The final seven episodes of Ozark have dropped, officially marking the last time we will get to hear Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney) insist that they are "so close" to breaking out of their endlessly corrupt cycle of plotting and scheming. The Byrdes' definition of "close," in the case of Season 4 Part 2, means wrapping up a few minor problems, like figuring out how to keep private eye Mel Sattem (Adam Rothenberg) from closing in on them, prevent Wendy's psychotic father from taking Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) with him to North Carolina, and secretly order the death of the Mexican cartel drug lord Omar Navarro (Felix Solis). Of course, there is also one more little setback that sets the final seven episodes in motion: Ruth, fueled by vengeance and her trademark badass bravado, kills Javi Elizondro Navarro (Alfonso Herrera).
After Ruth (Julia Garner) kills Javi in retribution for him murdering Wyatt (Charles Tahan), Marty and Wendy must scramble to figure out how they are going to salvage the situation. That is where the final season introduces Javi's mother and Omar Navarro's sister, Camila (Veronica Falcón). The Byrdes lie to Camila and tell her that Navarro ordered Javi's murder. Navarro then sends Marty to Mexico to assume leadership of the cartel in his place, where a guilt-ridden Marty orders the death of the man who supposedly was responsible for ordering a hit on Navarro in prison. It turns out that they had the wrong guy: Omar's own sister Camila ordered the hit as revenge for what she believes was Omar killing her son.
Meanwhile, Ruth manages to get her record wiped clean and pull the rug out from underneath Marty and Wendy by taking ownership of the Missouri Bell. She enlists a now sober Rachel Garrison (Jordana Spiro) as her new business partner, convincing her to leave Miami and return to the Ozarks with her. Throwing another impossible wrench in Marty and Wendy's plans, Rachel is forced to kill Omar's hitman Nelson (Nelson Bonilla), after he attempts to murder her and Ruth when they refuse to let Marty launder money through the Bell for Navarro. The Byrdes (yet again) perform a miracle and come up with a hasty solution: they convince Camila to quietly have her brother killed and then take leadership of the cartel herself, as well as take Javi's place in the FBI deal. She agrees, but after a meeting with Omar in prison, learns that he was not in fact the one who ordered the hit on Javi. Even so, she proceeds with the plan.
To make matters even worse, Wendy's dad Nathan (Richard Thomas) hires Mel to figure out what happened to Ben. He makes a play to take Charlotte and Jonah away from Wendy by successfully convincing them to return to North Carolina with him. In her final desperate ploy to keep Charlotte and Jonah from living with her abusive father, Wendy, who grows increasingly more erratic, checks herself into the same mental health facility Ben (Tom Pelphrey) was admitted to in hopes it will guilt the kids into staying.
Do Charlotte and Jonah go to North Carolina with Wendy's father?
At the start of the series finale, Wendy is still at the facility, refusing to leave, so Marty visits Ruth unannounced and presents her with a cold ultimatum: either she talks to Charlotte and Jonah and convinces them to stay with them, or Marty will tell Camila that Ruth murdered her son. Backed into a corner, Ruth pays Wendy a visit in the mental health facility where the two share an unexpectedly civil conversation given their hostile track record. Wendy promises that as long as Ruth tries, she will ensure Marty doesn't tell Camila. Before she leaves, Ruth tells Wendy she was right: if she had left Ben in the facility, he'd still be alive.
Ruth puts on the small town charm act and invites Wendy's father to share a farewell drink over a bottle of whiskey (and we all know how he likes his booze). She takes him off guard by dropping the act and leveling a gun at him with the threat: if he leaves here with Charlotte and Jonah, she will shoot him in the head. The next scene finds Charlotte and Jonah entering the mental health facility to see Wendy. As always, Ruth gets shit done.
In an uncharacteristic move, Wendy relinquishes her tight hold on Charlotte and Jonah, and lets them make their own decision. The next scene shows Charlotte, Jonah, and Wendy leaving the facility together, an unspoken confirmation that the Byrde kids have decided to stay.
What's up with that car accident scene?
The Byrde family leave the facility in their minivan, sharing a brief moment of happiness before — think back to the opening scene of Season 4 Part 1 — they get into a brutal car wreck after swerving out of the way of a car-transport truck hurtling toward them on the wrong side of the lane, causing their car to flip. Somehow, the Byrdes survive with little more than a few scrapes. Given Marty and Wendy's never-ending tango with the cartel and increasingly long list of enemies, there were plenty of predictions over who could be behind the mysterious car wreck. Surprisingly, it was no one: the car accident was a random act of bad luck. So, why tease it at the beginning of the season?
