‘Ozark’ Season 4 Episode 8 Recap: “The Cousin of Death” Finds Ruth Out for Revenge

By
Alison Helms
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Ozark Season 4 Episode 8 Recap
Julia Garner as Ruth Langmore in ‘Ozark’ season 4 episode 8 (Photo by Tina Rowden / Netflix © 2022)

Part two of the final season of Netflix’s critically acclaimed Ozark opens with a distraught Ruth (Julia Garner) driving while experiencing flashbacks of her beloved cousin Wyatt (Charlie Tahan). Season four episode seven ended with Wyatt and Darlene murdered by Javi, and episode eight finds Ruth remembering fun times spent on the roof of their trailer naming albums of their favorite artists. She recalls they daydreamed about building a big house on their land.

The memories are too powerful and Ruth pulls over to the side of the road, lost in her grief over Wyatt’s death.

Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is on the phone with Javi (Alfonso Herrera) when the cartel bigwig orders him to clean up a mess. While Wendy (Laura Linney) listens to one side of the conversation, Javi informs Marty he’s setting a meeting up with Clare; he wants to renegotiate the terms of their deal. Javi lets Marty know he wants him to “clean up” what he did at Darlene’s, stating he took care of her.

After Marty hangs up, he fills Wendy in on what Javi wants them to do. She wonders why he didn’t tell Javi about Ruth. The answer’s obvious – it’s because Javi would kill Ruth. It comes as no surprise that Wendy doesn’t seem to care. She thinks her family will get killed if Javi finds out they didn’t warn him about Ruth.

Jonah (Skylar Gaertner), who hasn’t been #TeamWendy this entire final season, jumps in because he doesn’t want anything to happen. Wendy tries to cut him off by pleading that she and Marty are trying to figure this out. Jonah’s not having it and asks his sister, Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz), to take him back to the motel where he’s been staying.

Wendy, who truly believes she’s never wrong, says, “I’m right.”

Marty insists she’s being too emotional and Wendy takes offense to that description and begins to freak out. She tries to get him to see her side about why Javi needs to know what Ruth is doing. Marty refuses to get Ruth killed. (We should all be solidly #TeamMarty at this point.)

Ruth meets up with Jonah and Charlotte at the motel and begs them to tell her where Javi stays when he’s in the Ozarks. Jonah claims not to know, but Ruth picks up on Jonah and Charlotte exchanging glances. She pleads with Charlotte to tell her what she knows. “Please, if you have ever cared about Wyatt…”

Charlotte breaks and tells Ruth her parents are meeting with Javi the next day in Chicago.

As Ruth’s loading up money from the safe Jonah shows her a photo of Javi so she knows what he looks like. She assures Jonah she’ll be okay. (Fans really hope that’s a promise she can keep.)

Ruth returns home to find Wendy waiting for her. Ruth wonders if Wendy came to kill her and Wendy immediately launches into more lies, saying if she wants to kill Javi they won’t stand in her way. When Ruth questions if they’ll deliver Javi to her, Wendy continues her lies by saying he’s on a plane back to Mexico. (Unbeknownst to Wendy her children already spilled the beans.)

Ruth asks how many months he’ll be gone and Wendy says three. Ruth asks her to promise to tell her when he’s back and Wendy, who’s been known to break promises without feeling an iota of remorse, assures her she will.

Marty calls Javi and tells him there’s a problem and that cops are already at the Snell Farm. Javi demands Marty get to Chicago and bring with him the financials regarding his uncle’s children.

Ozark Season 4 Episode 8 Recap
Julia Garner as Ruth Langmore in ‘Ozark’ (Photo by Steve Dietl / Netflix © 2022)

Ruth pays a visit to Frank Cosgrove Jr. (Joseph Sikora) and asks for a gun. He reminds her she was just trying to talk him out of doing the same exact thing she’s planning on doing, and then asks who does he have to thank for taking care of Darlene. She suggests it’s probably better if he doesn’t know.

Ruth shows up in Chicago, spots Javi, and shoots him point-blank in the middle of the street. Oh, not really, it’s just a daydream that’s broken up when Marty calls her. He reveals the cops told him she reported the dead bodies and now the sheriff’s looking for her. She seems to think Marty is most likely in the same boat as Wendy, so she points out she wouldn’t call the cops if she was about to do something stupid.

Marty asks what she wants him to tell the sheriff and she says she’ll go see the sheriff in a couple of days. She ends the call after telling Marty she’s fine and he doesn’t have to worry about her.

Ruth arrives in Chicago and parks outside the Shaw building. She briefly steps out of her truck but then gets back in and calls her cousin Three (Carson Holmes). He wants to know how and why Wyatt was murdered and she protects him by claiming she doesn’t know. He doesn’t believe her and wants her to come home. Three’s smart and figures out what she’s doing. He warns her Wyatt wouldn’t want her to do this. She says she’ll be home soon and hangs up.

