Ozark Season 1 — Sugarwood: How To Learn the Truth When You Have Limited Information
The below may contain spoilers from S1 E1 of Ozark
Idiot Compassion vs Wise Compassion:13:47–22:42
Aunt Carlotta
“ When I was nine years old, I started working for my parents’ grocery store.
It wasn’t a big store, but it fed six kids. We had four cashiers. Carlotta, our best, maybe 30, started there when she was 15. She was loyal. The kind of person you’d call aunt because she was always there. Always with a smile. And then one day, my father’s closing up, and he saw Aunt Carlotta slip five dollars’ worth of pesos out of the till, into her pocket. He could not believe it.
Why? Why, Carlotta? If you needed the money, why didn’t you just come to me? Carlotta was a proud woman. Not too proud to steal, but proud. She had four kids, no husband. Her youngest had asthma. She needed the money to buy medicine, so her boy could breathe. Cried like a baby. Swore she would never do it again. Begged my father not to fire her. Begged.
What should my father do with Aunt Carlotta?
Marty picks up what’s going on. An intimidation audit. Del is working to “beat the grass and startle the snakes” (see pg 10 of 33 Strategies of War). He is looking to get information on the reactions of the people that work for him.
The Hansons and Bruce all give him the information he needs, although not intentionally. The son, of the father-son duo, admits to stealing after Del shoots Bruce’s girlfriend. It is not until later in the episode that we learn, that it was Bruce’s behavior that helped Del uncover the truth.
Del shoots The Hansons right in front of Marty and Bruce, and then he shoots Bruce, but not before asking him how much they stole. It was $8 million, not 5. Del had been lying.
Pardon
Similar to how Robert Greene discusses Czar Nicholas’ near-death experience, Marty experiences his pardon as a rebirth. For the rest of the series, he constantly has his back against the wall. Solving problems with urgency, and a level head. Rather than going about his days aimlessly, with indecision.
Taking Action
We learn something very important about the process of learning what actions to take, through this extreme example.
Marty is noticeably dispassionate, someone who gathers information before acting. He may seem directionless throughout the first half of the episode, watching the video of his wife cheating on him constantly, instead of confronting her, but this is far from the case. He is gathering information and moving mentally, not physically and emotionally.
By not sharing what he knows, and seeing just how to deal with the situation. To yell and scream at her would not help, and if he chose to confront immediately he would have been in a very different position. Instead, he acts, by gaining more and more potential moves to take. Consider the quote from Robert Greene’s blog entitled Corners:
“What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force. It is a different way of thinking than what we are used to, particularly in the west, in which so much revolves around moving towards a goal. That is linear thinking. What you want is to aim for something that increases your options for power and mobility. This is more like a soft and radiant position, than something hard and dug into the ground.”
Later in the episode, Wendy withdraws all of the money from the family’s checking and savings. When Marty learns of this and is on his way to confront her, he sees the man she has been having an affair with, fall from the sky and hit the ground.
Visibly shocked, Marty turns away, gets in his car and drives, and while driving he receives a call from Del. Del is with his wife, he knows that she stole money from Marty. So he asks the question again, to understand how the two of them should move forward, with Wendy:
What should my father do with Aunt Carlotta?
Marty responds:
“Fire Her…It’s not the first time she stole from you. . . It’s the first time you caught her.”
But he doesn’t get rid of Wendy. He keeps her in his life. Why?
Do you think he made a mistake? Want insight into how to understand this dynamic in your own life?
We created a book that explains references to the Bible that we found in the show Ozark.
It’s inspired by the hymnal that Ash passes out to Mason’s congregation in Season 1.
Here’s a trailer about the book:
Here’s what the book looks like:
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