Just Binge Watched All 3 Seasons (Spoilers)

Had been wanting to watch this show for awhile, but didn't for a couple of reasons. First, hard to see Michael Bluth as the money launderer for a Mexican drug cartel. Plus, Jason's characters from Horrible Bosses, The Change Up and Identity Thief. Also, at the time, I wasn't looking to dive into another series that I would binge watch.

Thoroughly glad I decided to give this show a watch. I happened across a clip from the first episode on Youtube. Holy Cow! The scene where Del is interrogating everyone in episode 1. Geez. That's one of the best opening episodes to a series I can ever remember.

A couple of observations. Overall, I really love the show and can't wait for season 4. That said, you tend to remember more of the criticisms than things you really liked, but I'll try to be objective.

1) First thing that stands out to me is the strip club. Having worked in the strip club industry for a decade, there's no way in hell that Marty could have just left the strip club to Ruth, a 19 year old never worked in a strip club before, girl & everything would be honky dory. The show goes 3 or 4 episodes without even checking in on Ruth. It's just assumed that she would crush it from day 1. Not realistic at all. The older strippers in that club would eat her alive. Customers would have all kinds of scams. Also, the switch to rap music in the club, it might work (maybe not for that area of Missouri), but that would have brought in a new set of problems. Honestly, when I saw that pop up, I thought "Oh shit! They're going to get into the nitty gritty & we're gonna see some things on TV we've never seen before." It was a real missed opportunity. They treated the casino like the perfect money laundering spot, but the strip club could have been. It's also a great place to introduce new characters i.e. Darlene's new heroin distributor. If Ruth switched the club's music to rap, then a lot of drug dealers in the area would have started coming in.

The most ridiculous part of the story arc is that Sam Dermody could have come in and been the manager. He would not have lasted 3 hours in real life.

2) I think the acting from Jason Bateman and Laura Linney has been phenomenal, but their marriage dynamic is confusing. It's like they wake up every morning, go to the kitchen table, flip a coin, and say "Ok today we're going to love each other" or "Oh no, it came up tails. Today we're going to hate each other". Also, we learn later that Wendy gave Marty the okay to work for the Navarro cartel. 8 years later, she's all "OMG! What have we gotten ourselves into?!" and she plays the stereotypical concerned, frightened wife, but then by season 2, she's all Miss Badass. I found that really inconsistent. Compare her evolution from season 1 to season 4 to Skylar from Breaking Bad. Her and Walt's relationship was pretty much steady decay. Not the unrealistic ups & downs. Also, just compare Wendy to Ruth. Ruth is a bad ass from day 1. It's easy to buy her promotion from job to job, but Wendy's is harder to believe. Outside of the political stuff. I thought those seems felt authentic.

3) I'd like to know what Darlene has over Sheriff Nix. It's never talked about. Darlene just keeps saying "after all we've done for you", but we don't even get a hint of what happened.

4) I think they could go into a lot more detail about how the money is laundered. It also seems ridiculous that Bobby Dean, the manager for REO Speedwagon, and even Rachel down the road are able to spot Marty's money laundering very easily, but the FBI agents can't pick up a scent even when they have their nose right over it. It's still pretty unclear to someone like me, who knows nothing about money laundering, what is going on.

5) I feel like in real life, the backwoods area of the Ozarks would be more of a figure. In the show, they're portrayed (outside of Darlene & Ruth) as fairly submissive types. I think Winter's Bone is a more accurate depiction. I bet if a cartel drove into a trailer park in the middle of the night in the Ozarks to go after a family of felons they would be met with more than just one dad with a shotgun. Even the cartel probably wouldn't do that. I'm not sure the racism and the "If you ain't born here, you ain't from here" attitude has been accurately expressed either (with the notable exception of Darlene). I thought at the start with the dead animals and Wyatt & 3 driving their boat by just to flip off the new family in town that we would see an accurate depiction, but they haven't really been back to it since then.

6) I think Tom Pelphrey, the actor who plays Ben, did the best job of portraying someone with bi-polar disorder of any movie or TV show I've ever seen. That's the best acting I've seen since I saw Damson Idris in the first season of Snowfall, back in 2017.