Over its four-season run, Ozark has seen plenty of unpredictable and equally terrifying characters. From members of the Cartel to the Kansas City Mob, along with the vengeful and cunning Langmores and erratic Snells, the actions of these characters are often abrasive. A case could be made for any of these characters to be the most dangerous, but they have nothing on the matriarch of the Byrde family.
Miraculously all members of the Byrde family have made it through all four seasons of Ozark thus far. Part 1 of Ozark’s fourth and final season began with an intense car crash with Marty (Jason Bateman), Wendy (Laura Linney), Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz), and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) inside their van that flipped several times. The casualties of the car crash have yet to be seen but all members of the Byrde family have become entangled with danger. The reason for their crash may be related to the recent antics of the most dangerous member of the family: Wendy Byrde.
Amongst plenty of formidable characters, Wendy stands out as Ozark’s most dangerous for a few reasons. Like many other terrifying Ozark characters, Wendy has had a hand in plenty of horrendous acts that have cost the Byrdes (and several others) greatly. However, unlike many other intimidating Ozark characters, Wendy does express remorse over some of her actions. Her ability to sympathize even in the wake of her sometimes heinous acts makes her more dangerous than members of the Cartel, the Kansas City Mob, and the unpredictable Darlene Snell.
Darlene, the Langmores, and members of both the Cartel and the Mob routinely take advantage of the fact that people fear them. Within the Ozarks, there are many situations where the mere presence of the Langmores or the Snells makes people uncomfortable, demonstrating the power they have. The reputations of people like the Snell family and the Langmores, precede them. The corruption and thievery they commit automatically make those in the Ozarks distrustful of anything they have their hand in. That isn’t the case for the Byrdes.
The Byrdes are seen as a hospitable family by many in the Ozarks. Wendy, more so than any other member of the Byrde clan, is seen as a charitable woman who carries herself well in the public eye. From the moment they arrive, the Byrdes begin buying and investing in local businesses with the promise of improving life in the Ozarks. Wendy builds on this by involving herself with the political side of things. In public, Wendy carries herself with a kind innocence that makes it easy for people to trust and welcome her. When things begin to go a different way than she anticipated, Wendy has no issue changing her tune.
Wendy has proven that to protect her family, she’ll do anything, even if her methods aren’t entirely by the book. In one of her most shocking decisions, Wendy orders a hit on her own brother. Ben had been no more unpredictable than any other Ozark character, but Ben’s decisions were always done with pure intentions. He understood how dangerous the Cartel was and how detrimental all the lies had become. Few others shared his philosophy, which is why Wendy ultimately decided to betray him and allow Nelson to kill him.
For the actions she committed against her brother, Wendy does express an immense amount of grief. After his death, Wendy cannot bring herself to return home and face her family and Ruth, who had begun a relationship with Ben. Marty retrieves Ben’s body from Nelson and cremates him, though the truth of what happened to Ben escapes both Charlotte and Jonah for some time. It isn’t until Wendy returns home that the truth comes out, and it puts a massive strain on her relationship with Jonah.
Unable to understand how his mother would be able to purposefully kill her own brother, Jonah becomes incredibly cold toward Wendy. In his rebellion against her, he begins to launder money for their rivals Darlene, Wyatt, and Ruth, who had recently agreed to team up. His decision doesn’t go over well with Wendy, who immediately begins to devise a plan to forcefully bring him back into the family. She purposefully gets a flag put on Jonah’s accounts so that he’ll get caught by the police, assuming that once he’s caught, he’ll learn his lesson and return to the Byrdes.
Once Marty learns of Wendy's plans, he tries to get her to understand how irrational she has been. Wendy reasons that due to their connections, Jonah wouldn’t do any jail time and that his criminal record would be sealed. This is the second time Wendy has shown this level of deceit against her children, as Wendy threatened Charlotte’s lawyer when she was attempting to emancipate herself from the family. In Jonah’s case, Wendy’s willingness to get her own son in trouble with the police demonstrates how far she is willing to go to get what she wants.
Wendy’s intentions aren’t done with the intent of being cruel. Instead, she makes these devious choices as reactions to problems that have been created (sometimes by her own hand). Unlike the impulsiveness that the Langmores, Darlene, the Kansas City Mob, and even members of the Cartel have shown, Wendy meticulously plans the choices she makes. Even when unexpected troubles arise, she has no problem making the hard decision that might result in her own family suffering the consequences. Her routine willingness to do that makes her the most dangerous face in the Ozarks.
Ozark season 4, part 2 will be released on April 29, 2022, on Netflix.