No easy escape as crime drama Ozark plays its final hand

It’s too easy to miss brilliant streaming shows, movies and documentaries. Here are the ones to hit play on or skip.

Ozark ★★★½
Netflix, new season from Friday

It’s all still happening up on Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, that man-made holiday destination famous for having more shoreline than California and for attracting millions of tourists each year. More specifically, transplanted Chicagoans Marty and Wendy Byrde (Jason Bateman and Laura Linney) are still laundering money for a Mexican cartel while still running a riverboat casino, still trying to find a way out of the still-tightening net and still trying to keep their kids alive and, if possible, still talking to them.

Jason Bateman as Marty Byrde in the fourth season of Ozark.Credit: Netlix

It all adds up to an overwhelming sense of stasis – despite this fourth and final season bringing what ought to be a refreshing supply of new characters and cleverly written new developments. A certain sameness is inevitable given that the Byrdes are so completely trapped, but when it’s combined with Ozark’s resolute humourlessness and a grim, grey colour scheme that extends right down to the bed linen, it can be a bit much if you’re not already among the series’ legions of fans.

That said, Ozark remains a show of many strengths, beginning with the powerful performances of the judicious and versatile Bateman, Linney and Julia Garner at the head of a fine cast. Linney in particular has plenty to do right from the start – the sucking wound at the centre of this season is the rift between Wendy and her 14-year-old son, Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), now that Jonah knows it was her who put out the hit on his beloved Uncle Ben.

In cold rage, computer whiz Jonah goes to work laundering money for Ruth (Garner) and mad old Darlene (Lisa Emery), jeopardising Marty’s and Wendy’s hopes of winning their family’s freedom and safety. Those hopes rest, improbably enough, on helping cartel boss Omar (Felix Solis) cut a deal via FBI agent Maya (Jessica Frances Dukes) that doesn’t involve prison time. They’re also going to need to avoid being killed by Omar’s murderously ambitious nephew, Javi (Alfonso Herrera).

Julia Garner delivers a powerful performance as Ruth Langmore.Credit: Steve Dietl/Netflix

Somehow, Wendy also finds time to expand her charitable foundation and political ambitions through a partnership with a pharmaceutical company boss (Katrina Lenk) who needs to make public amends for her family’s role in creating the opioid crisis.

It’s the family aspect, though, that’s most compelling in terms of both theme and plot. Can Marty and Wendy reunite the wreck they’ve made of theirs? And could it somehow include Ruth, who Garner continues to invest with that poignant blend of toughness and vulnerability? We’ll find out soon enough.

Billions ★★★½
Stan, new season Monday

Paul Giamatti plays a crusading New York attorney;general in Billions.Credit: Mark Seliger/Showtime

Billions returns without Damian Lewis for the first time – and without missing a beat. Corey Stoll (House of Cards) slips neatly into Lewis’ chair, his character having been promoted to the position of Voluble Chief Adversary for crusading New York attorney-general Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti).

Most of the fun, though, is happening upstate, where Giamatti gets to chew on some bucolic scenery – and where Rhoades, working remotely from his farm property, has become a Don Quixote with a tractor for a pony and a new selection of windmills at which to tilt.

Foremost among them is his billionaire neighbour Melville Revere (Michael McKean), whose obnoxious patriotic posturing involves firing off thunderous fusillades from a battery of antique cannon every dawn and dusk.

Watching Giamatti and McKean go head to head is fun and, with Revere having the whole town cowed, Rhoades has to get creative in trying to spike his guns. Back in Manhattan, the old Axe Capital crew grudgingly adjusts to the new regime – or doesn’t – while the writers maintain their interest in systemic injustice and ’70s sports references. Fans will dig it.

Reno 911!: The Hunt for QAnon
Paramount+

Who better to hunt down the shadowy figure behind the QAnon conspiracy theory than the ratbags from the Reno Sheriff’s Department? Led by the man with the shortest shorts in law enforcement, Lieutenant Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon), and with investigators of the calibre of Raineesha Williams (Niecy Nash), they’re going undercover on a QAnon fan cruise at which Q might appear. This movie combines the series’ crass dim-bulb humour with fun guests and a little Billy Ocean revival to keep things weird.

Ray Donovan: The Movie
Paramount+

Liev Schreiber as Ray in Ray Donovan: The Movie.Credit: Cara Howe/Showtime

Like Ozark, Ray Donovan is a tough neo-noir crime series that some people are mad for but others just can’t get into. This one-off movie offers a fine new entry point. Picking up after the final season of the show, it has Ray (Liev Schreiber) following dad Mickey (Jon Voight) back to their old Boston neighbourhood for their final reckoning. An engrossing ’80s timeline shows the genesis of the enmity between the young Ray (a suitably intense Chris Gray) and his dirtbag dad (a suitably dirtbaggy Bill Heck). You’ll get it now.

Yvette Schloss, Agent
Chaiflicks

Linda Lavin is a force of nature as old-time New York showbiz agent Yvette Schloss in this fun little series.Credit: Chaiflicks

The octogenarian Linda Lavin is a force of nature as old-time New York showbiz agent Yvette Schloss in this fun little series. Yvette is spending her pandemic FaceTiming jazz violinist Aaron Weinstein (himself) to tell him about all the suspect gigs and publicity she’s lining up for him – right down to an interview with Fishermen’s Quarterly. The slightly nebbishy Weinstein is a perfect foil for Lavin as she bulldozes through each bite-sized episode. The one with Broadway veteran Ed Dixon is a particular hoot.

Don’t Look Up
Netflix

Popular, but is it any good? Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up.Credit: Netflix

Can you find solace in a blunt satire of those determined to let climate change rip? It depends on your disposition, perhaps. Here writer-director Adam McKay smooshes a disaster-movie template over a top-drawer cast. Leonardo DiCaprio seems oddly out of place as an earnest scientist who, along with a burn-out student (Jennifer Lawrence), is trying to warn the world that an approaching comet could kill us all. A Trumpy president (Meryl Streep) wants to risk everything trying to mine it. Not a great film, but a popular one.

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