The crime-laden misadventures of the Byrde family are almost at an end. The first half of Ozark's fourth and final season began streaming on Netflix on January 21 , and the second part of its long-awaited finale is just around the corner.
As with Money Heist season 5 and Better Call Saul season 6 , Netflix decided to split Ozark season 4 down the middle, so we're excited to see how the show's last seven episodes plan on tying up the myriad loose ends left by part 1.
For the uninitiated – although why would you be reading this Ozark season 4 guide if you weren't already a fan of the show? – the series follows the exploits of white-collar financial advisor Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), who moves his family to the Ozarks in order to launder cash for a ruthless drug cartel.
Over time, the show has taken its characters to some incredibly dark places and, in our view, has emerged as Netflix's most underrated series .
Before its final episode airs, then, you might want to do some preparatory reading. Below, you'll find everything we about the series' fourth and final entry, including its release date, trailers, cast, plot threads and more.
Naturally, spoilers for Ozark seasons 1 through 4 (and a half) follow, so proceed with caution.
As revealed by Netflix in February, the final seven episodes of Ozark season 4 will hit the streaming service on Friday, April 29 .
Netflix released the official trailer for Ozark season 4 part 2 in March 2022. We've included it below.
Since part 2 will not only represent the end of a season, but the end of Ozark as a whole, Netflix also shared, in April 2022, a special behind-the-scenes video showcasing the house used throughout the show's four seasons. Check it out below.
Here's who we know is returning for Ozark season 4 part 2:
The fourth season of Ozark sees a host of returning (and surviving) characters as the show reaches its dreaded climax. Jason Bateman, who won the SAG Award for Male Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Marty Byrde, will return, along with his onscreen wife Wendy, played by the fantastic Laura Linney. Rounding out the Byrde family are Skylar Gaertner and Sofia Hublitz as Jonah and Charlotte.
Sadly, scene-stealer Tom Pelphrey won’t be returning this season as Wendy’s brother Ben after his heart-breaking exit in season 3. Additionally, we don't expect to see Janet McTeer return from the dead as Helen, who came to her shocking, bloody end in season 3’s final moments. That said, series favorite Julia Garner will return as the indomitable Ruth Langmore.
With their unexpected love affair, we are sure to see more of Charlie Tahan as Wyatt Langmore and Lisa Emery as Darlene Snell, and with an increased presence last season, Felix Solis will be back as the intense cartel boss Omar Navarro – this time as a series regular.
Other than the returning cast, Ozark season 4 will introduce a host of new characters. As the Byrdes squirm their way into the political realms of the Ozarks, X-Men’s Bruce Davison will appear as a powerful retired U.S. senator that can be bought for the right price, as reported by Deadline .
The outlet also confirmed that Ozark season 4 will introduce actors Alfonso Herrera, Adam Rothenberg, Damian Young, Bruno Bichir, CC Castillo, and Katrina Lenk to the cast – collectively, they will make up the bulk of both the Navarro crime family and the law enforcement circling them.
In June 2021 (via THR ), two new recurring cast members were added to the show: Veronica Falcón and Ali Stroker, who will each appear in. Falcón, who you might know from HBO's Perry Mason, will play Camila – sister of Omar Navarro, and apparently a formidable member of the family drug business. Meanwhile, Stroker plays Charles-Ann, a friend of Ruth's mother.
The first part of Ozark's final season began in very dramatic style as we find the Byrdes in their car, discussing an upcoming FBI meeting, when a truck smashed into the van, causing it to roll over. That proved to be a flash-forward, and one still hanging over the family as the seven episodes drew to a close. When will we find out what happened to the family? At some point in the second half of the season.
We're also dealing with a Ruth Langmore on the warpath after Javi killed both Wyatt and Darlene. Having confronted the Byrdes, Jonah revealed to her that Javi killed her cousin. Now, despite Marty's warnings that Javi is untouchable, Ruth has made it clear that she wants him dead and that they will have to kill her to stop her. Expect one hell of a confrontation.
