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"The secret of a great
fortune without apparent
cause is soon forgotten,
if the crime is committed
in a respectable
way." This is an
English translation from
1900 of a line from
Balzac's Pere Goriot. Mario
Puzo simplified the quote
to use as the epigraph
for The Godfather: "Behind
every great fortune there
is a crime." Either
version of the quote can
be considered the basic
concept behind any number
of television series from
the last quarter-century,
from The Sopranos to Breaking Bad to Yellowstone.
Ozark, the
program created by Bill
Dubuque and Mark
Williams, just ended a
four-season run on
Netflix. It stars
Jason Bateman and Laura
Linney as Marty and Wendy
Byrde, a Chicago
financial adviser and his
ex-politico wife.
Marty and Wendy are
alienated from each
other, and their teenage
children Charlotte (Sofia
Hublitz) and Jonah
(Skylar Gaertner) are
alienated from
them. One late night
Marty gets a panicked
call from his business
partner Bruce Liddell
(Josh Randall) and goes
to meet him. With
Bruce is the last person
in the world Marty wants
to see: Camino "Del" Del
Rio (Esai Morales),
enforcer for a Mexican
drug cartel. Marty
and Bruce have been
laundering money for the
cartel for ten years, and
Bruce—without
Marty's
knowledge—has
skimmed $8 million.
Del refuses to believe
that Marty did not
know. After shooting
Bruce and several others
and dissolving their
bodies in acid, Del and
his goons are preparing
to do the same to
Marty.
Marty—in the first
of countless acts of
split—second
thinking—remembers
a brochure Bruce gave him
about the Lake of the
Ozarks. He claims
he can go to the Ozarks,
buy up local businesses
and launder enough money
to recoup the cartel's
losses.
From this point Ozark is
a compendium of desperate
behavior, Machiavellian
calculation, and deadly
violence. From
Bruce's acid bath to the
final two
killings—one of a
particularly beloved
character—the body
count in Ozark approximates that of Game of Thrones.
Some writers have
compared the Byrdes to an
invasive species, and it
is difficult to refute
that comparison as Marty
and Wendy arrive in
Missouri, devour every
failing business they can
find, open a riverboat
casino, and insinuate
themselves into the
state's political power
structure.
Everything and everyone
they touch, they blight,
even as they lunge at
each other's
throats. Whereas
Marty is concerned with
maneuvering however he
can to keep the cartel
from killing him and his
family, Wendy sets her
sights higher, toward
establishing a charitable
foundation (funded mostly
with graft and drug
money) and becoming a
political power
broker. Each
insists his or her way is
the only way to keep the
family safe. That
family—namely
Charlotte and
Jonah—reacts badly
to Wendy and Marty's
machinations.
Charlotte seeks
emancipation from her
parents, whereas Jonah
becomes obsessed with
drones and guns.
Ozark is so thick with incident that its plot is impossible to cover in an average
-sized review. However, the show is a prime example of Fitzgerald's dictum that
"action is character." Oh my, those characters. To write about them as they
deserve, I would have a review as long as the Oxford English Dictionary. I can
only divide them into the hateful and the lovable. Leading off the former list
are Marty and Wendy, although Bateman and Linney ensure they have many
moments when our hearts ache for them. There are the cartel leaders: Omar
Navarro (Felix Solis), his sister Camila Elizondro (Veronica Falcon), her
particularly vicious son Javi (Alfonso Herrera), and cold-eyed lawyer Helen
Pierce (Janet McTeer). There is pharmaceutical executive Clare Shaw (Katrina
Lenk), who is willing to commit any infamy to save her company and herself.
There are the Langmore brothers—Cade (Trevor Long), Russ (Marc Menchaca),
and Boyd (Christopher James Baker)—who want to kill Marty and steal his loot.
There is arrogant, out-of-control FBI agent Roy Petty (Jason Butler Harner).
There is Nathan Davis (Richard Thomas), Wendy's sanctimonious drunk of a
father, who helps us understand how Wendy got the way she is. Worst of
all—and that's saying something—are Jacob and Darlene Snell (Peter Mullan,
Lisa Emery), a down-home couple who have imaginative ways of distributing
the heroin they make on their farm, and of ridding themselves of their enemies.
