‘Ozark’ Season 3 Episode 8 Recap: “BFF”

Ozark season 3 Episode 8
Laura Linney and Jason Bateman in ‘Ozark’ season 3 episode 8 (Photo by Steve Dietl © 2020 Netflix)

Marty (Jason Bateman) shows up at Sue the therapist’s house and notices her bright yellow sports car is gone from the driveway in the opening scene of Netflix’s Ozark season three episode eight. After no one answers when he knocks on her door, Marty lets himself in and begins to look around. He opens her laptop and finds he can’t get it to turn on. He then goes through her files and realizes there aren’t any there on him and Wendy.

Marty finds Sue’s datebook and sees her last appointment was with Frank Jackson. He also spots Helen Pierce’s name among her appointments. After realizing what has happened, he begins to wipe his prints off everything he touched and leaves.

While Wendy (Laura Linney) is driving Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), Charlotte complains about why they’ve been forced to do community service. Wendy reminds her, “Well, you were arrested and then sentenced.”

Charlotte wonders why Wendy couldn’t just get them out of this, and Wendy says she’s not about to bribe a judge.

Wendy sees Helen (Janet McTeer) in the parking lot, dropping off her daughter Erin as well. Wendy wants to talk about their partnership and reveals Marty informed her about their therapist. Helen plays innocent and asks, “She wasn’t home?” Wendy scoffs and replies, “No, she wasn’t.”

Wendy and Helen seem to be still on the outs, and Wendy claims they were handling the Sue situation. She believes when Helen makes decisions without them it puts everything in jeopardy. Helen cuts her off, revealing she thinks the Brydes have been making mistakes and she’s sick and tired of cleaning up after their mess. Wendy warns her this partnership isn’t going to work if she keeps her in the dark.

Meanwhile, Marty meets with Special Agent Maya Miller (Jessica Frances Dukes) and attempts to give her more people to go after. He thinks someone should do something about these people, but Maya informs him it won’t be her. He continues to work on her, explaining these people prey on the elderly. Plus, they’ve got secret offshore accounts.

Marty’s persistent and mentions their tax evasion. Agent Miller continues to tell him she wants to do what’s right and what’s right is not accepting his file.

Ben (Tom Pelphrey) drops Ruth (Julia Garner) off at the casino, and it’s obvious she’s shaken up just looking at the casino. That seems to make Ben mad and he drives off in a hurry.

Marty and Wendy are helping set up an event they’ve planned when Ruth walks up. Wendy’s surprised to see her and lets Ruth know she’s not expected to return to work so soon. She can take more time off. Ruth assures them she’s fine and wants to work, but Marty wants to make sure she’s okay. After she states that she is, Marty begins to go over a list of things for her to do.

After he walks away, Ruth looks sad as she says, “Got it.”

Ben shows up at Frank Cosgrove’s business and tells the guy manning the gate he’s there to see Frank Cosgrove Jr. The man at the gate claims Frank Jr. isn’t available and warns Ben to stop coming back. Ben drives through the gate anyway but when a bunch of men run toward his truck, he wisely turns his truck around and leaves.

Wendy has a chat with Senator Andrew Wade (Brian Lafontaine) about their event, advising him they invited all the donors that Charlie Wilkes rubbed the wrong way. As she’s going over everything with him, she slips in the file on the people screwing over senior citizens. She lets him know she tried to give it to an FBI agent but she wouldn’t take it. He takes the bait and asks for the agent’s name.

The kids join Marty for dinner at the casino and ask questions about his and Wendy’s relationship. He assures them they don’t need to worry about it.

Ben’s at a bar drinking when a man walks in and Ben tries to pick a fight for no particular reason. When the man asks what his problem is, Ben beats him up.

Wendy receives a call in the middle of the night from an extremely unhappy Helen who delivers the news she’s sitting outside a Kansas City police station because Ben has been arrested for assault. Apparently, Ben told the police Helen is their family lawyer. Helen begins to list his charges and also lets Wendy know Ben has a warrant back in North Carolina for assault and property damage. Wendy tells her she’ll take it from there.

Ruth picks up Ben from jail and she’s not pleased about what he did. He tells her Frank needs his a** kicked and can’t believe she doesn’t want him dead. She admits she does want Frank Jr. dead, but she doesn’t want him dead, her dead, Marty and Wendy dead, etc. Ben throws Marty and Wendy under the bus for not doing enough for Ruth, explaining Wendy never used to be this soft. When they were kids, she used to beat people up. The old Wendy would have found a way to do something to Frank Jr. that night. He blames Marty for the change in Wendy, saying marrying him made her a “chickensh*t.”

Ruth assures him his sister isn’t chickensh*t. He presses her, wanting to know what she’s talking about. She reveals Wendy’s not as soft as he thinks she is. She just does things when it suits her. She also says Marty doesn’t stop Wendy from doing anything.

Ben once again asks what Wendy did to her. Ruth doesn’t explain and tells him to shut up.

Marty tells Wendy he just spoke with Helen and she’s not happy. Wendy replies that she’s handling it and he wants to know how. However, Wendy doesn’t feel the need to tell him how. Her non-response fires Marty up and he demands to know – now. She explains she’s going to talk to Ruth and see if Ruth can get Ben back on his meds. Marty doesn’t think that will work; he believes Ben needs to be committed. Wendy becomes angry, declaring she will not have her brother committed and there is no “we” in this decision.

Agent Maya Miller’s boss informs her a Missouri state senator gave them a file on some people running scams. She admits she’s heard about it and that it was given to her first but she declined to pursue it. Maya explains she didn’t want to jeopardize her integrity because Marty Byrde is the one who gave it to her.

