Netflix’s Ozark dubbed ‘better than Breaking Bad’ as season 4 of Jason Bateman thriller drops today
OZARK returns to Netflix today with the first seven episodes of its fourth and final season, but the critically acclaimed series was once considered a poor man’s Breaking Bad.
A whip-smart, twisty thriller, Ozark stars Jason Bateman as a financial advisor who moves his reluctant wife (Laura Linney) and kids (Sofia Hublitz and Skylar Gaertner) out to Missouri’s Ozarks.
But this is no ordinary family relocation, with Bateman’s character Marty fleeing a botched money laundering scheme for a Mexican cartel in Chicago.
The fella has dragged the middle-class Byrde clan to the summer resort community of Osage Beach to atone for his big blunder by setting up an even larger money laundering outfit in the area.
There, as Marty struggles to “clean” $500 million in the space of five years to appease the cartel boss, the family finds themselves caught up with local crooks and mobsters.
Ozark has amassed a huge and growing fan base across the globe, but in its earlier days the show was widely considered to be bland and derivative.
One series it was often compared to was Breaking Bad, with both led by middle-class dads venturing into the murky underbellies of their sleepy locales.
Rolling Stone, for example, savagely labelled Ozark: “Peak TV’s greatest hits played by a proficient covers band”. Ouch!
What an incredible one-eighty the programme’s creators Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams have witnessed since their magnificent baby debuted.
Five years on and many critics are hailing it as a true masterstroke, which has knocked Breaking Bad down the drama ranks by a place.
In this fourth and final season, the Byrdes are rolling in cash as they operate their own casino, but the bunch are also rolling in enemies.
Who knows whether they’ll see a happy ending - fans will just have to wait until Netflix releases the final seven episodes later this year.