Warning: The following contains heavy spoilers for Season 4 of Ozark, now streaming on Netflix.
Season 4 is Ozark’s darkest offering yet, as evidenced by the trailer, proving that old actions always come back to haunt us in the end. Fans have watched the Byrdes adjust from city life in Chicago to more humble surroundings in a small town in the Ozark mountains after Marty got himself mixed up in some messy business with the Navarro drug cartel. Though terrified at the prospect of their ultimate fate, Marty and his wife Wendy are determined to protect their children from the dangerous world they’ve been thrust into.
While Marty has always been smooth-talking and seemingly able to negotiate his way out of any situation, Wendy’s character arc as scared confused wife to stone-cold, cut-throat political hopeful became one of the highlights of the show. However, in Season 4 her normally very calculated decisions seem to be few and far between — and she’s becoming more of a villain.
Wendy vs. Darlene
Darlene Snell has served as one of the Byrdes’ main antagonists in the Ozarks, mostly due to her competing drug operation selling home-grown dope. The Byrdes have done a strategic dance around Darlene, wanting to avoid conflict with her as much as possible but also knowing her business directly competes with the Navarro cartel. In Season 4, Wendy threw this strategy out the window several times during confrontations with Darlene.
One of the more shocking moments of the season came from an altercation between Wendy and Darlene on the Byrdes’ front lawn. Whilst bickering over the distribution of product, Darlene suffered a heart attack after finding out her business partner Ruth Langmore went behind her back and negotiated with the Kansas City mob. It seemed like Wendy was willing to let Darlene die in her yard and she waited until the last possible moment to call for help. While it was satisfying to see Darlene crying after she was responsible for hurting so many people over the course of Ozark, it was extremely out of character for Wendy to almost let her die.
RELATED: How Ozark Sets up Season 4, Part 2
It would have been an absolute nightmare to try to get everyone’s alibis in order. The sheriff would have a lot of questions: why was Darlene at the Byrdes’ house so late? What were she and Wendy arguing about? Those questions could have lead to the discovery of both Darlene and the family’s ulterior motives, resulting in an even bigger mess than just Darlene dying. Wendy’s reaction in that scene forwent all mental strategy and was instead driven my pure contempt, giving viewers a clear hint at how dangerous Wendy could become if she gets pushed too far.
On top of that, Wendy also called Child Protective Services about baby Zeke, who has been in Darlene’s care after Zeke’s father killed himself. This may have been the right call for Zeke since Darlene had no legal claim to the baby; she wasn’t related to him or his family and really just stumbled into custody thanks to the former sheriff’s inattentiveness when it came to all Snell affairs. But Wendy didn’t do it because she was genuinely concerned about the child; that was just Wendy continuing to poke the bear that was Darlene.
Jonah’s Grief Puts Strain on His Relationship with Wendy
A massive Season 3 plot point was the murder of Wendy’s brother Ben. Her son Jonah was the closest to him, and after learning that Wendy was responsible for ordering the hit, Jonah’s perspective of who his mother was and what she was capable of drastically shifted. By the beginning of Ozark‘s fourth season, Jonah detested his mother so much that he agreed to launder money for Ruth and Darlene’s competing drug business just to spite Wendy in a frustrating betrayal arc. Wendy retaliated against her son by threatening to report Jonah to federal authorities for a juvenile felony.
Again, this was a far cry from Wendy’s typical strategic behavior. Not only was she threatening to incarcerate her son — using the fact that he’d only be tried as a juvenile as justification for her thought process — but doing so could have brought federal attention down onto her family. Her actions in locking Jonah out of his computer and talking with her lawyer about reporting him to the FBI were coming from a place of brash emotion rather than intuition.
While Wendy’s actions in Season 4 may be unhinged, they could also be the start of her metamorphosis into a true villain as Ozark is setting up its final act with violent plot twists reminiscent of Game of Thrones. After working so closely with Omar Navarro and learning the ways of her husband, it’s entirely feasible that Wendy could be consumed by the dark side she’s worked so hard to save her family from.
Ozark, Season 4 Part 1 is available to stream on Netflix now.
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