Overview

A Chicago financial advisor, Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), has been quietly laundering money with his partner, Bruce (Josh Randall), for a drug kingpin named Camino Del Rio (Esai Morales), working for a cartel run by Omar Navarro. But upon discovering $8 million of his money missing, Del Rio dispenses with Bruce, but agrees to spare Marty after hearing his plan to replace the missing money – and move the operation to The Ozarks. Marty quickly uproots his family – his philandering wife, Wendy (Laura Linney), and their two teenage kids, Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) – and sets about finding both a home and a struggling business in the lazy lake resort through which to launder his cash. While Wendy finds an adequate house for the family to live in, there’s a catch – the crotchety dying current occupant, Buddy Dyker (Harris Yulin) comes with it, until he dies. Meanwhile, Marty finds the run down Blue Cat Lodge as the perfect venue for an “angel investor” to bring it back to life for longtime owner Rachel Garrison (Jordana Spiro). But while attempting to find another way to generate cash flow, by offering to build a church for a boating preacher (Michael Mosley), Marty runs afoul of a local drug lord, Jacob Snell (Peter Mullan). Snell, with his tough-as-nails wife, Darlene (Lisa Emery), has been using the unknowing preacher to distribute heroin by stuffing it inside hymnals, as well as trying to run his own money laundering operation, which Marty has interrupted by taking over a sleazy strip joint, Lickety Splitz, to pass his own cash. Besides Snell, Marty also has to deal with the backward Langmore clan, whose 19-year-old “matriarch,” Ruth (Julia Garner), wrangles her redneck uncles and cousins, as they plot to rid Marty of his bounty, under indirect supervision of her menacing, imprisoned father, Cade (Trevor Long). Her oldest uncle, Russ (Marc Menchaca) unknowingly becomes connected with an FBI agent, Roy Petty (Jason Butler Harner), who has come to The Ozarks in his continuing search for a way to entrap Del Rio’s Mexican boss – and possibly the Byrdes. Marty finds himself in a race against time to complete his commitment to Del – and thus save his family from peril – and steer clear of Snell and Petty, all the while trying to find a way to keep his family afloat, while they navigate their new world.