Her boss is upset she passed up such evidence and warns her that after she’s done with the casino, she’ll be transferred back to DC. Maya doesn’t want that to happen, stating she fought for years to get assigned field duty. Her boss doesn’t seem to care.

Wendy goes to see Ben at Ruth’s and warns him that because of the way he’s been acting it isn’t safe for him there. He claims he went after Frank Jr. because she and Marty didn’t. She believes they did everything they could do. “Ruth says you could have done something, but chose not to. What the f*ck does that mean?” asks Ben.

Wendy tries to bribe him with money to get him to leave. He says his life is here now and walks away.

Wyatt tries to put a tie on as he gets ready to attend the Byrdes’ event. Wyatt questions Darlene about why they’re even going, and she claims it’s because she can. Plus, she owns a third of that monstrosity. She adds it would be worth it for her to pay $100,000 just to see the look on Wendy Byrde’s face when she walks in.

Charlotte and Jonah chat with Erin at the event and Jonah admits he’s nervous about going up on stage when his parents make a speech. For some reason, not only does Erin assure him he’ll be fine, she kisses him as well.

Helen spots Darlene and Wyatt arriving and asks, “What the f*ck is she doing here?” Darlene and Wyatt stop to talk to Ruth and Darlene is overly nice to Ruth while Wendy watches what’s going on. Wendy then spots an incredibly angry Maya Miller walking away from Marty. She asks what’s going on and he tells her it’s bad – they went too far. They’re pulling Miller off their case and sending her back to DC.

Ben shows up at the casino and you know nothing good can come of this…

Ozark Season 3 Episode 8
Tom Pelphrey as Ben Davis in ‘Ozark’ season 3 episode 8 (Photo by Steve Dietl © 2020 Netflix)

Marty delivers his speech and then passes the mic to Wendy. She talks about always wanting to start a charitable foundation with no policy, no politics, and with just a simple mandate to make the world a better place. Wendy then hands the mic to Senator Wade.

During his speech, Wendy spots a noticeably angry and unstable Ben. She tries to talk to him and let him know this isn’t the place for this behavior. That only makes him angrier. He starts yelling, “This is fake!”

Everyone is staring as he’s hauled away and taken to jail.

Wendy and Marty show up at the jail and find Helen talking to Sheriff Nix when they walk in. Helen informs them the sheriff will have Ben moved to a state hospital. Wendy doesn’t want him in a state hospital and asks if he can be moved to a private one. Nix replies, “Sorry, that’s the law.” (I am sure it has more to do with Darlene telling Nix he’s no longer doing business with the Byrdes than it is the actual law.) Wendy has no choice but to agree to this as she’s his next of kin.

Helen goes to see Ben in his jail cell while Wendy and Marty are still in Sheriff Nix’s office. They can see and hear what Helen’s saying to Ben. Helen tells Ben he’s lucky Marty isn’t pressing charges. She lays it all on him and reveals he’ll be going to the state hospital. He begins to cry and screams, “No!” repeatedly. Wendy breaks down and cries.

Charlotte sees Jonah lying on the trampoline outside and decides to join him. He asks her if Ben’s okay and she says their dad texted and told them not to worry. Charlotte tells him not to let all the bad stuff that happened tonight ruin his memory of the kiss he shared with Erin. He needs to remember that.

Ruth and Wendy go to visit Ben at the state hospital, but a nurse informs them he only wants to see Ruth. Ben confesses to Ruth he blames Wendy for what’s happened and feels she’s the reason he was committed. She wants to know why he came to the party last night and he claims he’s figured it all out. Wendy killed her dad and Agent Petty. Ruth confirms Wendy did kill her dad but didn’t kill Petty.

Ben weeps uncontrollably while revealing Wendy promised she would never do this to him again. He says this place is death and will kill him. He asks what he did that was so wrong and instead of telling him the truth, Ruth says he did nothing wrong. She wonders what she can do to help and Ben asks her to get him out of there. Ruth agrees to try.

Ruth returns to the waiting room, walks right past Wendy, and leaves.

Helen rings up Navarro and admits she’s having misgivings about their partners. He asks her to explain. She says, “They are struggling to move even a minimum of cash. Their efforts with the special agent are at a standstill, and to top it off the events at last night’s charity event did not go well.”

Navarro tells her to do whatever she needs to do.

When Ruth gets home, Wyatt is there. He asks how Ben’s doing and she says it’s horrible. Ruth doesn’t think Ben belongs in a place like that. She wants to get him out and Wyatt suggests Darlene can probably help with that.

Cut to Darlene telling the sheriff not to play games with her. She knows he put Ben in the hospital so he can get him out. Nix wants to make a deal. If he does this for her, she must do something for him. Nix wants her to find someone else to run her product instead of the police. She agrees and they have a deal.

Ben is let out of the hospital and grabs a cab. Wendy learns what’s going on and calls Marty to let him know Darlene got Ben out and he’s now in a cab somewhere. Marty asks why Darlene would do that and Wendy replies, “Well, because she hates us. Because she’s f*ckin’ Wyatt. Because Wyatt is Ruth’s cousin.”

Ben shows up at Helen’s and causes a scene. He starts yelling to Erin that her mom isn’t a lawyer – she’s a monster. Not stopping there, he says his sister is a monster and her husband is a monster. He reveals they launder drug money and tells Erin her mom works for the Navarro drug cartel.

Ben continues spilling the beans, yelling, “Your mom has people tortured and killed!”

Helen is done with his outburst and screams, “ENOUGH!” at him. Erin wants to know why he’s saying all that and Helen tells her daughter Ben’s sick and is supposed to be in a mental institution.