4/5 Stars

Netflix strikes again, this time with a returning season of one of the biggest surprises to come out of last summer. “Ozark,” created by Bill Dubuque (“The Accountant”) and Mark Williams, follows Jason Bateman’s (“Arrested Development”) character Marty Byrde, an accountant who moonlights as a money launderer for the Navarro drug cartel and is forced to move his family to a region of Missouri called the Ozarks after the cartel discovers his former partner stealing money from them.

The rest of the season followed Marty and his family, consisting of wife Wendy (Laura Linney, “The Big C”), daughter Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz, “Louie”) and son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), as they went from conflict to conflict in their new home, ranging from corrupt politicians, to pastors, to rednecks, to the FBI, to a particularly vicious pair of farmers/drug kingpins, the Snells (Peter Mullan, “Westworld” and Lisa Emery, “Jessica Jones”).

The previous season ended on a seemingly high note for the Byrdes, or as high as things could have gotten with the incredible string of bad luck they run into. They were about to open a casino with the Snells, their new partners. The FBI, who had been tracking them for the entirety of the season, was left with seemingly nothing, and anyone who may have posed a threat to them had either vanished or been killed.

But, from around the corner comes the second season, which sets out to prove that not only are the troubles for the Byrdes far from over, but the show itself is not falling into the sophomore slump that affects so many other new shows.

One of the biggest reviews about the show after it debuted in June of last year said that it was the new “Breaking Bad.” The AMC show was such a hit phenomenon that every new crime saga under the sun seemed to be trying to mimic it without actually understanding what made the show what it was. “Ozark” accomplishes something different, however, by trying to be its own thing. Unlike “Breaking Bad,” where Walter White was attempting to prove himself, but finds himself in many scenarios that he was unaware of previously, the character of Marty Byrde is largely aware of what he constantly finds himself in.

In a flashback episode of the first season, when Marty is first approached by his former employer for the cartel, Camino “Del” Del Rio (Esai Morales, “Superfly”), Marty did his research and knew full well what he was getting into. This provides an interesting character aesthetic that gives a new light to the term “anti-hero.” All of the previous iterations of this archetype found themselves dipping their toes into illegal activities in order to provide a better life for their families, who were largely kept out of the main character’s other life (i.e., Tony Soprano, Dexter Morgan and Nucky Thompson).

In contrast, not only is Marty’s family fully aware of what he is doing, but they are also participants and accomplices. A major arc of this new season centers around how Marty’s children have stolen $10,000 to split between themselves, after which his son Jonah, using techniques he learned from Marty, places his half into an offshore account that he sets up himself. It is an interesting turn that forces the writing to keep reinventing itself, keeping this idea fresh and allowing for all sorts of storytelling possibilities going forward.

But the Byrdes, as interesting as they are, are not the only characters in this series. Two other major families with whom the Byrdes find themselves dealing include the Snells and the Langmores, the latter family members unintentionally getting involved after they stole some of the cartel money that Marty brought down in the first season. Young matriarch Ruth (Julia Garner, “Grandma”) starts off attempting to use Marty for his money, but she ends up instead using her position as Marty’s right-hand woman to make some money for herself in order to get her family, which has a long history of crime, death and misfortune, out of the gutter and send her cousin Wyatt (Charlie Tahan, “Gotham”) to college. This is made more complicated with the release of her father Cade (Trevor Long, “Low Winter Sun”).

Meanwhile, the Snells, who were merely presented as violent, deranged redneck criminals and the primary antagonists of the previous season, get more development. Darlene in particular goes through an arc that pushes her closer to recovering some humanity that she has lost over the course of her life.

Probably the most interesting aspect about this new season, however, and the thing that separates it from many of Netflix’s other sophomore seasons that have come out in the last year, is that it does not repeat story beats from the first season. It does what every good TV show does and presents new struggles in different arenas for the characters. Whereas the first season was primarily dealing with the Byrdes acclimating to their new home and all of the danger and struggles that came with it, this time, they are fully ingrained in the setting.

They are now ready to move forward with their plan to get out and deal with all of the struggles that come with that, both in new opposing forces and people from their past that have come back to cause more grief for them. Regardless, “Ozark” proves that Netflix has still got some eye for good, quality content, and it proves to be a very entertaining, interesting and engaging watch for the latter half of 2018.

Image from Netflix via YouTube.com