Fargo hasn’t been on television in almost three years, with its fourth season serving as somewhat of a low point for Noah Hawley’s disorganized interpretation of the Coen brothers’ beloved film. When it works well, Fargo is an intriguing and deserving addition to the brand, typically stealing only “vibes” from the movie instead of a ton of character names and Easter eggs. To be honest, I was a little taken aback to hear that there would be a fifth season, but if it keeps up the quality of this two-episode season opener, I could see myself returning to the Midwest for more adventures in the snow.
Like every decent story, ours begins with a slow-motion, full-on brawl at the Scandia Middle School Fall Festival Planning Committee. I don’t know what’s causing all of this chaos, but it seems like everyone in the auditorium is raising their hands. Except for Dorothy Lyon (Juno Temple) and Scotty, her daughter (Sienna King). As they exit the altercation, Dot unintentionally tases a police officer, leading to her immediate arrest. From the backseat of a police cruiser, she thinks, “Wrong place, wrong time.” Later, she confesses to her husband Wayne (a fantastic David Rysdahl), “On second thought, maybe better if I hadn’t been so freewheelin’ with the taser.”
After a brief stay in jail, Dot is released on bond and headed to her mother-in-law’s enormous limestone McMansion for a Christmas card photo shoot, a location she appears to find even less inviting. When Scotty is seen wearing a sharp suit, Jennifer Jason Leigh, who has never met a matriarchal position she couldn’t turn into gold, grins broadly at Lorraine Lyon and utters the casual phrase “How progressive.” When each family member is given a big assault rifle to pose with, there’s still time for the microaggressions to turn into outright aggression. According to Lorraine, “It’s about projecting our values as a family.” I understand.
Despite her sore thumb, Dorothy is content and engaged in her own space at Lorraine’s dinner table. She cheerfully reads Scotty a well-performed pirate tale before politely rejecting Wayne’s proposal to take a roll in the hay. As she settles in, she starts having terrifying dreams about a compound that resembles a ranch, complete with weird mask-wearing people, a dilapidated barn, and Jon Hamm dressed in a bolo tie. It’s all a little confusing, but it must have something to do with the fact that she was kidnapped by two men the very following day from her house, but not before they severely injured one with a homemade flamethrower and severely injured the other’s ear with an ice skate. Although Dot’s survivalist-like abilities are a welcome surprise, Temple is accustomed to seeing the dark side of Dot’s kindness. She was left hanging by the writing during the last season of the Apple TV+ smash, much like many other Ted Lasso alumnae, so it’s great to see her putting out her best effort.
After a police car stops them and they rush to a highly well-stocked gas station, which she Home Alones with various traps as the helpful, albeit clueless, cashier looks on, Dot manages to give the kidnappers the slip, even with her hands bound behind her back. As Dot is being pursued over the tundra nearly without words, the now-one-eared kidnapper shows how much more skilled at this than the other by killing one police officer and injuring Deputy Whitt Farr (Lamorne Morris). Sam Spruell’s low growl and sculpted stone features are a great match for the man who would subsequently be identified as Ole Munch. Dot gives him the drop and knocks him out cold with a shovel following a suspenseful and clever battle at the gas station where the other kidnapper and the cashier are dead. “How are you able to perform all of this?” As she inserts a makeshift tourniquet, Farr asks. “This isn’t my first escape,” she remarks, not even flinching from the shards of glass underfoot. When assistance shows there, she’s already in the wind once more.
Meanwhile, Wayne returned home to find his house empty and covered with blood on the floor. Deputy Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani), who drove Dot to jail following the altercation barely a day earlier, arrives on the scene to conduct an investigation. He falls tiredly onto the couch after an undoubtedly difficult day, only to wake up to strange noises coming from the kitchen. The biggest surprise of all was Dot’s back, looking unkempt and bloody despite claiming she had only taken a short break to “clear her head.”
