The People vs. Wendy Byrde: In Defense of the “Ozark” Antiheroine

There’s something inexplicable about a satisfying series coming to an end that evokes delightfully visceral responses from viewers, especially if that ending is controversial. “Ozark,” the sleeper Netflix show that, like its oft-compared predecessor “Breaking Bad,” skyrocketed to become a bonafide smash hit in its later seasons, went out in flashy, action-packed fashion. Its final moments were galling, heartbreaking, and infuriating – all of the emotions one would expect from a show that has earned a top spot on many shortlists for best TV dramas.

Though audiences’ sentiments are divided on how the series ended, there are two elements that have historically united “Ozark” fans from all walks of life: Their undying love for Ruth (Julia Garner), and their absolute hatred for Wendy (Laura Linney).

There’s no denying that Ruth Langmore is an amazing character. Her development and arc, especially toward the end of the final season, is some of the most haunting, hopeful, and tragic work ever done on a series. That the end of Ruth’s story was inevitable is probably what makes it so excruciating. Rarely has a TV character earned such universal adoration from casual and diehard viewers, plus critics and Hollywood power players. She’s more Arya Stark meets Christopher Moltisanti than she is Jesse Pinkman, at once driven and passionate, vulnerable and innocent.

Despite the Internet’s worst intentions, nobody wins when women are needlessly compared with one another. The “Ruth vs. Wendy” debates have always seemed rather one-dimensional in nature. How could anyone miss that Wendy and Ruth were two sides of the same coin? One escaped her stifling small town, while one stayed behind. Both were motherless from a young age and suffered abuse from their deadbeat fathers. Both loved deeply and lived stubbornly, but hated being undermined or underestimated. Both got shit done, no matter the costs. Just like Wendy and Darlene (Lisa Emery), and later Ruth and Darlene, it’s truly no wonder “the squad of blondes,” as Linney has lovingly called them, were constantly at each other’s throats. When confronting their foes, they always found themselves staring unflinchingly at a funhouse mirror.

Alas, Wendy hasn’t been received as graciously by audiences as Ruth, despite fairly sympathetic writing. It’s not that Wendy wasn’t a villain. She was absolutely the villain, and acknowledged her own depravity rather consistently from the very beginning. Viewers admire Linney’s portrayal, yet their weakly constructed comparisons to Skylar White persist, even when it’s obvious that Wendy had more agency and autonomy than the beleaguered, much-maligned “Breaking Bad” character ever did.

Viewers have often overlooked the ways in which Wendy’s decisiveness and ability to read people kept the Byrde family alive to fight another day. Marty (Jason Bateman), for all of his skill with logistics and data, often failed to see the forest for the trees. His frequent inaction, given the stakes involved, would have resulted in their enemies’ victory were it not for Wendy’s often compulsive, yet spot-on, assessments of the situation. Though she rarely acted nobly, Wendy stopped pretending to be a hero fairly early in their journey. Even while maneuvering as a shameless chameleon, she somehow always projected her true self for those paying attention.

In fact, one could argue that every woman in “Ozark” saw right through our erstwhile antiheroine from the moment they met her. From Rachel (Jordana Spiro), Darlene, and Ruth to Helen (Janet McTeer), Maya (Jessica Francis Dukes), and Clare (Katrina Lenk), Wendy’s game was often made clear with enough time for her opponents to engage in their own counterstrategies. That cat-and-mouse competition among such intriguing women is ultimately what helped take an already compelling series to another level of storytelling.

With immense respect for all of the supremely well-drawn “Ozark” women, here is a non-comprehensive Season 4.5 defense of one of the most polarizing characters in television history: Wendy Byrde.

The Inevitability of the Byrdes’ Final Chapter

After Ruth vowed to avenge her cousin Wyatt’s (Charlie Tahan) death in “Sanctified,” Wendy expressed abject certainty that Ruth was going to be an unpredictable danger to their family. Keeping Javi (Alfonso Herrera) alive was Wendy’s main priority, considering the deal they’d just worked out with the federal government. However, Marty disagreed with Wendy about warning Javi of Ruth’s plans. Out of understandable loyalty, he refused to be the one to get Ruth killed.

“She’ll be getting herself killed,” Wendy replied. Ah, beautiful, painful foreshadowing.

Even when considering her lies and manipulation, Wendy remained a woman of her word when it came to the inciting incident for the second half of the final season. She kept her promise to Ruth about delivering Javi, even if it was actually more about shutting Ruth up before she could divulge the circumstances surrounding Ben’s (Tom Pelphrey) murder — and Wendy’s greatest sin — to Clare. Unlike Marty, Wendy always knew what Ruth was capable of, while simultaneously recognizing that Javi was too much of a wildcard to properly corral after all. Surveying the players before her, Wendy resigned herself to the inevitable: Javi had to go, federal deals be damned.

Wendy was right that Marty should’ve known that Javi’s days were numbered as soon as he saw Ruth in Chicago. He missed the clues when Ruth expressed anger about her failure to kill Javi on the street. She viewed her inability to pull the trigger as a weakness she needed to overcome, whereas Marty saw it as a sign of Ruth’s good character. That chilling moment when Ruth interrupted Marty, Wendy, and Clare at dinner that night should’ve been a glaring sign as well. Ruth’s grief had taken her to a dangerous place, one where Marty’s care and wisdom were unwanted.

