Written by Randy Allain
If we’ve learned anything from the latest season of Noah Hawley’s Fargo, it’s the importance of making sure our debts are paid in full. The third and fourth entries in Fargo’s fifth season, “The Paradox of Intermediate Transactions” and “Insolubilia” are not only absolute pressure-cookers, but they raise the stakes and seem to elevate our story to the level of the supernatural. Of course, it’s not surprising that a show like Fargo would play with our understanding of fact and fiction. It’s right there in the emotional “truth” the series claims at the top of each episode. As Danish Graves (Dave Foley, NewsRadio) puts it, “We have our own reality.” That may be the case, but if you are interested in the reality of the third and fourth installments in the latest season Fargo, please be aware that there are spoilers ahead.
Episode Three: The Paradox of Intermediate Transactions
For nearly a decade, Hawley’s anthology series, Fargo, has split its time between seasons set in the recent past and seasons set in different historical eras. This pattern keeps things fresh and helps the series explore broad questions about American identity and power dynamics. Some of the answers to these questions change and evolve with the times, but certain touchstones and foibles of American culture remain timeless.
“The Paradox of Intermediate Transactions” is particularly interested in the perpetuation of such grim, but timeless, institutions such as patriarchal gender roles, the abuse of power and privilege, and of course, the vengeance of a centuries-old feral mercenary bathed in his own blood and bent on collecting a debt in the form of pain and suffering.
Wait…what?
Yup, we “live here… now.” While it’s possible to dream up a psychological, reality-based explanation for the backstory of our 500-year-old sin eater, Ole Munch (Sam Spruell, Snow White and the Huntsman), the series presents his Welsh roots and abandoned soul as matter-of-fact history. In any case, it looks like Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm, Mad Men) is about to learn he isn’t the only one who deems himself capable of delivering unilateral biblical justice; Ole Munch might be the closest thing Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (Juno Temple, Ted Lasso) has to a friend right now.
Of course, a couple of other possible teammates are circling the wagons as well. Police Deputy Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani, Never Have I Ever) didn’t look too pleased with Dot’s mother-in-law, Lorraine Lyon (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Atypical), for calling her a glorified security guard beholden to the needs of the oligarchy. Similarly, Gator Tillman’s (Joe Keery, Stranger Things) open racism, threats of violence, and evidence-tampering left North Dakota Deputy Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris, New Girl) on alert and taking stock of the dangerous forces drifting into his orbit.
Most importantly, we get a deeper exploration of the threat posed by Roy Tillman. While we still don’t know much about his relationship with Dot, we meet his current wife, Karen (Rebecca Liddiard, Alias Grace), and see the doting, sexual subservience Tillman expects from her. A sense of dread hangs over an extended shot of Tillman supervising his daughters in the bathtub. It’s a wordless scene, but it evokes a sense of horror and invites us to imagine the dehumanizing lessons and expectations he is likely already instilling in his daughters. Furthermore, we learn that he only has eyes for Dot, and harbors a desire to reassert control over her. A series of overlapping shots connect Tillman and Dot, evoking the sense that they are locked together on some dark, psychological wavelength. Ultimately, Tillman sends Gator out to collect Dot (aka Nadine) under the cover of Halloween chaos.
Amidst all of this darkness, we also get some timeless laughs and fun table-setting. In one of the funniest sequences of the season, Dot and her husband Wayne (David Rysdahl, No Exit) head to a gun shop in search of a “home defense solution.” Wayne has been doing his best to ignore split home wiring, booby traps, and a shopping list that places juice boxes beside AR-15s, but Dot’s sudden love for firearms and the hefty price tag she and the gun store clerk put on “peace of mind” are clearly starting to take their toll on Wayne. We are left to wonder where he will eventually land in the push-and-pull between Dot and his mother, who has launched a full investigation into Dot’s affairs.
Perhaps the biggest mystery in Dot’s storyline is the question of how much she is in control of her current situation. Obviously, we know she is in control of home defense and maintaining her tactical edge, but her refusal to separate her domesticated life from the impending threat remains a rich emotional text to explore in future episodes. Dot is something more complicated than an expert code-switcher alternating between her housewife and survivor personas – she almost seems unable to separate the two. A different version of Dot would likely keep her grocery list separate from her list of munitions, but this Dot needs to believe that both halves can exist in harmony. It may not be possible to achieve this sort of harmony, but it’s safe to say that many viewers hope she can find that balance.
With plenty of run time left on the clock, the episode lets us linger in anticipation rather than pay off the inevitable showdown at the Lyon home. We get lots of slow, lingering shots of Gator’s crew closing in and Dot shuffling her family into the home. Naturally, all of this is curated to the sounds of the 90s anthem of moral outrage and controversy: “Smack My Bitch Up,” by The Prodigy. Roy caps the sequence off with a classic serial killer phone call to Dot’s landline in an extra bit of psychological torment and control.
That’s all very enticing, but admittedly overshadowed by Ole Munch “munching” on torn bible passages, slaughtering a goat, bathing his unclad body in blood, and whipping himself up into a ritualistic frenzy. If those bloody footsteps at the threshold of Tillman’s home are any indication, next week should be a dark and bloody Halloween horrorshow.
Episode three leaves us to ponder Gator’s handy warning: “it’s the missus you gotta watch out for.”