The lovable characters tend to be unfortunate. They lead off with Buddy Dieker
(Harris Yulin), the crusty old eccentric who sells the Byrdes his house and ends
up being their salvation at a crucial time in the story. Rachel Garrison (Jordana
Spiro), owner of a rundown resort, becomes a victim of the war between Marty
and Petty. Preacher Mason Young (Michael Mosley), who wants his own
church, suffers an even worse fate in the war between the Byrdes and the
Snells. Wyatt Langmore (Charlie Tahan) wants only to escape his family's
criminal life, attend the University of Missouri, and become a writer. (Guess
how that turns out.) The two most poignant are Ben Davis, Wendy's bipolar
kid brother, and Ruth Langmore, Wyatt's tough-talking, tough-acting cousin.
Ben and Ruth find momentary happiness together, but their happiness, shall we
say, does not fit the cartel's plans.
As Ben and Ruth, Tom Palphrey and Julia Garner give the two most striking
performances in the show. Ben cannot control his emotions or his mouth, and
that paints a bullseye on his back. Palphrey makes Ben's pain, and his fate,
unbearably sad. Garner, who appears in virtually every episode, is
extraordinary; she makes Ruth the show's signature character, even more than
Marty or Wendy. A wicked combination of intelligence, passion, and rage, Ruth
is as violent and calculating as any of the other characters, yet she has an inner
core of love and loyalty that makes us forgive her almost anything. Ruth is a
modern-day version of the roles Bette Davis played in her early career, and it is
not hyperbolic to compare Garner with Davis.
The writers and directors of Ozark (Bateman and Linney are among the latter)
use the actors superbly, crafting episodes that combine palm-sweating suspense
with a mordant view of the American elite. The final episode is too
abrupt—there were enough story lines to keep the show going at least another
season—but appropriately bleak. Several plot threads are left dangling, but isn't
that like life? The end of Ozark gives the audience no sense of closure or
catharsis; it only presents the winners and losers. The winners will bequeath
their wealth, amorality, and corruption to future generations. The losers will
not have future generations.
The end of Ozark provides a convenient transition to Billions, the series created
by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, which has aired
six seasons (and counting) on Showtime. Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and
his family are a reasonable facsimile of what the Byrdes will be two or three
generations from now. Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis), Michael Prince (Corey
Stoll) and their families and associates bear some resemblance to the Byrdes of
today, give or take a few dirty deals. These are people who kill with insider
trading, hostile takeovers, and indictments, not bullets.
The action of Billions is more cerebral than that of Ozark, but it's every bit as
wild. You're clued in by the show's very first scene, in which Chuck is naked
and bound to a table, getting the full treatment from a dominatrix. In the last
scene of that episode, we discover the dominatrix is his psychiatrist wife Wendy
(Maggie Siff).
Chuck, a child of wealth, is the U.S. district attorney for the Southern District of
New York and boasts of his 81 convictions for financial crimes. This creates a
potential conflict of interest, because Wendy is house therapist for an enormous
trading firm, Axe Capital, of which Bobby Axelrod is CEO. Bobby, a self-made
tycoon from the working class, trusts Wendy to boost his employees' morale,
whip them into shape, and keep them from becoming too rebellious.
At the beginning of Billions, Bobby is beloved by New Yorkers because of his
generosity toward the families of 9/11 victims (he was the sole survivor in his
office). But beneath his beneficent exterior beats the heart of a shark. His grief
over his lost associates did not prevent him from making deals that amounted
to his profiting from their deaths. He lives to avenge himself on anyone who
has ever offended him in any way. "What good is fuck-you money," he says, "if
you never say, 'Fuck you?'" Bobby's wife Lara (Malin Akerman), another child
of the working class, is her husband's enthusiastic enforcer. (Wait till you see
what she does to an author who tries to blow the whistle on Bobby.)
Chuck would love to take him down but is waiting for the opportune moment.
"A good matador doesn't try to kill a fresh bull," he says. "You wait until he's
been stuck a few times." Wendy, a woman of divided loyalties, is skeptical of
her husband's motives for pursuing Bobby. When Chuck tells her that he serves
the public good, she replies, "No, you serve the good of Chuck Rhoades. Maybe
sometimes they intersect."