While the Byrdes always seem like a family in a state of disarray, it's particularly acute at the end of the fourth season's first part. Wendy is still struggling with her brother Ben's death, and Jonah has completely turned against her in the aftermath.
Now allied with Ruth, the Byrdes' son has no intention of accompanying the family to Chicago, where they plan to settle eventually. Although given the season's opening salvo, where the family are driving towards the Windy City, it seems like he gets there somehow.
Finally, we've also got private investigator Mel Sattam, who is on the hunt for lawyer Helen Pierce’s body. Will he find it? And will he eventually find out what happened to Ben?
How can we expect Ozark to end?
Interviewed recently by Indie Wire about how he perceived the show was going to finish up, star Jason Bateman revealed as far as he's concerned, there's one big question that needs to be answered for audiences, and he already knows the answer.
Bateman said: "I do know where everything is going to end… I was interested in the big question [Chris Mundy, showrunner] has the opportunity to answer: Are they going to get away with it, or are they going to pay a bill? What does he want to message to the audience about the consequences of what the Byrdes have done – or lack thereof?" We had some great conversations about that, and he's got really good ideas about that. Specifically, what kind of happens at the end of the last episode: I know, and it's great."
Mundy, meanwhile, has promised fans a satisfying ending and real closure when the curtain finally comes down on Ozark.
He told the Hollywood Reporter: "I always want closure. I don’t want to feel messed with. I want to feel like, “OK, that was the end.” So hopefully people will feel closure by the end — whether they like it or not, I don’t know. In terms of tone, we’re going deeper into the family and their bonds. Is family the ultimate bond? Is friendship? Is marriage? At what point is it almost unhealthy to stay, even if you love somebody? We’re going to delve into that with Marty and Wendy. Hopefully, the back half will still be fun and exciting, but also really emotional for the Byrdes and Ruth.
These noise-cancelling headphones could be a cheaper rival to the Sony WH-1000XM4
Shure has launched a brand new pair of noise-cancelling headphones at CES 2022 - and they could be a great cheaper alternative to the best headphones you can buy today, the Sony WH-1000XM4 .
The new Shure AONIC 40 come with active noise cancellation, a 25-hour battery life, and a sleek, foldable design that's ideal for traveling. What's more, they'll set you back $249 / £215 (about AU$345) - that's $100 / £134 cheaper than Sony's flagship wireless headphones .
That price cut does come with some caveats, though; the battery life is about 5 hours less than what you get with the Sony headphones , and you don't get Sony's innovative Speak-to-Chat feature, either, which allows the WH-1000XM4 to automatically pause your music when you're in a conversation.
Still, Shure's latest headphones certainly look stylish, with an aluminum headband that twists to hug the generously padded earcups. Throw in a collapsible design and a rugged carrying case, and you've got yourself a pair of headphones that could be perfect for use during flights or while commuting to work.
There are three different modes of active noise cancellation - including an environment mode that allows you to hear the world around you without removing the headphones - which can be toggled through at the touch of a button. There are also buttons that allow you to accept calls, and adjust the volume of your music.
Big drivers for a big sound
Inside Shure's latest headphones are 40mm dynamic neodymium drivers, which should provide a powerful sound; in general, the larger the driver, the more air is displaced, leading to bigger soundwaves. Of course, bigger doesn't always mean better, but drivers of this size are a good thing to look out for if you crave full-bodied bass.
If the AONIC 40 sound anything like their predecessors, the Shure AONIC 50 , you can expect a balanced yet energetic audio performance, with trebles that shine without sounding overly harsh or gritty and well defined and robust bass lines.
However, as the AONIC 40 are considerably less expensive, we're not sure whether Shure has taken any sonic shortcuts with its latest offering - and they may not sound quite as good as their more expensive siblings.
Still, you can adjust the EQ balance of the AONIC 40 to your exacting tastes via the Shure Plus PLAY app, and audiophiles will be pleased to know that the new headphones can handle hi-res audio thanks to aptX HD codec support.
