Ozark: We Need to Talk About That Series Finale — Plus, Grade It!

If you are still making your way through Ozark’s final episodes we implore you to hit the nearest exit and return when you’ve made it to the end.

No one can accuse Ozark of not going out with a bang.

After the screen on Season 4, Episode 14 cut to black, a gunshot rang out. And there was no mystery as to the identity of the assailant or the victim.

In the episode’s closing minutes, Marty and Wendy arrive home to find Mel Sattem hanging out in their backyard alongside Ben’s ashes-filled cookie jar (aka the “evidence.”) Turns out the private eye had buyer’s remorse about selling his soul to the devil and slithering off to Chicago for that opportune detective gig.

“I couldn’t do my job,” he explained to the quivering couple. “Everything I’ve been dreaming about for four years — back on the force, Chicago PD — all I could think about was you people.”

Yep, Mel was back to put an 11th hour-style kibosh on Marty and Wendy’s happy-ish ending. And this time around, they couldn’t buy his silence. “You don’t get it, do you?” he sneered, before adding, “You don’t get to win… The world doesn’t work like that.”

That’s right mother f–kers, you’re going down. This is one bind you can’t get your soulless selves out of. You lose! Hooray… wait, where did Jonah come from and why is he holding a rifle and why is he pointing it at Mel and not his freakin’ parents and there’s only 10 seconds left of the episode and OH, HELL NO it can’t end with…

Yep, that’s indeed how it ended. In the final seconds, Jonah — one of the few characters on this show with any semblance of a moral compass — murdered an innocent man as his despicable parents looked on with pride.

Oh, and speaking of the good guys losing, Ruth’s dead, too. Blabbermouth Clare Shaw told newly-minted drug cartel bigwig Camila that Ruth was the one who whacked her son and she, not surprisingly, wasted no time returning the favor.

At least Ruth went out in a blaze of full badass glory, uttering these final words as she waited for Camilla to pull the trigger: “I’m not sorry. Your son was a murdering bitch. And now I know where he got it from.”

R.I.P., Ruth Langmore. You were an icon. R.I.P., Ozark. You were frequently infuriating and sporadically brilliant and I’m a little bummed you’re gone.

Launch Gallery: <i>Ozark</i> Season 4, Part 2 Recap: Best and Worst Moments From Final Episodes