(Spoilers for Ozark will be found below.)
The Jason Bateman and Julia Garner Netflix juggernaut, Ozark careened into a savage and shattering ending, for which not everyone was destined to come out alive. Shockingly enough, the entire Byrde family was deemed worthy (by the show’s writers) of emerging unscathed, both from a rollover vehicle accident and also from law enforcement (even though the damn cookie jar full of Ben’s ashes should have done them in). Ruth Langmore, on the other hand, wasn’t so fortunate and ended up succumbing to the Langmore curse. She sort-of engineered this ending herself, although we did see some poetry in action while she died as she lived.
Showrunner Chris Mundy has been doing the post-mortem thing while previously revealing that spinoff talks have happened. In the process, he made it quite clear that any spinoff would occur in the same universe as Ozark proper, which would mean that Ruth fans wouldn’t see any alternate-timeline followup, and Mundy has now confirmed to TV Line that there’s zero chance that Ruth miraculously survived being shot in the chest. Mundy also addressed with this “emotional” ending fit with Ruth’s plight and how this cynical ending fits with how the Byrdes embody capitalism:
“Capitalism doesn’t work unless there is a winner and a loser. And there’s a degree to which the Langmores are going to be the losers of that equation, while somebody else builds their fortune. The Byrdes came in and climbed their way up off the backs of people like the Langmores, and they’re representative of a lot of people. There’s something about it that’s cynical and there’s something about it that’s very, just, true. So we were trying to write into that truth.”
So, Ruth is “absolutely” and “totally” dead, confirms Mundy. And the Byrdes did get off unscathed, even though the camera cut away when Jonah pulled the trigger. In other words, Wendy was not the recipient of the bullet, but hey, a girl can dream. Now, off to daydream about spinoff potential where Jonah runs a cartel from his dorm room: Ozark: The College Years. Well, maybe not!
(Via TV Line)