Based on the specs, we don't think the AONIC 40 will surpass the Sony WH-1000XM4 - they just can't compete with all the extra quality of life features you get with Sony's cans - but they could certainly give the best headphones in the world a run for their money with a vigorous audio performance and a slick design that stands out from the crowd.
Crypto Chameleon: Boy George on NFTs and digital art ownership in the age of streaming
Is there anything in the world of technology today more divisive than that of the NFT, the Non-Fungible Token ? Almost certainly not. It feels like a third of the world doesn’t understand what they are, a third of the world hates them and the other third are either buying or selling them.
In the infinitesimally small space between those groups exists a few artists and investors who genuinely believe that NFTs are not only a significant moment in art history, but also a valid way for creatives to secure a slice of the art world’s big-money pie that may otherwise be excluded from them.
Among one of the more unlikely announcements to hit the TechRadar inbox in recent times came the opportunity to talk to Boy George about his involvement in the fast-growing world of NFTs.
Yes, that Boy George, he of Culture Club and Karma Chameleon fame, and icon of 80s pop superstardom. Though a portrait artist in his own right, as well as a storied history as a pop music hitmaker, Boy George isn’t the first person you’d associate with decentralized digital currencies, peer-to-peer managed provenance, or even necessarily digital art.
But Boy George is set to enter the world of NFT art with his CryptoQueenz project , selling 9,999 unique works based on his Scarman series from March 1, in partnership with Pixel Potent, with a portion of proceeds set to go to the Elton John Aids Foundation and Shelter charities.
Matt Damon, Lil Nas X, Tony Hawk, Reese Witherspoon, Serena Williams, Eminem: all have been criticized and accused of gold-rush speculating in the NFT age without understanding the complexities of the technology behind it. But even tech-savvy Edward Snowden has got in on the craze. And we trust Snowden… right?
So what about Boy George? Looking to “democratise the stuffy artworld for everyone”, is his passion for art sold as NFTs for real? Or is he another speculator trading on credibility in other spaces to make a quick buck now?
After a call with Boy George, it’s hard to cleanly answer that question. While Boy George’s understanding of the tech behind NFTs is by his own admission surface level, his passion for art is real , and he does raise valid points around digital ownership, the difficulties behind making art profitable for the artist (and the role NFTs can play in addressing the balance in that respect), and the potential to level the ability to purchase unique works of art through NFTs, making an otherwise exclusive world at least slightly more accessible.
The message then may not be in the medium – the medium is the message, and the chaos surrounding NFTs (for Boy George, at least) only acts to make the whole endeavor more exciting, more punk.
[ The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.]
The world of NFTs: that is a pretty complicated subject. If you were to tell the layman in your view what an NFT is, how would you get it across to them?
It's a collectible. It's about collecting something – listen, I don't fully understand it myself, which is part of the reason why I'm so attracted to it. I think coming from the world of rock it is so exciting not to have everything laid out in such an obvious way. You know, everything's explained to you now. There's nothing to discover.
In the same way that people come to your gigs, they want to create things and they want to control things.
People now want to be everything. You know, they want to be curators, they want to be gallery owners, they've all got views on something because the internet has just introduced us all to each other. So I think this is about collecting things.
It's very exciting to be involved in something that's kind of, you know, just almost impossible to completely understand. Whatever I say about an NFT, someone will come and say, “that's not true”. That's part of the fun because I think it is evolving already. I always come at things from a creative point of view. I never really necessarily have to have things explained to me, like, I'm still going to be creative – whatever happens to me and NFTs is like another way of communicating your ideas.
So it's another point of reference. It's just, you know, why stop hanging a picture on a wall? Why stop, you know, projecting onto the side of a building. It's a different kind of ownership. And I think that's exciting, where it goes from here, it's anyone's business.
