With many people stuck at home, practicing social distancing and self-isolation, Netflix’s binge-watch model has become an entertainment lifeline. Now, the streaming giant’s lengthy 10-episode (or more) seasons of hourlong (or more) dramas is a welcome antidote to the onset of cabin fever, and the latest season of the company’s Emmy-winning crime drama, Ozark, arrives at precisely the right time. Though there’s no way the Jason Bateman-led series would have had any inkling of what’s going on around the world as season 3 rolls out to subscribers, it conveniently proves itself as an entertaining drama about a family in the midst of a crisis, albeit one that’s entirely of their own making. 

For two seasons, Ozark has played at being Breaking Bad if Walter White were compelled by outside forces to remain in his bleak business for the good of the Family (i.e., organized crime or, in the case of this series, a powerful drug cartel). But the hook of Ozark has always been the willingness of the Byrde family, to play along with the life of crime they now find themselves in, due to their patriarch’s various illicit dealings long before they had any inkling just how deep Marty (Bateman) was with the cartels. To bring the rest of the Byrde clan — Wendy (Laura Linney), Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz), and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) — in on Marty’s misdeeds rather than continue to attempt to hide the truth from them is the show’s ace in the hole. 

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Free to explore other storylines and make use of terrific supporting actors, like Emmy-winner Julia Garner as the increasingly capable Ruth and Janet McTeer (Jessica Jones) as cartel lawyer Helen Pierce, Ozark finds itself at an interesting place to begin its third season. Though the Byrde’s situation remains tenuous in some ways, they’re in a better position than ever before in others, the problem being that Marty and Wendy simply don’t see eye to eye on what’s best for their business and their family. As such, the series opens the door for the long-building conflict between the couple to finally come to a head. And the results are some of the best and most tense episodes of the series to date. 

Wendy in the casino in Ozark.

Because season 3 is so interested in the notion of familial conflict and the continued fallout of a seemingly good family gone very, very bad, Ozark is compelled to bring in some new blood — though someone who shares blood with the season’s biggest power broker, Wendy. That someone is Ben, Wendy’s tightly-wound brother, played by Tom Pelphrey (Banshee, Iron Fist). Ben is introduced in a classroom far from the Byrde’s Missouri-set criminal paradise. But after suffering what can only be described as an emotional breakdown brought on by his apathetic, smart-phone-obsessed students, Ben is out of a job and in need of some emotional (and financial) support from his sister. Ben’s arrival comes just as Wendy begins making moves concerning her and Marty’s business dealings without Marty’s approval. Wendy’s power plays earn her Helen’s loyalty and support, putting Marty once again on the defensive, especially as the FBI begins closing in on the casino he and Wendy won a hard-fought campaign over. 

The season makes it clear very early on that Marty’s wish to maintain his criminal status quo is no longer good enough for Wendy, who has not only discovered her own penchant for illegality but that it’s far more fulfilling than she could have imagined. This difference immediately reopens the never-fully-healed wounds of her infidelity and of Marty’s treachery that found them in this mess in the first place. Can Wendy be blamed for wanting to discover where this unlikely road will take her? The series is more than willing to let the audience decide, but the fact the burgeoning war between spouses brings Ozark to life in ways it never has before. The presence of ominous outside forces, whether they be the cartel, the FBI, or the villainous Snell family, has always been the show’s bread and butter. As has the reliable implementation of episodic crises that usually wind up resolved (only to inadvertently create a new crisis) by the hour’s end. 

Season 3 isn’t ready to let that formula fall by the wayside just yet. Many of the early episodes move to the show’s most familiar rhythms, but the series makes it clear that a different kind of storm is brewing on the horizon, one that will leave the series forever changed. And as the Byrde family settles into its newfound role as criminals, Ozark demonstrates a welcome willingness to mess with its own status quo, and like Wendy, not be content with well enough. 

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Ozark season 3 streams exclusively on Netflix beginning Friday, March 27.