Written by Randy Allain
Whether or not you are familiar with the “save the cat” trope, you’ve seen it in action. This storytelling adage is a simple way to explain the strategy of softening a hard character by letting them rescue or protect an innocent being, like an animal or a child.
Noah Hawley’s latest season of Fargo puts that tired trope out to pasture. This cat is going to save herself, thank you very much.
Juno Temple stars as Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (cat pun very much intended). Ostensibly, Dot is a Minnesota-nice, loyal housewife and mother, but below the surface, she is a resourceful fighter and survivor – or as Ole Munch (Sam Spruell, Snow White and the Huntsman), the kidnapper who finds himself on the wrong side of her ice skate, suggests: a tiger.
Hawley and his team bring a fresh, visceral energy that hasn’t been felt since the earliest days of the anthology series. If the premiere episodes are any indication, this season will be equal parts Fargo and Kill Bill. Not only does Dot defend herself with makeshift hairspray torches and DIY nail-bat-crafting sessions with her daughter Scotty (Sienna King, Under the Banner of Heaven), but she is acting in opposition to a pair of instantly repugnant villains: her mother-in-law, and her…umm…ex (more on that later).
Jennifer Jason Leigh ices the screen over as Lorraine Lyon, the maestro of the family empire. Her detached selfishness, cruelty, and lack of humanity extend not only to her daughter-in-law, “some low-rent skirt my son knocked up,” but to her bumbling, naive son Wayne (David Rysdahl, No Exit) who gets a long distance slap across the face à la Lorraine’s right-hand man, Danish Graves (Dave Foley, The Kids in the Hall). Lorraine fills out the rest of her uncaring persona with a litany of ignorant, gender-binary drivel in response to her granddaughter’s sense of fashion and diverse interests.
In part two of the premiere, we meet the presumed big bad of the season, Jon Hamm’s cult-leader of a sheriff, Roy Tillman. It turns out this North Dakota lawman isn’t so keen on questions of legality. He is more than happy to explain this stance to a couple of curious federal agents while he takes a nude, outdoor soak. He believes his job is to unilaterally interpret the Constitution according to the word of God (yikes); he also believes that his constituents love him for it. Hamm gives us a taste of his “justice” in a sequence where he roughs up an abusive husband only to blame his wife for her lack of compliance and failure to meet her husband’s sexual needs. As Tillman steps out of that bath in front of the agents, he is dripping equal parts water and misogyny.
If we didn’t hate Tillman enough already, we soon learn that he is Dot’s husband, and she has been hiding from him for a decade.
It’s impossible not to find yourself in Dot’s corner. From the moment the first slasher-film-ready kidnapper appears at her sliding door, we delight in every surprise maneuver Dot throws at her adversaries. We feel her fear, and we feel a sense of triumph and accomplishment every time her abusers underestimate her. The final result is a tantalizing brew, brimming with possibility. We can already imagine the unlikely partnerships, melodramatic acts of vengeance, and deep, rewarding catharsis that will grace our screens in the coming weeks.
Of course, Fargo doesn’t leave the humor behind. Over the course of the first two episodes, the show pairs its tense cat-and-mouse action with clever visual irony ranging from the comical open-book emotions on the faces of the Lyon family in their assault-weapon-wielding Christmas card to a distressed Dot mixing pancake batter, spattered with blood and Bisquick.
Additionally, the supporting cast is dripping with just as much possibility as Dot’s irresistible storyline. Police Deputy Indira Olmsted (Richa Moojani, Never Have I Ever) is ready to step in as a sympathetic and well-intentioned investigator plagued by tension with her deadbeat, selfish husband. North Dakota Deputy Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris, New Girl) is already reeling from the revelation that his knight in shining armor, Dot, insists that she never actually MacGyver-ed her way out of an abduction. Last, but not least, Joe Keery of Stranger Things fame is here playing Roy Tillman’s monster-in-training deputy and son, Gator Tillman. Gator is a toddler in assault armor, with all the unearned confidence of a three-year-old. In contrast to his military-gear posturing, he is often sucking on his signature Mountain-Dew-green vape, a colorful reminder of the child we are dealing with. We will likely spend a lot of time with Gator while he survives for much, much longer than he deserves.
Don’t sleep on Fargo Season 5, folks! This writer hasn’t been this excited about a premiere in ages, and hopes to watch Dorothy Lyon take control of her “pride” over the course of the remaining eight episodes.