You mentioned ownership, and I think that's a really important part of it. Do you think part of the appeal of NFTs comes from the way we consume media right now? Take Spotify and Netflix for instance, which we rely upon but have so little ownership over the items we consume from those catalogues. How do you feel about that kind of thing?
It's a bit like burning books. Once something happens, you can't really go back and say I preferred it before. I think from a creative point of view, you have to embrace all sorts of chaos, you know, and the audience now has an entirely different relationship with me as an artist.
Forget about NFT's for a minute, but just as a musician, my relationship with the audience is entirely new. Because now the floodgates have opened and there's so many artists and there's so many people creating and I think that people do want to kind of have control over something. Yeah, it's kind of like an intangible-tangible or something. Like something that you own that you don't really own but you do own.
So is that part of the appeal then for you, this sense of a Wild West?
Rock and roll is supposed to be the Wild West. We went to rock and roll because of what it represented in times of chaos, and spontaneity, you know, that stuff. And I think that we used to get that from rock and roll completely. Ziggy Stardust, The Beatles, all of that stuff, and now it's changed. So I think people are just exploring different ways of being creative and different ways of experiencing things. And I think that excites me.
From a creative point of view, what I do, I would say, I'm gonna keep doing stuff anyway with whatever form it takes in the world. But I do think that the bottom line is kind of creating beautiful things and ultimately, it's about connecting with people, it's about new communities. It's about celebrating differences as well. Part of our thing is, you know, to promote otherness, which has for me been my life's work.
Do you feel that attitude of rock and roll has shifted to the tech realm then? Is that where rock and roll risk-taking lives now in terms of effecting change and societal influence?
I think there are people that have already been doing this for a long time, you know, embracing the tech world – Will.I.Am, Jay-Z. We all communicate with technology now. The extent that we can show things to each other. There was a time when, if you were in the fashion world or the music world, you really believed there were like 10 models and 10 beautiful people in the world. Then the Internet came along, and you went oh my god, there’s millions of beautiful people, there are drag queens everywhere. That chaos for a creative person, it pulls you in because that's part of the attraction that you know, you don't really want everything to be so on the nose and explained.
I've always wanted to be in the stink of everything. Ultimately it's about communicating what you have to say to the world and how you feel about the world. That's never been more important. Because you can't strip away the sort of person from what they create.
I'm still me, whatever happens. You could argue that anyone could do anything you know, that's been said about a lot of art, “anyone could do that”. But the fact is, art is about audacity. You know, someone could say, “well I could do that,” but you didn't. You didn't bother. And so, you know, if you're driven by the need to be creative, you'll always be doing interesting things, and looking for new ways to put that in front of people. And I think that's what an NFT is. It's like, a new way of discovering things without the old fashioned rules.
So what makes your Scarman series particularly right for NFTs?
It's a piece of work that is kind of about stripping things away. I do portraits. I mean, I'm a portrait painter and I often start with these very simplistic lines. Some of the stuff I do is beaded, some of the stuff is painted but Scarman particularly was about stripping away all of those excesses, which have become so much part of who I am publicly. It’s always about communication.
A lot of the time it's kind of related to music and songs. There’s a punkiness to my work that is so much part of the 70s you know, more than the 80s because I grew up as a teenager in the 70s .That's when I discovered music, rock and roll, fashion. Whether it was clubs, rave culture, all of those things. I've been very lucky to live through all these amazing cultural revolutions, you know, reggae music, electro, the beginnings of so many exciting things. And I just put that into what I do and I draw upon. It’s the outsider, you know, and I think that's who I represent.
What are your feelings about algorithmically generated art? When you talk about punk to me, that has always been a very visceral kind of art, the sense of it coming directly from the artists’ hands.
I hand draw everything to start with so it doesn't start as a digitised work, but then it goes on to embrace the digital experience. We live in a world now where anyone could do anything, you could dress up as a punk, as a rock guy – it's easy to adopt a disguise of anything these days. You can tell stories about yourself so visually on your phone.
