How Breaking Bad's Ending Can Clue Us Into How Ozark Season 4 Will End
Viewers have been comparing Ozark to Breaking Bad ever since the series premiered in 2017, and it's not hard to see why.
Similar to Breaking Bad, Ozark follows a man who uses his unique skill set to survive in the criminal underworld, and both shows track the ripple effects that said man's choices have on his family. Additionally, Ozark also draws most of its tension and drama out of trapping its characters — primarily Jason Bateman's Marty Byrde – in seemingly impossible situations in a way that feels very reminiscent of Walter White's constant series of misadventures in Breaking Bad.
But Ozark has also carved out its own identity over the course of its three seasons — finding different ways to differentiate itself from crime TV shows of the past, including Breaking Bad. Ozark's showrunner, Chris Mundy, has hinted that the show will continue to follow a much different path than the one that Breaking Bad ultimately did as well.
How similar will the Ozark and Breaking Bad finales be?
In a recent interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Ozark showrunner Chris Mundy acknowledged the show's initial similarities to Breaking Bad before noting one creative difference between the two shows, saying, "I think Breaking Bad did a really good job of just narrowing, narrowing, narrowing into Walter White. And we've tried to go outward, outward, outward into the world a little bit. It's about the Byrde family and the Langmore family and the Snell family, and the sort of economic impact of those things across culture and society."
Mundy went on to reference a review he read for Ozark early on in which the reviewer predicted — given the show's narrative connections to Breaking Bad – that "we all know where this is ending." Mundy says he remembers thinking at that time that "first of all, I don't know where this is ending, but also I know their idea was a very Breaking Bad ending." Mundy says that in all actuality, it's "not been the intention from the beginning" for Ozark's ending to mirror Breaking Bad's.
That's certainly an interesting bit of foreshadowing for Ozark fans to consider, especially knowing how Breaking Bad ended. Do Mundy's comments indicate that, unlike Bryan Cranston's Walter White, Jason Bateman's Marty will make it out of Ozark alive? Fortunately, viewers won't have to wait too long to find out, as Ozark's next season will also be its last.