Ozark explained: Were Marty and Wendy Byrde supposed to get divorced?

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Marty (played by Jason Bateman) and Wendy Byrde (Laura Linney) have been through quite a lot over the past three seasons of Ozark. They were run out of their hometown of Chicago and threatened by cartel lieutenant Camino “Del” Del Rio (Esai Morales), before settling on a deal to launder money for the drug organisation in the Ozarks. However, were the couple supposed to be getting divorced before the cartel showed up?

Were Marty and Wendy Byrde supposed to get divorced?

WARNING: This article contains major spoilers from all seasons of Ozark

The couple’s relationship was already faltering with viewers first met Marty and Wendy in season one with the couple distant.

Wendy had been having an affair with Gary “Sugarwood” Silverberg (Bruce Altman), which Marty found out about.

The Chicago financier had his suspicions and sent a private investigator to keep tabs on Wendy, leading him to uncover his wife’s infidelity as unsavoury footage emerged of her having sex with her lover.

Wendy was even planning to take the children and leave Marty such was her unhappiness in their marriage.

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However, the arrival of Del put a stop to all of this and she was forced to keep the family together to save their lives.

Marty and Wendy then took their children to Missouri, where they set up shop cleaning the cartel’s money, but their unhappy union continued.

Season two showed their continued dissonance with the pair making decisions without consulting each other and leading to mix-ups.

Marty also made plans to escape the Ozarks but Wendy later backtracked on this. She made a deal with lawyer Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer) which saw the family firmly entrenched in the services of the cartel.

While Marty and Wendy stayed together, there was clearly a frisson between the former lobbyist and local businessman Charles Wilkes (Darren Goldstein) whom she was trying to win over and get the riverboat casino deal pushed through.

Charles and Wendy grew close and he even asked her to leave Marty and be with him, an offer she reluctantly turned down.

Marty seemed to have some simmering chemistry with Rachel Garrison (Jordana Spiro), but nothing came of it.

The married couple even temporarily decided to separate with Marty moving into a hotel, leaving their children reeling in shock with the breakdown of their relationship.

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Season three saw the couple trying to work things out and attending marriage counselling following Wendy’s duplicitous dealings with the cartel.

But they were clearly going in different directions after both Marty and Wendy separately started bribing their therapist Sue Shelby (Marylouise Burke) to agree with them.

When the truth came out, they had an explosive row and were again at odds.

Only when tragedy struck, after Wendy ordered the execution of her brother Ben Davis (Tom Pelphrey), did the couple come back together.

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From the looks of it, both Marty and Wendy appeared unhappy in their marriage from the start of Ozark and would most likely have split if the cartel hadn’t come into their lives.

Fans will have to wait and see where the couple go next in season four, which will be the last series of the crime drama.

But from the looks of it, things are not going to well for the couple given their already fraught relationship.

Ozark seasons 1 to 3 are streaming on Netflix now

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