But the one thing that you can never have is the person's intention, and whatever medium you put that through, if you don't have the intention, it doesn't have the same resonance. You have to be connected. Even if it's just your attitude to what you're creating. And I think that's what stimulates through any kind of medium in a way. You know, it's like, gentlemen, if you can't feel me then I'm not doing my job.
Both Culture Club and your solo works had the benefit of the record industry at its pomp. People bought records. So if you're a struggling musician today, what opportunity do you think NFTs represent for them?
It’s about doing things in a new way without having to sort of adhere to the old fashioned rules. I saw Patti Smith talking about this. She was saying it's amazing how the Internet has allowed everyone to create stuff in a way that couldn't be done before, that couldn't be seen before. No one had a platform, now everyone's got a platform and it's about how you get noticed. It's your personality or your hunger, whatever it may be, that drives you. You know, and that's why we look at people and say “oh look, they’ve a digital soul,” because it's another world.
Some people have called out NFTs as potentially having a negative environmental impact. They're quite energy intensive to generate. What are your thoughts on that? What's been done to kind of ensure that CryptoQueenz keeps its green credentials?
I went into this a while back and I think people are saying that the environmental effects aren't as bad as people say they are. I think it's probably safer than taking it on an aeroplane. Should I fly my stuff to New York on a private jet? You know, I think it's, unfortunately, a consequence and we should all definitely be very aware of where it leads. I think that's the thing. People are much more environmentally savvy now. So they get to resolutions much quicker. And that's what you want with this, to make sure that if it does become something that's impacting that you find another way to do it, or you change it.
How do you feel about NFTs in terms of singular ownership? So for instance, would you ever consider writing a song to be sold to be heard only ever by one person?
1,000 percent. It’s one of the things I've been so interested in. I consider myself to be a very prolific songwriter. I write hundreds of songs all the time. I don’t stop writing. And sometimes I think, “well, what am I going to do with this music?”
It will always have to be on some experience of my own, but I would say that human experiences aren't always that unique. They can be specific but not unique. And so it would be interesting because the record industry now doesn't really recognize an artist of my age group. There is this view in rock and roll that once you get to a certain age you have to keep repeating yourself. As a creative person, that's so not interesting to me. So you know, many years ago, I ventured back into the DJ world because that was what was exciting. I feel like my nose is always in what's happening because I can't help myself. Because otherwise what do you sing about, what do you write about? So I love the idea of you saying, “Would you want this song? It's your song.” I don’t know how it’d work. I own a lot of my stuff now anyway. I record and own all of my music now, not the classic music but things I write now. And I do like the idea of finding a new way of getting heard and seen.
I saw today that Sting is the latest person to sell the rights to his catalogue. Is that something you'd ever consider doing?
We have sold some of the stuff. A while back. So we weren't part of the early waves of that. But there's lots of bits of my stuff that I don't own. So that's an interesting question, because you asked me how I feel about singular ownership? Well, a lot of artists like me signed away their entire product catalogue at some point for like, not for very much – certainly not the deals you're getting now. For me, I think if you're an artist that solely relies on nostalgia then that's important, but for someone like me, I'm interested in what I'm doing next. I mean, I'm very proud of what I've done. It’s all great, but no, that for me that would just be like, Purgatory, that you would be a stuck record.
There are quite a few people who believe that NFTs won't have longevity, in terms of the kind of ‘boom and bust’ moment we're seeing here. How would you respond to that?
Everything great that's ever happened people said it wouldn't work. You can imagine like Ziggy Stardust on, you know, The Voice or something. “Oh, no, you know, you'll never get anywhere looking like that.” So I think that there's always… you know, change scares people. You think about art, over the years, we've all felt quite ostracized by it, you know, as a kind of concept. And now that's changing. People don't have to be a certain class, or have to experience things in a certain way because of rules. People are into everything now. And I love that. I think it's really good.
It’s your art, and you’re in control of the way you sell it.
It's just one aspect of what we do as artists. It's expensive to buy some art. So this is making it more accessible. And I think that that is perfect.