Unfortunately, often in his desire to be “the good guy,” Marty karmically invited the very consequences he so desperately avoided, mostly by missing those subtextual cues that Wendy more readily identified and naturally exploited. The shocking turn of events also presented a key shift for Ruth’s trajectory. In killing Javi, she committed her last bad act – one that reminded her that she really wasn’t much better than the Byrdes, and that she needed a truly clean slate in order to chart her own destiny once and for all. Sadly, as Wendy predicted in “Cousin of Death,” Ruth’s innate stubbornness would eventually lead to her gut-wrenching, untimely, and wholly unfair demise. Still, Ruth went out on her own terms, which is absolutely what that character deserved, even if it wasn’t a happy, redemptive ending. That Wendy saw Ruth’s future so clearly is yet another example of how they were such riveting foils. That they were able to finally make amends for the sake of Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) and Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) is a sign of their mutual understanding and respect.

The rest of “Ozark’s” final season offered fascinating, though unsurprising, insight into Wendy’s upbringing. Though her backstory had been deftly teased since Season 1, these last episodes allowed audiences to see the true depth of Wendy’s past. Once again, Wendy called it as soon as her father injected himself into her children’s lives: He was going to turn the kids against Wendy and Marty. In short order, he succeeded. Just like his daughter, Nathan Davis (Richard Thomas) knew how to exploit a situation to his favor when the opportunity presented itself.

Unfortunately, Charlotte and Jonah had seen their mother at her absolute worst. And while they’d never share those secrets with their grandfather, trust in their mother was badly broken, possibly beyond repair. They were easy targets for his deception, having spent the last couple years watching Wendy actively and passively destroy innocent lives, seemingly without remorse.

The first clear sign that Wendy might not have been the monster her father painted her out to be occurred at the courthouse in “Trouble the Water.” While Charlotte and Jonah argued with Marty in the parking lot, following the judge’s ruling in Nathan’s favor, Wendy begged her father not to take her children to North Carolina. As Ruth quietly watched on, Nathan was at first unmoved, then vicious, both father and daughter framed on-screen in one of the most jarring, uncomfortable compositions ever utilized in the show. Coupled with Wendy’s violent self-harm response to her children deciding to leave town, we are seemingly meant to assume Wendy was brutally abused by her father on a regular basis as a child, and no adult rescued her from that hell.

It’s also now evident that she channeled that trauma into her overbearing relationships with Marty, Jonah, and Charlotte, where even her best intentions would often be perceived and actualized as manipulative, self-serving performances of love. However, in Wendy’s defense, transactional, conditional, tormenting love was all she ever knew. When she gave Marty an out at the top of “Trouble the Water,” she acknowledged what her father said in the previous episode, that she wasn’t easy to love. In that moment, no matter how fleeting, Wendy seemed to genuinely want what was best for Marty and the kids, even if it meant that she ended up alone.

Linney has repeatedly described her character as “feral,” and these last few episodes embraced that adjective in its many facets. After all, Wendy wasn’t just a feral child, desperate to be protected and loved unconditionally; she was also a feral wife and mother, intent on protecting her family the way she always wanted to be protected.

She just never quite learned how to love like a truly selfless, fully-actualized human. And that’s actually alright for the purposes of this story. What made Wendy so polarizing and fascinating to watch – obviously beyond Linney’s masterful portrayal – was her blatant, wretched brokenness, her insecurities and idealism, her wickedness and wit. It’s no wonder so many viewers fully expected Wendy to die in a manner befitting the chaotic queen of Shakespearean suburbia. After the unrelenting pain and suffering caused in the name of the Byrdes’ survival, death would have been precisely what the couple deserved.

But after all this time, we should have seen the signs along the way that the Byrdes’ luck wasn’t running out. It was just getting warmed up. Additionally, two details are certain: The Byrdes wouldn’t have lasted very long without Wendy as co-captain; and Marty and Wendy, against all odds, really loved each other unconditionally. Their shared, silent grief over Ruth’s cursed fate was just one more tragic secret that they’d undoubtedly take to their graves.

In the show’s final moments, it was revealed that Wendy was right all along about their destiny: Their family actually could survive this ordeal, and they could do so without sacrificing their image and status. Morally, it’s a shame that Wendy had the world so appropriately pegged, knowing the odds were in their favor with such a fragmented political and financial ecosystem that they regularly pillaged.

It’s even more devastating to see that their children were unable to break free from their parents’ poor choices in the end. If anything, Jonah and Charlotte appeared poised to embrace their inevitable future just as firmly as Marty and Wendy had, which actually tracks with the show’s intention of portraying the kids as carbon copies of their parents.

Still, it’s yet another testament to Wendy’s ability to see people for who they really are. All along, she knew she would eventually wear down her children. She knew Ruth’s dad had to go, and she knew when Darlene and Helen were plotting and scheming. She knew Maya would never turn to the Dark Side, no matter how charming Marty was. She knew how Omar (Felix Solis) would generally react to bad news, and she knew Ruth would one day self-destruct. Wendy saw her marks as equals in the shrewd pharmaceutical heiress Clare, and the terrifying mafiosa Camila (Veronica Falcó). She saw utility in cozying up to a bullheaded Omar, and later enabling his impulsive nephew, Javi. Wendy was often one step ahead of the FBI, the cartel, her lobbyist contemporaries, and even her patient husband. Perhaps she even knew deep down that Marty would never leave her.

Despite her miscalculations and impetuousness, she played every last one of them like a fiddle, sometimes for personal gain, sometimes for the good of their family. As a result of her uncanny skills, both to manipulate those around her and to enrage viewers at every plot twist, Wendy Byrde will now be the standard-bearer of women who break bad in spectacular style.