*The following story contains spoilers for Ozark Season 4, Part 1, and Part 2.*
If anyone were going to be the first to usher a rapper into the Ozark universe, it would undoubtedly be the show's resident hip-hop aficionado Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner). After 3 1/2 seasons of Ruth bumping the likes of The Notorious B.I.G. and Wu-Tang Clan in her headphones, her hip-hop love finally manifested in a chance meeting with Run The Jewels frontman Killer Mike in the last batch of Ozark episodes ever. Killer Mike was confirmed to appear in Ozark's final season in late June 2021, and Men's Health has the first look at his inclusion in the most hip-hop-centric episode of the entire series run.
In the first episode of Ozark Season 4 Part 2, Ruth's anger from her cousin Wyatt's death in the climactic last episode of Season 4, Part 1 fuels a revenge road trip to avenge her beloved cousin's passing. That journey leads Ruth to a Chicago restaurant where she finds a chance meeting with Killer Mike, who imparts words of wisdom about pain and hope co-existing, something Ruth knows all too much about on Ozark.
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“When I listen to that record, his projects are in Queens, and you can kinda see Manhattan. And I’ve always thought it was so hopeful and fucking cruel at the same time," Mike says in the scene.
Throughout the episode, Ruth listens to Nas' seminal debut album Illmatic on loop, and the '90s classic acts as a sort of spiritual narrator of the entire episode. Even the episode's title —"The Cousin of Death"— is a clever double entendre speaking to both Ruth turning into Wyatt's murderous cousin, and Nas calling sleep "the cousin of death" on the song "N.Y. State of Mind" on the album. So, Mike and Ruth's dissection of the music in the scene is less about two hip-hop heads geeking out over an album, and more about two people uniting over a shared understanding of what it means to grow up struggling—yet still loving where they call home.
You'll be able to see Killer Mike in Ozark, and find out what Ruth does after her hip-hop pow wow, when the Netflix crime drama returns for the final time with Season 4, Part 2 this Friday.