Like Ozark, Billions is an epic of dirty deals, albeit with far less literal
bloodletting. We see schemes advance and implode, revenge plots succeed and
fail, friends become enemies and vice versa. Always at the forefront is the
psychology of the dealmakers. It is clear from the beginning that Bobby and
Chuck are both riverboat gamblers. Playing to win, at all costs, is their
overriding concern, Often the audience is more sympathetic to Bobby than
Chuck, despite Chuck being on the right side of the law. Wendy is right; Chuck
mostly uses the law as a weapon to silence his opponents and advance his
political ambitions. There is an edge of mutual class resentment between Bobby
and Chuck, and our natural sympathy in that instance is for Bobby.
Chuck had a sterling example growing up: Charles Rhoades Sr. (Jeffrey
DeMunn), a grand old man of Wall Street who never met an SEC regulation or
moral scruple he couldn't gleefully flout. The father-son relationship is
complicated. We see that Chuck's crusade against financial chicanery is a
continuing rebellion against his father and everything he stands for, yet Charlie
and Chuck are close, and Chuck listens carefully to his father's advice on how to
proceed against his enemies. They share a common enemy in Bobby, whom
Charlie can't forgive for forcing his mistress off the board of directors of a snack
cake manufacturer.
The plots and conspiracies of Billions continue in this way throughout
progressive seasons; at one point Chuck, Wendy and Bobby even sit down
together to devise a plan to save themselves from ruin. The recurring figures
they encounter, for good or ill, are played by an impressive Who's Who of
character actors, including John Malkovich, Clancy Brown, Rob Morrow,
Samantha Mathis, Nina Arianda, Jerry O'Connell, David Strathairn, Eric
Bogosian, Campbell Scott, Anthony Edwards, and the aforementioned Harris
Yulin and Richard Thomas.
The most important supporting characters include Bryan Connerty (Toby
Leonard Moore) and Kate Sacker (Condola Rashad), assistants to Chuck who
later turn against him for vastly different reasons; Michael "Wags" Wagner
(David Costabile), rakish chief operating officer of Axe Capital who also
functions as Bobby's id; warring Axe Capital traders Mafee (Dan Soder) and
"Dollar Bill" Stearn (Kelly AuCoin); Ira Schirmer (Ben Shenkman), Chuck's
confidante and old law school classmate; Daevisha "Dave" Mahar (Sakina
Jaffrey), New York attorney general who helps Chuck out of a jam; Scooter
Dunbar (Daniel Breaker), Michael Prince's right-hand man; and Ari Spyros
(Stephen Kunken), SEC official turned Axe Capital functionary, who has a
comically inflated sense of his own importance. The most intriguing is Taylor
Mason (Asia Kate Dillon), unsmiling, non-binary financial whiz who serves as a
gadfly to Bobby both in and out of Axe Capital.
It is no fair to tell you how Billions makes the transition from Bobby to Prince in
Season 5 as Chuck's chief antagonist. What it is fair to tell you is that the tone of
the series changes perceptibly in Season 6. I miss the electricity of Lewis'
performance, but Stoll brings his own sinister gravitas to the show. Whereas
Bobby, even at his most charitable, is nakedly out for himself, Prince cultivates
the image of a well-funded saint who only desire is to save the world. Chuck
comes to perceive that Prince is more dangerous than Bobby ever was.
Although Billions is a show in which you can never say never, there seems little
chance Chuck and Prince will ever sit down together to discuss strategies for
their mutual benefit.
Viewers will have to wait until early 2023 to see Season 7 of Billion sand the
latest battles between Chuck and Prince. The saga of Ozark ended with the
final gunshot and fade to black in Episode 44. Showtime and Netflix
subscribers can easily find all the extant episodes of both shows. Those who
come to Ozark and Billions as neophytes will find two of the most addictive
series ever, even if—given the current financial and political state of
America—they cut uncomfortably close to the bone. The current morass may be
larger than usual, but it is not different in kind from what the world has always
seen. Balzac, in his tomb at Pere Lachaise, must be smiling ruefully to himself.
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Writings
