And so passes a season of Ozark that largely, if not quite entirely, did away with the previous season’s writing tics—the timed ultimatums, the ultraviolence during the cold opens—and dug us deep into a brand new character, only to yank him away from us by the end, Sopranos-style. It may not be a canonical drama, no matter what the awards shows say, but it’s an entertaining one, and one that isn’t afraid to aim high now and then. At the end of last season I speculated that the show might be on the verge of greatness, and said I’d be thinking about it for a long time. I don’t think either of those predictions quite played out, but the show kept me engaged and never insulted my intelligence in the process. Sometimes, that’s plenty.

I reviewed the season finale of Ozark Season Three for Decider.

There’s a Sopranos episode, maybe you remember it, called “Long Term Parking.” In that episode, [CHARACTER A REDACTED] reveals to [CHARACTER B REDACTED] that they’ve been working with the FBI, in hopes that Character B, too, will want to flip on the mob. The two separate, and then Character A receives a phone call from [CHARACTER C REDACTED] that Character B has attempted suicide, and that [CHARACTER D REDACTED] will come pick Character A up to visit Character B in the hospital. As Characters A and D take that ride together, your brain reels back and forth from relief to dread to relief again, since it seems Character A is in the clear. Only they’re not, not by a long shot. Character D isn’t there to give them a ride—at least not the ride they wanted. Character D is there to drive Character A out into the middle of nowhere and murder them, which Character D does. All these characters who seemed to love Character A are revealed as charlatans, or at the very least as people who put their own safety ahead of every other consideration. If you pose a risk to the family, you will be killed. It’s that simple.

Anyway, the cinematographer for that episode of The Sopranos is Alik Sakharov. Sakharov also directed Ozark Season 3 Episode 9 (“Fire Pink”). Why do I bring that up? Oh, no reason.

I reviewed the penultimate episode of Ozark Season Three for Decider.

What we have here is a chickens-come-home-to-roost episode. Ozark Season 3 Episode 8 is titled “BFF” for reasons that I must say elude me at the moment; it’s the antepenultimate installment of Ozark‘s third season which sees a lot of long-delayed reckonings, as characters wake up to truths that should probably have been self-evident. And the truth hurts.

I reviewed episode eight of Ozark Season Three for Decider.

The thing I keep returning to while watching this show is how taxing it must be for Marty and Wendy to constantly have to think at maximum brain capacity, all day every day. Like, that casino license business—what must it take to keep stuff like that in line and still find the time and energy required to, I dunno, eat dinner or go to the bathroom or schedule a doctor’s appointment? It must be enormously draining for everyone involved. I think Ozark may be an experiment in seeing how far and how taut a string can be pulled before it finally snaps.

I reviewed episode seven of Ozark Season Three for Decider.

So, let’s talk about running times. As has been customary in previous seasons, Ozark Season 3 routinely presents us with episodes that run right up to, and sometimes cross, the full 60-minute mark. In the past I might have called this “Netflix Bloat,” part and parcel of the same mindset that led the Netflix/Marvel collaboration series to run, oh I dunno, four to six episodes too long each season.

In Ozark‘s case, at this point anyway, I don’t think that’s a fair criticism. I never feel bored during an episode, never wonder why we’re spending time watching the cinematic equivalent of paint drying—the way I often did on Jessica Jones or Luke Cage, when characters would be shot just walking to the places where actual scenes were happening, as if the show needed to clear its throat before actually getting down to business.

What Ozark‘s lengthy runtimes do produce is a sense of disconnection between what happens at the start of an episode and what happens at the end of it. For example, Ozark Season 3 Episode 6 (“Su Casa Es Mi Casa”) ends when Ben Davis, off his meds for a previously undisclosed bipolar disorder, and his nephew Jonah Byrde track Ruth Langmore to a cash dropoff that goes south when unknown parties in black SUVs show up and gun down the Kansas City mob grunts tasked with the dropping off before blowing up the truck they were driving.

I was so engrossed by the whole business—by seeing how Ben’s condition was manifesting itself, by Jonah’s use of his drone, by the evident care and tenderness Ben feels towards Ruth, by Ruth’s relationship with the KC assholes, by whether they were going to fuck with her again, by whether Ruth would get out of there in time when the shit hit the fan—that I completely forgot how the episode began.

I reviewed episode six of Ozark Season Three for Decider.

I believe that covers everything? This is an eventful show, with a real gordian knot’s worth of plot threads. It’s to the point where it can be hard even to remember where we were this time last season. (Remember Rachel and the Blue Cat? They haven’t even been so much as mentioned.) One moment you’re digging up dirt on an FBI agent and the next you’re apologizing to a horse breeder for cutting an animal’s nuts off for no good reason. Then again, I suppose this is how life feels for the Byrdes, perhaps the busiest main characters in any prestige drama I can remember. Every time Wendy asks Charlotte to put something on her schedule I cringe a bit inside. How much more can these people take?

I reviewed episode five of Ozark Season Three for Decider.

In the end, Marty gets dropped back off at home after his forcible sojourn to Mexico, and all is right with the world, more or less. But there are ominous signs for the future. (Aren’t there always?) I’ve got no idea how his scheme to corrupt a federal agent is supposed to play out. And Helen’s warning to Charlotte (who knows nearly everything about her family’s dirty deeds) that no one must ever tell her daughter Erin (who’s in the dark) anything lest they face dire consequences is a Chekov’s gun if ever there was one. This is not a show in which people succeed in keeping secrets; indeed, constant revelations are the very engine that powers the entire story. Poor Erin Pierce is gonna find out soon enough what her mother’s real job entails, and I wouldn’t want to be in the blast radius when that particular bomb goes off.

I reviewed the fourth episode of Ozark Season 3 for Decider.