ADIOS, muchachos

ADIOS, MUCHACHOS.??The 2 Minute Takedown

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The happiness & sadness smoothie that slowly creeps in the OZARK series finale.??WARNING!?SPOILERS!??

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It’s been a week since Netflix released the final 7 episode ‘half season’ of Series Four including the series finale.?If you haven’t watched it by now, you’re not a devotee.?So once more with vigour:?SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!

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The first half of the final season’s 7 episodes were amongst the very best of the series (which regrettably really struggled in Season 2) & redeemed itself with a brilliant third series.

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I loved the show, warts and all, and forgive it all it’s shortcomings, because it was so lovingly dark, and so centered on the most impossibly plausible family unit, that it sucked me in and cloaked me in such velvety blackness that I just couldn’t escape.??No, it wasn’t BREAKING BAD, or SOPRANOS, but is inevitably going to be compared to them especially for it’s ending so it has no other choice.?The ONLY thing I wanted in the final season was for Nelson to beat Jonah within an inch of his life for being the most insufferable teenager ever, and I didn’t get my wish.?Admittedly my other hope was that Ruth would update her white trash hairdo and thus have a chance to escape her trailer park heritage and slide into prosperity.?

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No such luck.

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The show didn’t jump the shark.?It gave and gave, and flagged just about everything in the finale with flashbacks and cameos and I don’t think there wasn’t one character from the first 3 seasons who didn’t pop by to say goodbye.??But I loved it all….because when it ended, it left me with so many unanswered questions, but wrapped up the important ones --just enough to give me hope for The Byrd family as they continue on in cyberspace somewhere.

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Problematically, the car accident where the Byrd family’s minivan flips over (teased early in the season) ?and was supposed to be THE BIG REVEAL---never materialized as anything much to advance the story.?*I think IMHO it would have been the most genius writing move of the series to have had daughter Charlotte die in the rollover.?It would have been the highest price for Marty and Wendy to pay---the loss of the cleanskin daughter—and would have paved the road for the big payoff when Jonah finally buys back into the family by blasting that pissant annoying festering alcoholic private detective who deserved a bullet since we met him.?His one redeeming feature is he loved his cat.?And to this day I’m wondering who is going to look after the kitty??Certainly not that failed FBI wannabe Maya who pretended to be his moral compass & latent girlfriend.??

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Will the Byrds still continue to work with the FBI??Will Clare find her heroin someplace else since Ruth is going to join Nelson at the bottom of the pool (figuratively) as Camila (an uglier meaner version of AOC post-Congress next year who goes back to drug dealing) ended her chance at leaving the shallow end of the gene pool??Will Camilla/AOC return to Mexico and leave the Byrds alone, or want them to keep laundering money???So many questions, but none of them matter anymore really.?The Byrds won.?They got cashed up and cashed out.?The got cred.?They kept the family together at great peril.?And Jonah stopped being the worst teenage son and became a reluctant hero. ?And Laura Linney (Wendy) evaporated TV’s large and small with her unbelievable seamless performances.

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It didn’t tie up in a neat little bow like the melancholic finale of BREAKING BAD, nor leave us with a ‘dead or alive?’ question like SOPRANO’s unbeatable genre-busting once-in-a-lifetime genius of black screen bingo.

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It wasn’t perfect, but what family is?

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Adios, muchachos.?I will miss you all.?

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Especially Nelson.?We all need a Nelson in our lives….