Writing Lessons From… Ozark

An ordinary couple with their two children are living their lives in Chicago when a past decision comes back to haunt them. Marty (Jason Bateman) is an accountant and has amazing skills for balancing books, seeing where problems lie and creating solutions. In other words, he’s every money launderer’s dream.

Which is why the second biggest, scariest Mexican cartel wanted to work with him.

He didn’t go into this decision alone. Marty worked with the Cartel alongside his business partner (who meets a grizzly demise in the very first episode) and after a good discussion with his wife, Wendy (the amazing Laura Linney).

Forced to think quick before he’s shot in the head, Marty offers the Cartel the idea of moving to the Ozarks – a small town full of lakes – and setting up a money laundering base there.

Cue three seasons of Ozark, as Marty and Wendy uproot their family, buy a house by a lake that comes with an old, dying man, and immediately and rather desperately embark on taking over the local businesses. In doing so, they ruin the money laundering operations already in place and earn themselves some enemies, as well as some unlikely friends.

So many people die because of Marty and Wendy.

I could honestly write so much about Ozark: most notably a study of creating characters with such depth that you’re constantly changing your mind about whether they should die for the sake of those around them or not, and the magic of creating such formidable female characters in a world of men (I mean, Darlene terrified me but I think Wendy terrified me more).

While we’re on the subject of incredibly powerful female characters, it’s arguable who the main character of Ozark is. You think it’s going to be Marty, but it ultimately becomes Ruth. Wonderful, vulnerable, strong Ruth who flips from stupid redneck to kind soul to clever woman to business queen. Ozark is the story of her growth, of all her potential and everything she could and should have been, punctuated by me shouting ‘FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LEAVE NOW! GET AS FAR AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE AS YOU CAN!’ at the TV screen.

This meant that the final season of Ozark had to be powerful, it had to be strong, it had to mean something. Because that’s exactly what the three seasons that came before it were leading to.

Yet, it fell flat for me.

And not just because of how Nelson died (yes, Nelson was my favourite. That scene with him and the therapist was one of the best in the entire show. The only real glimpse we got into his personality, and yet he was a heavy presence throughout the second half of the show. He is a beacon of clever writing).
I’m incredibly angry about how Nelson died.

The problem with deaths in a TV show like Ozark is that it’s so…final.

How do you make the death of a character that so many people love mean something? How do you do it justice?

I’m going to focus on the last death in the series, and ultimately the most important death in the whole thing: Ruth’s.
While I’m annoyed with how Nelson died, he wasn’t a main character. He deserved better but I also don’t imagine many people cared.
But Ruth… Ruth was right there from the first episode to the last. Ruth went on a journey, a much bigger journey than Marty or Wendy.

Let’s start with this: Ruth had to die.

From a storytelling and writing perspective, it had to happen. We all wanted her to run away, to forget about Marty and Wendy and their family, but let’s face it, she was never going to get out of this alive.

There’s a poetic justice to it. Everyone who meets Marty and Wendy is doomed. The opium farmers, the whole of Ruth’s family (only Three survived and they were annoyingly quiet about him at the end. I’m assuming he’s in therapy), their marriage therapist, the scary Cartel dude who hired them, the Cartel boss, even Wendy’s own brother (which was brilliantly done and utterly heartbreaking).

As much as I sort of wanted Wendy to die at the end, both Marty and Wendy had to survive. This whole thing was their fault, it was their decision. They are the reapers, sweeping through the lives of everyone they meet and bringing destruction.

So, Ruth had to die. But how?

You can tell that a lot of work was put into Ruth’s death. The clothes she’s wearing, the setting, how the scene played out.

But the whole thing didn’t leave me feeling sad, I didn’t shed a tear (balled my eyes out for lovely, sweet Ben), I didn’t jump or shout (the way I did for evil Darlene and poor, innocent Wyatt).

This was possibly because I knew it was coming. The whole season was just waiting for the final episode for Ruth to die.

But I actually put most of the meh feeling down to who killed her.

The Cartel’s boss, Omar’s sister Camila, who was plotting to take over her brother’s operation. Another fiercely terrifying female character to join the ranks of Wendy and Darlene, and yet she was a newcomer. Which was, I think, the problem.

I had no strong feelings for Camila, other than annoyance at her swanning in and killing a load of characters I really liked.

Ruth had to die, but she deserved to die at the hands of someone…important. Not just some woman we barely know. That could have happened at any time. No, Ruth deserved her death to mean something. Instead, Camila followed her home and shot her.

And that’s all she wrote.

Meh.

What are the writing lessons here?

If your character was born to die, and you’ve built them into this wonderful fan favourite, give them a good death.

I cannot express that enough.

Yes, it’s hard to do, because everything worth something in this world is hard. That’s where the genius and talent and wonderful magic of storytelling lies. In not going with your first idea, in pushing for something more, something better.

How would I have written Ruth’s death?

I think Wendy should have killed her. I think Marty could have dived in front to save Ruth, because throughout all of this, he’s tried so hard to pretend to be a good man with Ruth at the centre. In anger and grief and shock at shooting her husband, Wendy goes into a blind rage and shoots Ruth. And this time there’s no one there to save her.

Ruth goes down, Wendy is broken.

Because Marty was never the true reaper.
Because Ozark is a story about strong women, not scary, strong men.

Because Wendy couldn’t die, but perhaps in killing Ruth (and maybe Marty) she would be reborn. To rise up against Camila. To become the new kingpin. Or perhaps to sink into the darkness and wait for revenge.

Ending a story can be so difficult

I don’t know if the makers of Ozark wanted a season five or for a different platform to give them a chance, but perhaps that’s why they didn’t go out guns blazing.

As it is, for me, Ozark died with a whimper. Which was a huge shame considering what a formidable piece of moving art the rest of it was.