Episode Four: Insolubilia
If episode three promised a double-showdown full of Home Alone Halloween hijinks, this week’s episode makes a point of reminding us that Fargo, regardless of the iteration, doesn’t tend to operate on the simple wavelength of righteous justice. Instead, this episode plunges us into a world full of unbendable power structures, as if to remind us how small we are in the grand scheme of things.
Dot does her best to convince her assailants that she is small and vulnerable as she tends to the kitchen after a night of trick-or-treating. Gator and his cronies stalk around outside the Lyon home and he gets his most competent moment as he manages to open the back door and catch Dot’s warning light bulb before it crashes to the floor. We start to understand that even a clever “tiger” like Dot can be vulnerable to attack. Even with her disorienting soundtrack (another delightful needle drop: Tiny Tim’s cover of “I’ve Got You, Babe,” by Sonny & Cher) and her clever maneuvering around the home, Dot can’t quite land the killing blow when she finally swings the Chekhov’s nail bat that has been calling to us since the first trailer dropped. Ultimately, Dot’s biggest downfall is her failure to communicate with her oblivious little infant of a husband, Wayne. He gets fried by Dot’s DIY electrified windows after choosing a really poor moment to start demanding answers from his wife.
Meanwhile, Roy Tillman sits down for a heart-to-heart with Jesus to request support as he tries to understand the threat from Ole Munch. He seems to understand that he might be dealing with some sort of demon; however, it seems even more important that his sense of familiarity and expectation in this chat is reminiscent of the way Lorraine Lyon previously described the police force as little more than her personal gatekeepers. Tillman seems to believe that his deity of choice owes him a similar level of fealty. Paired with his disturbing glorification of his “Indian killer” forefather, his son Gator’s open racism in the previous episode, and the misogyny at the core of his character, Tillman seems to have a pretty small view of who deserves the grace of God. As upsetting as this is, Tillman does seem to get his protection…for now.
While it’s certainly unsettling for Tillman to find a bloody rune painted on the wall of his daughters’ bedroom, the girls seem to be safe. Considering the ritualistic frenzy Munch worked himself into last week, a little bloody graffiti feels like a best case scenario for the Tillman clan.
After rolling sweet baby Wayne off the roof of her burning home and rushing him to the hospital, Dorothy makes sure Scotty (Sienna King, Under the Banner of Heaven) gets the cover story straight in a sequence that invites us to compare Dot to Roy Tillman. She constructs a world based on good and evil, and manipulates Scotty to believe that she will only be safe if she keeps the details of the home invasion a secret.
It’s not long before Lorraine and Danish bluster through the hospital doors demanding special treatment for Wayne. Mere moments after trying to convince a Forbes reporter that her loan consolidation and debt collection company is offering an olive branch to struggling Americans hoping to reclaim their dignity, Lorraine tongue-lashes a couple of hospital employees and insists that one of them be fired. She is quick to blame Dot for burning down her family’s home and putting her son in danger. She scoffs at the thought of her granddaughter eating a Snickers bar for breakfast. Before she can continue the tirade, our gentle and honest officers Indira Olmstead and Witt Farr show up to confirm that they can place Dot at a crime scene. We are rooting for these two, but they still haven’t fully grasped what they are up against here; not even solid, visual evidence can shake this family from their own personal reality.
Dot manages to excuse herself from the interrogation to check in with her husband. It seems like Wayne is going to survive, but a combination of injury, trauma, and pain medication has left him in a loopy and despondent state. We are left to ponder the line between Dot’s genuine love for Wayne and her need to fight for self preservation.
We also get a quick return from our two federal agents; they are eager to speak with Dot and catch Roy Tillman in a trap, but their superior makes it very clear that they need to leave Roy Tillman alone through a couple of simple parables that establish him as a necessary evil on the food chain. We’ll see how much of a role these two have to play moving forward, but thematically, they serve as simple mirrors of the idealism we feel more connected to in Olmstead and Farr.
Fresh off his late night of ritualistic blood graffiti, we cut to Munch washing off in a very dirty bathtub while he pontificates about how much the world has changed over the last 500 years. Munch expresses his disgust for a world full of “kings,” who think that they all deserve freedom. He doesn’t suggest that the system is fair, but it certainly reads as an ominous warning for the rest of the cast, especially with the way the scene is cross-cut with shots of Roy Tillman in deep thought on his couch. We are left to imagine the two men in dialogue with one another. Despite this ominous framing, it seems like Tillman is going to be granted a bit more time to continue operating as a king.
We wrap up the episode with Tillman wielding his powers even more recklessly than we’ve seen in the past. He makes a house call to the couple we met in episode two to see if Joshua has stopped abusing his wife, but our corrupt sheriff has an ulterior motive. After goading Joshua into drawing a gun, Roy proves to be the quickest draw in the West and leaves his victim to bleed out on the coach. After a quick threat/bribe to secure the grieving wife’s cooperation, Tillman rides off into the sunset.
This week, our underdogs still find themselves at the mercy of the wealthiest and most privileged members of society. Hard work, preparation, and honesty are no match for the halls of power. In this land of kings, it is going to be an uphill battle for our favorite characters to achieve the justice and happy endings we want for them. Of course, this is the world of Noah Hawley’s Fargo, so the best we can hope for is likely a bittersweet conclusion. For now, we’ll have to wait and see what twists and turns come our way next week.
