Warning: contains major spoilers for Ozark season 3.
It wasn’t just about survival and protection; Wendy got a thrill from the situation Marty had landed them in as money launderers for the Navarro cartel. Life as a PR advisor on political campaigns didn’t offer the same excitement. As Wendy told Ben before she reluctantly had him killed for the risk he posed to her and her kids, “fighting for your life makes every other thing you ever did before seem extremely dull.”
Wendy vs. Marty
Marty spied on Wendy’s secret phone calls to Omar Navarro, who was relying more and more on her insight, and attempted to sabotage her purchase of a second river boat casino – the Big Muddy – behind her back. He paid Frank Jr, son of the Kansas City mob boss, to burn down a rival casino, thus inflating the profits of the Big Muddy and making the owners reluctant to sell. In the end, Wendy got her way and bought the new casino after she and Ruth bankrupted the business and forced the sale by fixing the Big Muddy slot machines to continually pay out.
Darlene and Wyatt’s affair
Not all of Wendy’s plans came through in season three – she failed to regain custody of baby Zeke (the child of Pastor Mason, cut by Darlene from his mother’s belly after Mason refused to continue the Snell heroin-in-prayer-books operation). In season three, Darlene paid Wyatt Langmore’s bail after he was arrested for staying in empty vacation properties. She took him in, gave him a job and despite their age difference, the two became lovers. Darlene confessed to having poisoned her husband Jacob, and Wyatt told her that Ruth had electrocuted his father and their uncle, which is why he’d left the family home.
Wendy’s feud with Darlene Snell had terrible consequences in season three’s penultimate episode. Ben had fallen in love with Ruth Langmore, and gone off his bipolar medication so that they could have a sexual relationship. This made his behaviour increasingly erratic and he escalated the feud between Ruth and Frank Jr after Frank had Ruth locked in the back of a delivery truck as payment for her throwing him over the edge of the Missouri Belle. When Navarro rivals the Lagunas gunned down Frank Jr’s men during a cash delivery to Ruth (from which she escaped because Ben and his nephew Jonah were tracking it by drone so could warn her), Frank Jr assumed Ruth had ordered the attack, and savagely beat her.
Ben spirals
Helen exposed
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Ruth quits
Agent Miller and the FBI audit
As well as trying to out-manoeuvre Wendy, Marty spent season three with the FBI breathing down his neck. Agent Maya Miller set up shop at the Missouri Belle casino to conduct a full audit of Marty’s businesses, knowing that he was laundering cartel money but requiring proof. Miller tried to turn Marty, offering him a deal to come and work with the FBI after serving an 18-month prison sentence. Marty at first accepts, but ultimately turns her down after he’s kidnapped by Navarro and held in his compound. Then Marty tries to bribe Miller with career-making intel on other major financial fraud. His plan was to then use that to blackmail Miller into acting in Navarro’s interests in the cartel war. Miller didn’t take the bait.
Helen terminated
Ozark Season 4 arrives on Netflix on Friday January 21st.
