Ozark

[Chris L]

I wasn't sure what to expect from this show (which is on Netflix) when we started watching a few weeks ago. I'd read some weak reviews, including an outright bad one from AVClub. It has a 66 on Metacritic. I don't know what show those guys are watching, but I thought it started out good and just kept getting better. (There are two, ten-episode seasons available now.) The cast, led by Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, is stellar. And I think the writing is amazing. The situation that the characters find themselves in gets tenser with every episode and by the end of season two the plot is wound in so tight a knot that you start wondering how the main character can breathe.

There's a beautiful symmetry to the episodes, which often begin and end on almost the same, obviously thematic image. The writers seem determined not to do what the viewer expects. It's hard to surprise me after nearly two decades of TV shows (Lost, Prison Break, Breaking Bad, etc.) that seem determined to startle the viewer at least twice an hour, but they come at things from such unusual, yet totally satisfying, angles. Even when they do what you expect, they do it in a completely different way than you expected.

The theme of the show is responsibility for your personal choices and the impact they have on others. And the show illustrates that theme with a main character who deeply believes in that philosophy yet gets it entirely wrong. It's been compared, perhaps a little too much, to Breaking Bad, but it's a very different examination of some of the same ideas. I think it may be the best Netflix Original I've seen to date.

[fjlumia]

I like the show very much and agree with your comments.

[Chris L]

Thanks, @fjlumia. I think it's a measure of how good the show is that I'm still thinking about what the last couple of episodes of the second season revealed about the characters and finding new interpretations that I hadn't thought of before. I'd talk about them, but boy would they be spoilers!