Ozark Season 4 was always going to end the season on a high note, but Netflix viewers did not expect that to be literally the case. The final sound we hear in the show is a gunshot, and one last person potentially losing his life.
The Netflix show ending isn't as bloody as some viewers might have expected, but there was a body count by the end of the episode—and not every main character made it out alive.
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Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner), Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney), and Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) were among the top predicted deaths in Ozark Season 4, Episode 16. (titled "A Hard Way to Go"). Here's who made it to the end of the Netflix series and who died in the final hour.
Who Died in the 'Ozark' Season 4 Finale?
A good finale should bring the story to a close while also hinting at the next chapter that will come after the show ends. So it was with the final episode of Ozark, in which Camila Elizonndro (Veronica Falcón) tied up all the loose ends before taking over the cartel. Unfortunately for Navarro, that meant tying up the loose ends in her brother life.
She staged it so that he was shot while attempting to flee while being transferred to a prison. Camila arranged for one of her men to pose as a police officer, assassinating the driver of the Navarro transfer vehicle and then assassinating Navarro himself. With Javi (Alfonso Herrera) gone, she had no one to stop her ascension to power. However, there was one last loose end.
Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner)
Ruth might have gotten away with murdering Javi if Wendy and Marty hadn't thrown one last party at the casino to celebrate/gloat about how they appeared to be out of the cartel business. Allowing their legitimate business associate to mix with their cartel clients is never a good idea, and it proved to be Ruth undoing this time.
Though Wendy and Marty were able to ignore the cartel threats and remain silent about who killed Javi, Shaw Medical Solutions CEO Clare Shaw (Katrina Lenk) was so terrified by Carmila threat to "slash [her] from c*** to collarbone" that she told her that Ruth was the one who murdered him.
Ruth has been a goner since she shot Javi (and probably before that), but in the end she seemed resigned to her fate—possibly because she would now be reunited with Wyatt (Charlie Tahan), whom she kept seeing in her dreams throughout the episode.
Mel Sattem? (Adam Rothenberg)
Though it fades to black before we see who is shot, it appears fairly certain that Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) shot and killed Mel, the private detective who has been trying to figure out what happened to Ben, in the final moments of the Netflix series (Tom Pelphrey).
(In case you missed it, Wendy had her brother Ben killed after his erratic behaviour threatened to expose her cartel business.)
He breaks into the Byrde household at the end of Episode 14 to steal the goat cookie jar containing Ben remains. He believes there is enough DNA in the jar to confirm that it contained what was left of Ben, proving that the Byrdes knew he was dead the entire time.
However, just as he is about to leave and expose them, Jonah appears with a shotgun trained on Mel. We hear a shot and the screen goes black.
This could be interpreted in a variety of ways. Jonah could have shot Mel to protect his family, completing his journey in the footsteps of his parents. This interpretation is consistent with Ruth earlier conversation with Jonah grandfather, in which she mentioned him becoming a "little Marty."
Alternatively, he could have shot his mother in retaliation for the death of his beloved uncle. This is possible, but unlikely—if we've learned anything from this episode, it's that Wendy and Marty can handle anything. And perhaps Wendy was correct—the car accident was a sign that she truly is invincible.
However, this could be the show cruel irony—Wendy and Marty discuss being "bulletproof" earlier in the episode, so what better way to end the show than by proving they are not?
Ozark Seasons 1 to 4 are streaming now on Netflix.