Yahoo News ‘Ozark’ Showrunner Chris Mundy Hints At “End Game” Storyline For Final Season — PaleyFest LA
Ozark showrunner Chris Mundy has dropped a small hint about what’s in store for the fourth and final season of the Netflix series when it returns to screens for a two-halve run.
Speaking during a pre-recorded online session for PaleyFest LA, Mundy said the fourth season marks the final chapter in the Byrde family’s journey from suburban Chicago life to their criminal enterprise in the Ozarks.
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He told fans: “You’re going to learn what they want their end game to be, and they’re going to have to reckon with it a little bit. There’s that great scene between Laura [Linney] and Tom [Pelphrey] when they’re in the megastore parking lot in the car, and there’s a line Miki Johnson wrote, when Wendy says [something] like: ‘When you’ve been running for your life, everything else seems exceedingly dull.’
“If they’re (Marty and Wendy) trying to look to see if there’s an out, they’ve got to figure out if that’s what they want, and if so, what’s the version of it that they want. Then reckoning with that after so much chaos — that’s going to bubbling under the surface.”
Bateman plays Marty Byrde, a financial advisor-turned-money launderer for a Mexican drug cartel, who moves to the Lake of the Ozarks to make good for the cartel. Linney stars as his wife Wendy, who becomes wrapped up in a series of schemes, including casino operations, in Season 3.
Produced by MRC Television, Ozark is a slow-burning hit for Netflix with a loyal fan base — some of whom have spent time concocting theories about the death of Tom Pelprhey’s character Ben Davis in the third season. Some think that because his death was not shown on screen, he may still be alive.
But Mundy quashed the rumors. “I love the fact that people love the character enough to come up with that theory. I wish it were true, but it ain’t true,” he said. But Linney couldn’t resist a playful dig at the showrunner during the PaleyFest session, joking: “Isn’t that what they said about Jon Snow?”
Jason Bateman, who stars in and directs the series, said Season 3 benefited from the lockdown, which helped it rack up just under 30M views in the first four weeks after its March 27 premiere. He said: “We had a captive audience. Like people watching on an airplane, you gotta watch it.”
The drama, which launched in 2017, has scored 14 Emmy nominations with two wins, to date, for Jason Bateman for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and for Julia Garner for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series and a nomination for Outstanding Drama Series. It is executive produced by Bateman, Mundy, Mark Williams, John Shiban, Patrick Markey and Bill Dubuque. Linney will also be a co-executive producer for Season 4.
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