As Ruth begins to walk around the city she thinks about her childhood with Wyatt and their broken home.

Ruth’s leaving a diner when she runs into rapper Killer Mike. She’s a fan and they have, strangely, a heart-to-heart chat before she leaves.

The next day Ruth does a lousy impersonation of Charlotte as she calls the Shaw company to confirm the time her parents are supposed to meet.

Her stalking pays off as she spots Javi walking up to the building. As he goes in, she grabs the gun, gets out of her truck, and follows him.

Javi meets with Marty, Wendy, and Clare Shaw (Katrina Lenk) and says he’s willing to commit to five years right now at a 20% price reduction. Gee, how nice of him! Clare’s not buying it and senses a catch. After saying there isn’t any catch when, of course, there is one, he informs them he wants stock options in Shaw Medical.

Clare insists that’s impossible. Javi tries to get Wendy to buy in on this but she attempts to defuse the situation by reminding him he needs to get back to Mexico to get the family business set. She then tries to appeal to Clare, complimenting her business skills and suggesting she could tell Javi a thing or two about transforming a family business.

Javi’s like a dog with the bone and doesn’t move one. He wants the stock to be put in his mother’s name. Clare reminds him his mother is the sister of a drug cartel lord.

Javi turns his attention to Marty and asks for the financials of his uncle’s legit business dealings. As Javi glances through them, he informs Marty he wants them transferred to his mother’s name. Marty reminds him those are for his uncle’s children. Javi says he’ll take care of them. (Javi’s word is about as good as Wendy’s.)

Ruth spots Javi exiting the Shaw building and begins to walk in the same direction but then stops. As she’s walking back to her truck, she locks eyes with Marty.

Back in her truck, she chastises herself for being scared. The phone rings and it’s Marty wondering what she’s doing. As they’re going back and forth – she calls herself a failure, he assures her she’s a good person – Ruth lets Marty know Wendy lied to her. He tries to defend that by saying Wendy was just trying to give her time to calm down. She calls BS on that, aware Wendy was trying to protect the Byrde family circle. (Ruth says this in much more colorful words). She correctly points out that Marty knows she’s right.

Backed by music from rapper Nas, Ruth follows Marty and Wendy around Chicago. She’s tracking the couple as she leaves a message on her deceased cousin’s cellphone about how Marty and Wendy are looking at offices and making deals, continuing on with their lives. “They’re building a whole life that should be ours,” she says.

Javi has dinner with a former professor from his business college and brags about all that he’s done for the family business. (He leaves out that his uncle actually did it all.) His former professor believes that puts him in a position to make an anonymous donation to the college. Javi wants to know why it needs to be done anonymously. The professor shies away from the truth (no one wants to openly accept cartel money) and claims it’s to protect him from the people with their hands out.

A short while later, the professor’s in the restaurant’s bathroom when Javi walks in and asks what if he offered him a $2 million donation but wants his name on the building? He then gives him another option: “Or, I could beat the living s**t out of you.”

Javi’s obviously insulted by the suggestion of a donation being anonymous. He lands on option two, beats up his former professor, and then tells him he’ll have his people write the check.

Ruth watches from outside of a restaurant as Marty and Wendy have a good time eating with Clare. She interrupts their happy little dinner and informs them they’re going to return to Clare’s office now. Ruth calls Wendy out, throwing her lie that Javi was on a plane to Mexico in her face. Looking smug, Wendy acknowledges she lied.

Marty jumps in and reminds Ruth she told him she was going home. Ruth corrects Marty, saying he told her to go home and there’s a big difference. Clare’s in the middle of an “I won’t be bullied” speech when Ruth suggests the Byrdes tell Clare to take her to her office or she’ll shoot her in the head.

Once there, Marty tries – again – to tell Ruth she doesn’t want to do this because she’s a good person. This isn’t who she wants to be. He tries to play on her sympathy, bringing up the time he thought his and Wendy’s lives were in danger and went to her to take care of his kids because he trusts her. Ruth says she used to love hearing Marty talk.

Ruth informs Clare just who she’s in business with. Looking directly at Wendy, Ruth describes her as f**king soulless. “She will rip your heart out of your chest if it helps her get what she wants,” says Ruth, speaking the truth.

She then talks about how Marty wants to believe he’s a good person and he’s doing everything for his family but that’s not true. As she continues recounting all the evil things they’ve done Wendy cuts her off and calls Javi. Wendy tells him to come down to Clare’s office because they’ve talked Clare into giving him stocks.

This time it’s not a dream… As Javi walks in Ruth shoots him dead. Afterward, she looks Marty and Wendy directly in the eyes before leaving.

As season four episode eight comes to an end, Marty and Wendy begin to clean up the mess Ruth made. Meanwhile, Ruth is in her truck sobbing. She suddenly stops, pulls herself together, and drives away.




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