‘Ozark’ Ends with One Big, Painful Death

Heading into Ozark‘s finale, we knew that not everyone was going to make it out alive. But that didn’t make things any less painful. Ruth Langmore, you were without a doubt one of the coolest characters on TV, and we’re going to miss the hell out of you. Spoilers ahead for Ozark’s finale.

From the very beginning, Ruth (Julia Garner) was special. It wasn’t just the fact that it was unusual to see a young woman in a position of power on a crime drama, a TV subgenre that typically favors men. It was Ruth herself. For all of her intensity and for how scary she could be, she was also funny. In Season 2, Marty (Jason Bateman) started to teach Ruth in earnest about his money laundering operation. Overwhelmed by the scope of Marty’s business, Ruth sincerely delivered one of Ozark‘s most quotable lines: “I don’t know shit about fuck.”

That was Ruth. She was vulgar, rude, and endlessly arrogant. Yet there was always honesty hiding behind her sailor’s mouth.

It was a balance only Julia Garner could have pulled off. Through her performance we came to know all the different versions of Ruth — the foul-mouthed brat, the smug troublemaker, the reluctant leader, the conflicted role model, the terrified daughter, the caring friend, and a hundred other personas. Each version of Ruth felt distinct from the last yet part of the same confused young woman. Garner always knew when to highlight Ruth’s insecurities and when to pull them back, hiding her vulnerabilities behind the well-crafted mask Ruth used throughout her entire life. It was a masterful performance that never made Ruth feel like a character. She felt like a person.

Yet it wasn’t Ruth’s one-liners or weaknesses that made her such an incredible force. No, it was her loyalty that accomplished that. From Ozark‘s first episode, Ruth made it clear that she only cared about one thing: making life better for her cousin Wyatt (Charlie Tahan). That was a goal she pursued no matter what, hounding him to go to school as she dropped out, finding ways to pay for his college education, and reluctantly supporting Wyatt’s relationship with Darlene (Lisa Emery). Even when she didn’t understand him, she made sure that Wyatt’s life was as good as it could possibly be. That dedication to his happiness continued until the day he died. As much as Ruth loved Wyatt, she didn’t attend his wedding out of respect to him. Hours after the ceremony, Javi (Alfonso Herrera) put a bullet in both Wyatt and Darlene’s heads.

It’s fitting that loyalty and her bravery would extend to Ruth Langmore’s final moments alive. When Camila (Veronica Falcón) approached her in “A Hard Way to Go”, Ruth still had one card to play. If she had pried further, she would have learned that only Clare Shaw (Katrina Lenk) sold her out and that Marty and Wendy had lied to Camila about witnessing her son’s murder. Ruth was smart enough to figure out this information and could have used it to save her own life like so many others before her. Instead, she kept Marty and Wendy’s secret and greeted death like a respected rival. In her death, she showed more loyalty to her parental figures than they ever showed her in life.

The only thing that Ruth ever wanted was to escape from the Ozarks and to give her cousin a better future. Meeting the Byrdes led to the annihilation of both those humble dreams. Ruth Langmore was the first character who proved to audiences that Ozark wasn’t just another crime drama. Like Ruth herself, it was something special. She’ll go down with the same reputation, a refreshingly unique character played by one of the most dynamic actors on television.