‘Ozark’ Season 4 First Footage: Jason Bateman Returns for the Final Season of Netflix’s Crime Drama

Ben Travers
·2 min read
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The last we saw Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney), they were collared in the less-than-warm embrace of Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), the violent, manipulative cartel kingpin who’s been forcing the married couple to launder unimaginable amounts of drug money in central Missouri. That was in March… 2020. Yes, it’s been 18 long months since “Ozark” debuted new footage, but the Netflix series’ patient fans were given a taste of what’s to come with first footage from the new season, available to watch below.

In June 2020, Netflix announced “Ozark’s” renewal and that Season 4 would mark its end. The final season did earn an expansion, though, bringing its episode total to 14. Seven episodes will be released in the first part, leaving seven more for the second. While fans may not be eager to wait any longer for the Byrde family’s resolution, the split release does allow Netflix to debut episodes sooner — if we waited until all the episodes were complete, the release date would undoubtedly be much further away.

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Co-created by Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams with Chris Mundy as showrunner, “Ozark” has seen great success through its first three seasons. Each new set of episodes spends time on Netflix’s self-published Top 10 lists; the series has earned multiple nominations from the Producers Guild of America, the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild, and the Screen Actors Guild (where Jason Bateman has won twice for his lead performance); Bateman also won Best Director at the 2019 Emmys, one of three trophies given to “Ozark” (Julia Garner has won Best Supporting Actress twice) among 32 nominations.

In an interview with IndieWire following the release of Season 3, Jason Bateman confirmed he won’t be directing any episodes of Season 4 (in order to protect against pandemic-related production shutdowns) and that he and Mundy have already discussed the series’ ultimate ending.

“I do know where everything is going to end,” Bateman said. “The specifics leading up to it, I didn’t really grind him on. But I was interested in the big question he 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,” Bateman said. “Specifically, what kind of happens at the end of the last episode: I know, and it’s great.”

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