Crime life takes no break for the Byrde family in “Ozark,” Netflix’s breakout, but still somehow overlooked show about a Chicago-based financial advisor who is forced to secretly relocate his family to the Missouri Ozarks when his dealings with a drug cartel go awry.
Things ended poorly in the last season of “Ozark,” and in the trailer for its follow-up, the stakes look higher, the tension thicker and the situations look darker (both literally and figuratively). Star Laura Linney described the upcoming season as “a bit like a Chinese puzzle” and that when the characters “reached one level of safety, and a whole other level of danger opens up to them.”
Whew, sounds intense. And the official synopsis only adds to that feeling.
In its much-anticipated second season, “Ozark” continues to follow Marty Bryde and his family as they navigate the murky waters of life within a dangerous drug cartel. With Del out, the crime syndicate sends their ruthless attorney Helen Pierce to town to shake things up just as the Byrdes are finally settling in. Marty and Wendy struggle to balance their family interests amid the escalating dangers presented by their partnerships with the power-hungry Snells, the cartel and their new deputy, Ruth Langmore, whose father Cade has been released from prison. The stakes are even higher than before and The Byrdes soon realize they have to go all in before they can get out.
Joining stars Linney, Jason Bateman, and Julia Garner this season is veteran actor Janet McTeer. McTeer was recently seen on another Netflix show, Marvel’s “Jessica Jones,” and will be playing a “Chicago-based attorney with links to the cartel” who’s “a potential threat to the Byrdes.”
Bateman spoke with Deadline on what viewers can expect for “Ozark” season two, which he calls a sequel “as opposed to a second season.” “We’re approaching [Ozark] as a 10-chapter movie… the second year is not a completely new story, but it is another single beginning, middle, and end.” He also had heaps of praise for the streaming platform. “It’s fantastic from a creative standpoint in that you can make assumptions that people are going to be biting off big chunks of this. From a writing standpoint, you don’t feel the same obligation to reestablish things.”
Spend your Labor Day weekend binge-watching “Ozark’s” second season only on Netflix August 31