On some level, the reveal may feel like a let-down. But the car accident is more than a red herring. It poses the question: are the Byrdes truly invincible? Navarro's priest Father Benitez (Bruno Bichir) suggests to Wendy that their near-death experience is a warning from God, while Wendy, with her irritatingly political trademark smile, disagrees: it's a sign that they are survivors, and they will get out of the cartel safely come hell or high water.
What happens to Omar Navarro?
Meanwhile, Omar Navarro, who always seemed nearly invincible, is not so lucky when he meets his deadly fate at the hands of none other than his sister, Camila. Although Camila finds out that Omar was not in fact behind her son's murder, she still agrees to Marty and Wendy's proposal to take out her brother and become the head of the cartel. Omar is pulled from his prison cell for a supposed transfer. He is driven by two men in police uniforms, one of whom pulls over to supposedly urinate. Instead, he gets out of the van and shoots the cop in the passenger seat before handing Omar a gun and telling him there is a car a half-mile away that will take him to a plane. It isn't until Omar takes a few steps before he hears the cock of a pistol. He turns around and is shot dead by the man who gave him the gun, which of course, turned out to be empty.
What happens to Ruth?
At long last, it is the night of the Byrde Family Foundation gala. Everything is going suspiciously smoothly. The FBI deal was successful, the Byrdes have a waiting list of high-profile people who want to join their foundation, Wendy now gets to pull the plug on Senator Schafe's (Bruce Davison) voting machines (Wendy may have ordered or caused the death of multiple people, but she draws the line at election fraud.)
Of course, this is Ozark after all, so you know there was no way this was going to go off without a hitch. Camila, Clare Shaw (Katrina Lenk), and Wendy and Marty are celebrating their success when Camila threatens to kill Clare if she finds out that she knows anything about who killed Javi. After a moment of unbearably tense silence, Clare crumbles under the pressure and confesses that Ruth killed him. Camila knows that Marty and Wendy have a close relationship with Ruth and threatens if they try to warn Ruth or even so much as make eye contact with her, she will kill both of them and Charlotte and Jonah without hesitation.
Wendy, always quick to find loopholes and outsmart her opponents, says there has to be something they can do. But sadly, it is Marty, who has always had a special bond with Ruth, who makes Wendy see the inevitable: saving Ruth would be suicide. They paste smiles on their face and force themselves to keep up appearances for their lavish guests. The camera cuts back and forth between the Byrdes and Ruth who is driving back home, smiling to herself, unaware of what is waiting for her back at her trailer.
When Ruth arrives home, there is a car parked outside with no one in it. Then, Camila emerges out of the woods holding a gun at Ruth's chest. Ruth, one of the most badass heroines in the history of television, never one to go down as a coward, looks Camila dead in the eye and tells her that she's not sorry because her son was a "murdering bitch." In the most gutwrenching moment of Ozark's final episode, Camila shoots Ruth in the chest, killing her.
What does that final scene mean?
The Byrdes arrive back home where they find Mel, who is holding Ben's ashes in the infamous goat cookie jar. He has figured out that Ben is not in fact missing, but dead, and the Byrdes clearly had something to do with it. Mel doesn't hold back when he lays into them: "You don't get to win. You don't get to be the Kochs or the Kennedys or whatever fucking royalty you people think you are. The world doesn't work like that." For a brief moment, it seems inevitable: the day has finally come where the Byrdes have to pay for the death, destruction, and misery they have left in their wake.
And then, Wendy utters the final words of the series, two words that hammer home the grim reality that captures the essence of what the series finale is all about: "Since when?"
A cock of a gun can be heard: it's Jonah, pointing a shotgun right at Mel. The screen goes black, and a shot is fired. The credits roll to the ironic tune of Al Green's "Love and Happiness."
The final episode of Ozark answers our most pressing question that has been hanging over our heads for four seasons: yes, the bad guys do get away with it, but at what cost? As Jonah levels the shotgun at Mel, a shadow of a quiet, but triumphant smile appears on Marty and Wendy's faces. Their pride is unmistakable. As much as Marty and Wendy claim to want their kids to be safe, they can't hide their true nature: they crave power and perhaps will never be satisfied with a "normal" life. The jarring sound of the gunshot followed by a loaded silence says it all: Nothing has truly changed for the Byrdes, and it likely never will. Marty and Wendy are the true villains, and they have essentially doomed their children to follow in their corrupt footsteps.
The finale of Ozark is frustratingly cruel and horribly unfair, but inevitable: sometimes, the bad guys do win.