i’ve been very interested in watching it, based on the cast alone, but i wonder if it’s suffering because everyone is expecting The Office and it’s not trying to be that. granted, i’ve never seen The Office either, but it sure seems like Carrell has that looming over everything he does these days.
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Part of my problem is the few episodes of the office I watched I didn’t think were funny either. G
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This. I’m convinced had he lived, he would’ve done the ultimate parody/satirization of the current POTUS.
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I am acquainted with a person who is not from the Ozarks, but has lived there for more than 20 years. This person watched the first couple of episodes, and found the “dangerous hillbillies” too close to reality, and too scary to find entertaining. I know there is more to the story, but they would not tell me about it.
I guess I should give it a chance, it appears to be realistic on at least some levels.
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i used to live in St. Louis, went to school in southeastern Missouri, and have been to the Ozarks more times than i can say. i’m kind of afraid to watch that show. Although i think the stereotype of “hillbilly” gets applied far too often and often unfairly, it does have a grain of truth.
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The first time I visited, I encountered a lot of people who self identified as hillbillies. I didn’t have a good answer to “who ya kin to?” or “what kind of name is that, anyway” and the stereotypes were solidified in my mind.
Edit: It was a real cultural experience so soon after living in Central America, I tell ya!
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oh, i bet!
I think it comes off as that early on, but they manage to craft some pretty believable and empathetic characters over the course of the show. There is sort of a hierarchy of criminals they set up (the Mexican drug cartel the main character works for, the local drug king pin still pissed about his land being confiscated by the state years ago, and the working class petty criminal family), and the family at the center of it has to navigate all of them (themselves a sort of stereotype of white, urban privilege). Especially for the most stereotypical of all (the Langmores, who are set up the petty white trash criminals), they manage to make them compelling and complicated characters instead of just the stereotypes they seem to be at the beginning.
Anyways… team ruth!
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My dad is from Neosho, MO. I’ve been to the Ozarks lots of times. I wasn’t aware of any criminal or dangerous element. But it is a creepy, weird, isolated place.
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I don’t know if there is or not, but the international drug trade is pretty well-established all over the US, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.
But I was just saying I found the “stereotypes” they lay out to be not so stereotype-y?
[ETA] Oh, also, none of it is filmed in Missouri, it’s filmed right here, north of ATL, at lakes Alatoona and Lanier… and the Lake of the Ozarks has a similar history to Lake Lanier, which is a manmade lake and people were flooded out in the 50s to basically allow for a larger water supply for ATL:
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figures that it’s not filmed i Missouri or Arkansas… poor states, can’t get a break. there’s a big film industry in Atlanta, isn’t there? it’s like Hollywood South, or something?
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people might be interested in the other recent entry in the hillbilly exploitation genre that I’m aware of
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Yep. Walking Dead, Stranger Things, lots of Avengers stuff, Hunger Games, etc, etc. I once saw them filming Anchorman 2, and the entire area looked like NYC in the 1970s!
In fact, if you take a picture on your phone, it’s actually just ATL at this point! 
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I don’t watch much, but:
Criterion Channel is offering some of their black-centered films for free right now
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also watched
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Knives Out (on amazon)
I now understand this skit:
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a Scottish police procedural. And Christopher Lee plays a Justice of the Peace! Sgt Howie’s a bit of a blowhard, tho.
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