Warning: Contains spoilers for Ozark season 4 part 1.
Similarities have been pointed out between Breaking Bad, but in Ozark's case, it's Wendy (Laura Linney) - not Marty (Jason Bateman) - who breaks bad. While the usual criminal mob wife is reduced to an innocent, unaware victim, Wendy Byrde is not one bit less involved than her husband in the family's criminal schemes. As she comes to with the new life that Marty imposed on his family, Wendy starts feeling increasingly alive and in control of the Byrdes' present and future, demonstrating a character arc all too similar to Walter White's (Bryan Cranston) in Breaking Bad.
Both Ozark and Breaking Bad impressed viewers through their gripping storylines and the complex character arcs and dynamics. Ozark is a darker and more fast-paced version of Breaking Bad, where an unfulfilled man with exceptional expertise enters the criminal world through a series of unfortunate events, then ends up thriving in it. But while Walter's family is at first unaware, then opposed to his schemes, Marty's family is fully in on his criminal schemes, devising plans of their own and helping the family business. Skyler White (Anna Gunn) often comes as the voice of reason, urging Walter to quit the meth business, but Wendy becomes so involved in the Missouri criminal life that by the end of Ozark season 2, she makes her family stay in town and grow their empire.
Wendy Byrde mirrors Breaking Bad's Walter White through her transformation across Ozark's four seasons. From her underachieving, unfulfilled origins to her ever-more-ruthless actions, Wendy goes through all the stages of a character "breaking bad." She turns from an unhappy, cheating stay-at-home mom into a criminal matriarch, taking control of the Byrde business, often without Marty's knowledge or approval. Similar to Walt, Wendy feels increasingly alive through her criminal activities, fully embracing her newly-found identity and renouncing her old, more innocent self.
Wendy's Criminal Origins Mirror Walter White In Breaking Bad
In the Ozark pilot episode, Wendy sarcastically tells her family: "My day was very exciting. I went to Costco. And then I went and got groceries." Wendy had to renounce her career as a political advisor to take care of her two children, therefore lacking an outlet for her hidden talent. Wendy Byrde is an overeducated housewife whose ambitions are permanently on hold: this makes her feel trapped and barely alive. Her frustration translates into an affair (which ends up obsessing Marty to the extent that he watches Wendy and her lover's video during client meetings). Wendy's unfulfilled origins mirror Walter's, who is a seriously overqualified teacher who can barely his family when he gets diagnosed with terminal cancer.
When Marty tells Wendy they will have to start a new life in Missouri in order to survive, Wendy doesn't take it well. She desperately tries to maintain a sense of normalcy for Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) and Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz), while berating Marty for getting the family in that situation. But as she has to assert her power to protect her children, Wendy starts feeling alive: this is the beginning of her dark transformation. Her tightly-wound smile hides a self-possessed high achiever, and the constant danger is the perfect context for Wendy to spread her wings. She goes from breaking into the family's old Chicago house to making threats to Mexican drug kingpin Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), and the reason behind these increasingly ruthless actions is the same reason Walter White had: it makes her feel alive.
Wendy Is Becoming More Ambitious & Ruthless, Like Heisenberg
When Bryan Cranston's villain, who gaslights Jesse (Aaron Paul) into doing his bidding.
While falsely sweet at home, Wendy completely transforms at work: she is smart, ambitious, and perfectly able to achieve her goals. The more she succeeds, the higher her ambitions become, and she's not afraid of consequences anymore. In season 3, Wendy starts having private phone calls with Navarro and making decisions in the name of the family without running them by Marty. By then, Wendy is determining the show's arc and her family's future. As she lets her political genius loose, she plays people's desires against them and uses her happy mom persona to her advantage. By the time she kills her brother, Wendy has undergone a complete transformation from the unfulfilled housewife into a ruthless criminal who needs to win - much like Walter becomes Heisenberg by the time he delivers his famous "I am the one who knocks."
Wendy's Motivations Mirror One Of Breaking Bad's Biggest Walt Twists
Throughout Breaking Bad, Walter White keeps disguising his terrible deeds as things he does "for the family," to provide for them after his cancer claimed his life. In one of the best scenes of the show's finale, Walter meets Skyler one last time and tells her: "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really, I was alive." Walt finally its that he enjoyed the power his criminal activity gave him, hiding in plain sight while building the biggest meth empire in the area. Wendy is also hiding in plain sight, working hard throughout Ozark's season 4 to turn herself and Marty into respected philanthropists.
When Claire Shaw (Katrina Lenk) gets cold feet about ing the Byrdes' foundation and being their distributor for the cartel, Wendy urges her to bury the bad and "pile the good on top of good," demonstrating once more that Wendy is a Machiavellian leader, believing that the end justifies the means. Only by season 4, Wendy's end goal is not to protect her family, but to win at the criminal games she and Marty play in the Ozarks. In season 4, Wendy decides Jonah is a lost cause to the family and tries to orchestrate his arrest: she would rather have her son in prison than moving freely against her. This goes to show that, just like Walt, Wendy is doing it all for herself: she's in the winning game, and not even her family will stand in her way.
If Walter White becomes irredeemable when he poisons Brock, Wendy Byrde does so when she kills her own brother, then tries to get rid of her son by getting him arrested for money laundering. She has completely shed her quietly despairing housewife identity, becoming a ruthless, self-possessed businesswoman and criminal. In Ozark season 4, she is the main driving force for the Byrde family, equally bringing danger to their doorstep and building a shiny facade to hide their criminal lives. Ozark thus mirrors Breaking Bad through Wendy's dark transformation, arguably one of the most complex and dynamic character arcs in contemporary television.