong!) decision to give Ben up, setting him up to be killed by the cartel’s hitman. Bad, bad, bad.

Jim Rattelsdorf

Netflix

Remember this guy? Wendy first met Jim when she started trying to scurry favor with Charles Wilkes, the conservative political power broker. The two got along well, and Jim has been giving her advice and helping her strategize ever since.

Maya Miller

Netflix

Maya is in a weird place—she’s an FBI agent actively working both sides of a case. She’s got Marty and Wendy working with, her, aiming at something bigger (to potentially infiltrate the Navarro cartel and take it down). But at the same time, is she actively colluding with criminals? Nuanced, interesting stuff.

Wyatt Langmore

Netflix

Lol. You’ll remember that Wyatt was flailing after the death of his father, Russ Langmore (at Ruth’s hands, no less). Season 3 found him squatting in empty vacation homes before he was eventually taken in like a lost puppy by Darlene Snell. Extra upsetting, because you’ll remember that Wyatt was always “the smart one”—he loves to read, and was going to go to college.

Darlene, obviously, is a total loose cannon and while she initially kind of seemed to be taking Wyatt in out of the kindness of her heart, was always intended on seducing him. And now they’re in a very bizarre relationship. And at the end of the season, Wyatt, Darlene, and Ruth are all working together with her regrown heroin farm. Bad!

Darlene Snell

Netflix

This woman is a goddamn lunatic. She is growing her heroin again, and using Ruth’s business acumen (and her relationship with Wyatt) to sell it. Obviously, this will cause a problem for the Byrdes. A couple other things to remember: Darlene murdered her husband, Jacob Snell, when he was getting soft (in her mind). She also hates being called a “redneck,” and has killed multiple people on screen for doing so. Someone this unhinged doesn’t sound like a particularly good person to care for a child, does it? Well, too bad, because Darlene used some of her leverage with the Byrdes to basically seize control of a baby named Zeke, who you may recall is the son of a couple who are now both deceased (the mother was murdered just after the baby was born by the Snells due to a complicated threat involving their on-the-water heroin trade, and the father was the Pastor who lost his own damn mind and tried holding the Byrdes hostage). The whole thing is a god damn mess.

Also, remember that Darlene is literally a threat to the life of anyone she shares the same space as; she proved that it’s not only your life you need to be worried about either, when she shot Frank Cosgrove Jr. (of the Kansas City mob) directly in the crotch. Ouch.

Frank Cosgrove Sr. and Frank Cosgrove Jr.

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

These two represent the Kansas City Mob, who were working with the Byrdes on numerous money schemes. While Frank Sr. and Marty had a pretty good working relationship, Frank Jr. and Ruth had an adversarial one; he was an asshole, she threw him off the Casino boat, he beat her up, Darlene shot him between his legs. Both Frank Cosgroves are alive, but seem to be in a prickly situation.

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