Since the beginning of the movie, one of Fargo’s favorite themes has been the characteristic capacity of people to ignore and deny while they gradually find themselves drawn into an unrecoverable position in a plot that is far broader than they could have ever imagined. It doesn’t feel like that, though. If anything, it seems like Dot has already experienced one of those tales and is determined that she won’t ever again.
Naturally, Fargo also likes to remind us that Sheriff Roy Tillman (Hamm) is looking for Dot and that those types of preferences are rarely up to us. By the time the second act of the premiere ends, the pieces are still starting to fit together, but it is evident that Dorothy was Tillman’s “wife” when she was a member of the commune. One of the most repulsive characters in a show full of scoundrels, Tillman is also a cult leader and a despot in his larger capacity of “serving” the community. When Tillman meets with a woman and her husband, two of his constituents who have been physically abusing her, he chastises the man primarily for the lack of accuracy in his brutality. “The woman abides under the husband,” he explains in a somewhat formal tone.
Ole Munch is not too happy with the task Tillman asked him to complete back at the ranch. “She is real,” he states firmly, informing Tillman that since he now knows he is “hunting a tiger,” he must pay the agreed-upon amount “plus pain and suffering” and a fresh bonus. The attempt to have Munch executed by Tillman’s son Gator (hello, Joe Keery!) and his allies works about as smoothly as you could think, so now Tillman has two major issues to deal with.
Dot is back in Minnesota telling Deputy Olmstead that her disappearance wasn’t a huge deal, but Deputy Olmstead is not buying it. But what is she to do in the absence of a witness and testimony? Even though Wayne is an angel, he lets Dorothy forget that two different kinds of blood were discovered in the house, despite his best efforts to elicit the truth from her. He is the only one, though, as Lorraine believes that Dorothy may have devised the disastrous kidnapping as part of a complex scheme for her empire. Later, when she visits Dot, she offers a suggestion: Lorraine will “stake” Dot for the first two years after she leaves Wayne. At last, the mask comes off for a brief minute. Dot murmurs, “Listen, bitch. I’ve climbed through six kinds of hell to get here. Furthermore, no Ivy League royal wannabe will chase me away just because I smell differently. Here, Temple and Leigh make excellent companions since they are both sledgehammers and fighters who are attempting, in different ways, to maintain their façades and fail miserably: Dot and Lorraine have finally met in real life.
Speaking of sledgehammers, Dot asks Scotty to assist her in a small craft project she’s working on turning their house into a death trap for anyone who dares to break in. Windowsills are electrified, broken glass covers door handles, and, yep, an enormous hammer is strapped up and prepared to fall on any intruder at the front entrance like a pendulum.
Understandably unimpressed, Wayne returns home to find his daughter obediently driving nails into a baseball bat. He tries again to get Dot to tell him anything about her apparent kidnapping, but she refuses to cooperate. “We understand it; that’s what counts, right?” With Gator, Tillman’s son, attempting to sabotage Olmstead’s investigation and Dot’s mother-in-law realizing what kind of enemy she’s up against, the walls are closing in quickly. Dorothy Lyons made some commitments a decade ago. It appears that payment is now due.
Random thoughts
- Ole Munch is still resentful, don’t worry; he is now completely focused on Tillman. As the second episode comes to an end, Gator stops by the murder scene gas station for a Slim Jim, which gives Munch just enough time to, uh, use a hunting knife to pin a “YOU OWE ME” note to his buddy.
- Gator comments, “Consider that bitch flummoxed,” after removing Dot’s picture from Olmstead’s phone. How much time is that buying, though? They are law enforcement! They’ve got duplicates!
- Fargo like playing with the boundaries of interpretation sometimes, and subtlety be damned other times. Of course, I’m referring to Lorraine’s workplace mural, which is a huge red painting of the word “NO.”
- I’m not sure how Olmstead’s husband, Lars (Lucas Gage), the aspiring professional golfer, will factor into things, but if anyone wants to bet on that action, I’ll wager that someone will eventually have their bell rung by a club.
- Two excellent needle drops open and close this season’s first two episodes: “Your Move” by Yes, which, in a sense, scores the Fall Brawl, and “This Is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, which concludes episode two.