I think it's ok, but it's kind of a lot of mechanics without much there there, to me. There's no sort of bigger picture, grand unifying theme to make it really interesting.
There are a couple directions they could go to flesh it out. I think the theme of the wife pretty much stepping into lead role is potentially really meaty, if they can deal with that well. You've got a premise based around the idea (and I'm being a little generous in even positing they have a bigger theme here to this point) that a guy like Marty is in his mind a "good guy" who is basically merely rather amoral. He was greedy sure, but he got in this mess not out of any desire for criminality for it's own sake, but mainly just as a way to take some shortcuts and not having a personal moral code against it. And everything he's done since is just "for his family."
Now the way it's setting up, Wendy is different. She's got larceny in her heart...she is really no different in nature than the cartel or the snells. Bateman's character at least THOUGHT he was, and moderated his actions accordingly. That sets up some really interesting scenarios, pitting them AGAINST the criminal factors, and not just navigating between them. It also could set up some very interesting interpersonal dynamics between husband and wife, or at least could have if they really had ever fleshed out that relationship very effectively in the first place, which they didn't.
I also think that there's rich material to be mined along the idea of Ruth being Marty's (or Wendy's) surrogate daughter...she is a more fitting daughter to them than Charlotte, and Marty was more of an appropriate dad to her than her own dad. To me, that's potentially really interesting. It's a little less so with her real father out of the picture, but Ruth is one of the few characters that's kind of interesting on it's own merits, and I found the Ruth/Marty faux-parental relationship the most intriguing meta-theme running throughout. I would have like to see them bring that to a head as a major theme of next season if they'd kept her father in play.
There are a couple directions they could go to flesh it out. I think the theme of the wife pretty much stepping into lead role is potentially really meaty, if they can deal with that well. You've got a premise based around the idea (and I'm being a little generous in even positing they have a bigger theme here to this point) that a guy like Marty is in his mind a "good guy" who is basically merely rather amoral. He was greedy sure, but he got in this mess not out of any desire for criminality for it's own sake, but mainly just as a way to take some shortcuts and not having a personal moral code against it. And everything he's done since is just "for his family."
Now the way it's setting up, Wendy is different. She's got larceny in her heart...she is really no different in nature than the cartel or the snells. Bateman's character at least THOUGHT he was, and moderated his actions accordingly. That sets up some really interesting scenarios, pitting them AGAINST the criminal factors, and not just navigating between them. It also could set up some very interesting interpersonal dynamics between husband and wife, or at least could have if they really had ever fleshed out that relationship very effectively in the first place, which they didn't.
I also think that there's rich material to be mined along the idea of Ruth being Marty's (or Wendy's) surrogate daughter...she is a more fitting daughter to them than Charlotte, and Marty was more of an appropriate dad to her than her own dad. To me, that's potentially really interesting. It's a little less so with her real father out of the picture, but Ruth is one of the few characters that's kind of interesting on it's own merits, and I found the Ruth/Marty faux-parental relationship the most intriguing meta-theme running throughout. I would have like to see them bring that to a head as a major theme of next season if they'd kept her father in play.
