NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Entertainment

In its thrilling second season Ozark finally breaks bad

Karl Puschmann
By Karl Puschmann
Freelance entertainment writer·NZ Herald·
20 Sep, 2018 07:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Happy families? Jason Bateman and Laura Linney in Ozark season two.

Happy families? Jason Bateman and Laura Linney in Ozark season two.

Karl Puschmann
Opinion by Karl PuschmannLearn more

Warning: Contains spoilers for the second season of Ozark.

Netflix has always wanted Ozark to be its Breaking Bad. A worthy aim for sure, but a bit of a fool's errand.

Breaking Bad is one of the greatest television shows of all time. Without wanting to overstate things Walter White's journey from mild-mannered school teacher to hubristic meth kingpin was a triumph of ambitious storytelling, cinematic artistry and a display of true mastery over its medium.

Getting one of these three things right? Difficult. All three? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Ozark, it has to be said, does get damn close. It follows the numbers, perhaps a little too closely, and, on paper at least, has everything that made Breaking Bad such satisfying television.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But much like the accountant at the heart of its story, Ozark lacks the imagination, inventiveness and creative flourish needed to elevate it from great to exceptional.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it. You should. Season one was really good and its new second season builds on those foundations in all the right ways. The world gets bigger, the stakes get higher, and the violence more frequent and dangerous. It expands and grows without ever bogging down or dragging.

The show's zippy pace is one of its strengths. It doesn't muck about. Aside from one ill-advised attempt at artiness late in the season, where an intro sequence needlessly fools about with the timeline by showing events in reverse order, it generally keeps things clean and simple.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Based on that frustrating attempt, it's a very good thing the show mostly plays it straight and gets on with it. There's terrible mob beatings, all-guns-blazing cartel hits, attempted patricide, poisonings, kidnapping, overdoses, extremely dirty politics, armed robbery and cold blooded murder. Oh yeah, a kid also gets expelled from school...

All problems and obstacles met with protagonist Marty Byrde's gulped catchphrase, "oh, okay". Likeable everyman Justin Bateman is almost too likable in this role. He's constantly stressed and frazzled, visibly weary and constantly churning water in an effort to not just keep him and his family afloat but also keep everyone not dead.

You can't help but root for Marty, he's struggling, often conflicted (albeit usually only momentarily) by a moral compass that doesn't completely point to the dark side yet, and he genuinely does try to help those around him.

But this season has been largely about his growing realisation that he's not just a removed accountant shuffling money around as he likes to believe. He's complicit, with blood on his hands and an increasingly active player in that dark, criminal world.

Discover more

Entertainment

Shocking reason hit sitcom was axed

15 Dec 08:39 PM

You could say he's broken bad. But he's been bad from the very start. Laundering dirty drug money for violent drug cartels most definitely marks you down as a bad person.

The show played off Bateman's easy appeal and likeable charm and we've been watching and waiting for him to fully go gangster as events spiralled wildly out of his well-planned control. Business partners went rogue, unlikely alliances grew increasingly tenuous, a brutal mob took an interest in him, a close associate became an FBI informant, a murder too close for comfort shook him to his core and, on top of that, his teenaged daughter wanted to emancipate.

Really, it was only a matter of time before poor old Marty cracked and either got a bad attitude, a goatee and a fancy hat or shrivelled up in the corner to sob hysterically.

But the real trick of season two, and why its recommended viewing, was that it had us watching the wrong person...

As the increasingly strained Marty gulped and got on with things his wife Wendy, played by the superb Laura Linney, was steadfastly arranging the chess pieces and ensuring the whole enterprise didn't disintegrate on them.

Using the calculating and scheming nous of her previous life as a high level political consultant, she's ensured Marty's crazy and unlikely plan to get a casino up and running for the cartel actually had a real shot at happening.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Wheeling and dealing, charming and seducing, and engaging in the dirtiest, grubbiest of politics, we've watched her motherly character morph into a fairly awful person - especially at the season's chilling conclusion when she coldly offers Marty the explanation that "it's always better to be the person holding the gun than the person running from the gunman" to explain choices she made that there's no returning from.

Ozark finally broke bad. And by choosing to break Wendy, instead of the expected Marty, next year's third season just got a whole heck of a lot more interesting.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Entertainment

Entertainment

The Velvet Sundown AI generated band

Entertainment

Inside Julian McMahon's life: Career, fortune and private struggle

07 Jul 07:35 PM
Entertainment

'Magic mix': NZ Youth Choir's stunning win at European competition

07 Jul 03:07 AM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Entertainment

The Velvet Sundown AI generated band

The Velvet Sundown AI generated band

Tech Journalist Peter Griffin chats the future of AI generated art with Ryan Bridge. Video / Herald NOW

Inside Julian McMahon's life: Career, fortune and private struggle

Inside Julian McMahon's life: Career, fortune and private struggle

07 Jul 07:35 PM
'Magic mix': NZ Youth Choir's stunning win at European competition

'Magic mix': NZ Youth Choir's stunning win at European competition

07 Jul 03:07 AM
'Deeply saddened': Children’s theatre pioneer dies at 61 after cancer battle

'Deeply saddened': Children’s theatre pioneer dies at 61 after cancer battle

07 Jul 02:49 AM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP