"My Dripping Sleep," the third episode of Netflix's buzzy crime drama Ozark, is ostensibly about how quickly the walls are closing in on Marty Byrde, his family, and the half-baked money-laundering scheme that will keep them all alive. Before they can even finish moving into their new home - hell, before the opening scene is over! - that home is under surveillance by FBI Agent Petty, the dogged, dumb investigator who makes Twin Peaks' Albert Rosenfield look like a charm-school graduate. This comes mere hours after Marty's wife Wendy told their kids that their dad works for a Mexican drug cartel, further splintering the family bonds with what daughter Charlotte feels was a transparent attempt to alienate them from Marty, rather than trust them with the truth. And the cartel may be stalking them too, as a parking-lot staredown between Wendy and two grim-looking dudes in a black SUV implies. And there's no shortage of local trouble to worry about either. Even as Marty pushes himself deep into sleep deprivation in a desperate attempt to launder the cartel's money as fast as possible, the low-life Langhornes - led by their sole female member, the insightful, intelligent, and ruthless Ruth - play low-level mindgames and plot Marty's eventual murder. It's enough to make you wonder how they can possibly make it. Or it would make you wonder that, if it weren't so obvious that the game is rigged so that they will. About a third of the way through Ozark's debut season, the pitfalls of its premiere, which rushed Marty through an entire antihero-drama series story arc before the closing credits rolled, have yet to be surmounted. All the threats he and his family face in this episode simply remind you that the show painted itself into a corner in its pilot, and is going to have to either scale the wall or get its shoes awfully messy to get out again. Maybe Marty's headed for Ned Stark territory, and it'll be Charlotte and Ruth's show to run before long anyway.
