2020-03-30_People

NETFLIX | Ozark

How close will Jason Bateman and Laura Linney come to killing their marriage (and each other)?

DRAMA In season 3 of Netflix’s dense, completely

absorbing thriller, Marty and Wendy Byrde (Jason

Bateman and Laura Linney) hit a stormy Marriage

Story patch. Unlike Adam Driver and Scarlett Johans-

son, though, they’re drifting apart over what to do

about the criminal enterprise they’ve set up on a river-

boat casino. Marty thinks the joint, rather innocuously

named The Missouri Belle, is the best possible front for

the couple’s money-laundering opera-

tion and that this should suffice. But

Wendy has a grander vision of expand-

ing into another casino—including a

hotel! The two angrily parse their dif-

ferences with a therapist, both of them

being careful not to share too many details, although

Wendy complains that the therapist always sides with

Marty. (Which is true—he’s bribing her.) Marty and

Wendy work at devious, increasingly violent cross-

purposes that a viewer can see are a catastrophically

perverse combo of self-sabotage and mutually assured

destruction. This is almost as much fun as watching

Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn go over to the dark side

on Breaking Bad, but Linney’s and

Bateman’s performances are more

human, touched with regret, even

love—each of them practically flinches

when the next awful, hurtful decision

is reached. (Launches March 27)

‘Each of them is

working at devious,

increasingly violent

cross-purposes’

A couple of

criminals:

Linney and

Bateman.

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Edited By

Tom Gliatto

March 30, 2020 29

STEVE DEITL/NETFLIX

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