Fargo recap: One of the show's best, most cryptic episodes to date

Last week, I mentioned that Fargo has always been a story about the distinctly human ability to ignore. Dot’s singular focus on making her house an impenetrable fortress is coming at the cost of her family’s trust (even the ones she’s trying to protect, however clumsily). Indira’s husband Lars seems plenty content to let the credit card bills rack up while he works on his golf swing. Roy considers himself quite literally untouchable and above the law, dismissing the FBI agents who visited him last episode with something worse than contempt: playful indifference. It’d be a stretch to say these people have had it too good for too long but with season five’s emphasis on debt only becoming more explicit, the message seems clear: The bill’s on its way. It’s less a question of who’s going to pay than how.

The most straightforward answer seems (at first) to be Gator and Roy Tillman’s predicament in the form of Ole Munch (whose first name is pronounced “Ulah,” we find out tonight). He’s been cheated out of his fee (plus pain and suffering) for Dot’s attempted kidnapping, and it’s hard to misinterpret the “YOU OWE ME” note shanked into a member of Roy’s entourage. But Ole’s idea of a debt unpaid may just have evolved from an envelope of cash considering his debtors tried to kill him. In fact, he may be driven by something else entirely (more on that later). “High noon only happens in the movies, son,” Roy tells Gator, his most clear-eyed advice so far. “Sleep with your hammer cocked is my opinion.” Jon Hamm and Juno Temple are obviously the headliners this year, but Joe Keery shows some great work this week, vacillating between hangdog doofus and credibly sinister villain, depending on his audience. Later, after blatantly stealing Donny’s (the poor sap who got his head caved in by Dot in episode one) wallet from the evidence box right in front of Whitt, he’s measured and threatening, throwing in a particularly nasty “your mom” joke for good measure before sauntering off.

Dorothy is having a harder time living her two lives, telling an increasingly desperate Wayne that she and Scotty will be zombie hunters for Halloween, legit bulletproof vests and all. Foiled by a federally mandated one-week waiting period while trying to buy three guns for the house, she and her daughter make do with the nail-reinforced baseball bats while out trick or treating. Wayne, meanwhile, is relegated simply to “zombie” with no armor nor weapons to speak of. Make of that what you will.

Compared to the Lyons, Roy’s home life seems downright harmonious. After a quick meeting with Odin, the leader of the militia Roy siphons supplies for, he attends to his twin daughters and very young wife (another one!), Karen (Rebecca Liddiard). “What’ll it be tonight?” she asks as he lies in bed, nipple rings on full display. “Helpless hitchhiker? Or [brandishing handcuffs] angry feminist?” Roy instead seems stuck in something of a trance. Smoking, staring straight up, and physically nudging Karen away as she climbs into bed. As he smokes, as he concentrates, an image of Dot at dinner with her family appears on the ceiling. “I see you,” he growls and the Dot, in his momentary vision, looks back.

Fargo, since its second season, has never shied away from flirting with the outlandish and supernatural. But even in a show where a flying saucer once showed up, the rituals on display in this episode might be its most cryptically fascinating. Halfway through the episode on a snowy North Dakota street, an elderly woman arrives at her home, plops several six packs of beer onto her kitchen counter, and settles down to watch some tennis. Suddenly, the floorboards above her creak, and her investigations lead her to Ole, slowly employing a rocking chair before turning to her and simply saying, “I live here now.”

“500 YEARS EARLIER” suddenly appears onscreen to a swell of music, and we’re transported to late Medieval Wales, where someone who looks an awful lot like Munch (and, yes, is played by Sam Spruell) is employed as a sin-eater at a lord’s funeral. Sin-eating was a practice where, in exchange for a forgiveness of debts (or even a small profit), peasants would consume a meal said to have absorbed the sins of the recently deceased, allowing them safe passage to heaven. I’ll be damned if I try to unpack all that, but safe to say Ole Munch is operating from an entirely different playbook from everyone else on this show. Is he a reincarnation? Is he 600 years old? Is this just something to keep in mind thematically? All seem possible at once. Noah Hawley has previously populated Fargo with villains who seem more like forces of nature than men of flesh and blood, but Spruell’s work as Munch already feels like an otherworldly cut above. He is sin incarnate, ready to descend on whoever he’s pointed to next.

Back in the land of the living, Deputy Olmstead is still being stonewalled by the Lyons, this time in Lorraine’s office with Danish Graves allowing his client to be anything but forthcoming. Indira’s superior officer seems to know which way the wind blows here, chirpily accepting that, no, the Lyons aren’t going to talk. As they make to leave after a very brief, very unhelpful meeting, Lorraine prods, as we’ve already learned she is frequently wont to do. “What is your function?” She lazily lobs to Indira. “You are a tool […] to separate those who have money, class, intellect, from those who don’t. You’re gatekeepers standing outside the walls, keeping the rabble from getting in. But inside these walls, you have no function.” Absorbing this, Indira’s boss puts a hand on her shoulder before she can respond. Enough said.

Episode three doesn’t have much direct plot propulsion, but the pieces it slots into place for next week’s inevitable fallouts are fascinating and terrifying in themselves. In the closest the series has ever gotten to outright horror, Munch slaughters a goat on Tillman’s grounds and covers himself in mud, blood, and self-inflicted wounds while he prays (chants?) in Latin, ghostly runes dancing on the walls around him. Roy sits alone among the pews in his compound’s tiny church, lights a candle, and awaits news on the second attempt to capture Dot, who he knows as “Nadine.” Intent on maintaining the ridiculous facade of a normal life, Dot spends the evening collecting candy with her family, looking over her shoulder. In an episode filled with sin-eating, blood magic, and glimpses beyond the veil, Fargo seems to be asking: What is superstition, what is ignorance, what is denial, but simply new versions of ancient rituals designed to grant us the illusion of power over forces beyond our mortal control?

Stray observations

• In addition to the Chekhov’s sledgehammer in the Lyon household, let’s add Odin’s personal sipping whiskey (“can’t be too careful”) and the introduction of a second character wearing an eyepatch as things to keep an eye on (sorry).
• “For thy peace, I pawn my own soul,” Spruell’s ancient peasant recites, before being handed two small coins. The gig economy existed long before Uber, folks!
• The woman whose home is now Ole’s makes for the phone after finding him upstairs, before thinking better of it. Later, he tells her, “I’m going out, mama.” I suppose that’s thanks enough? However creepy?
• Besides knowing Dorothy was once part of Tillman’s grimy cult, her past still remains somewhat a mystery. Were the survivalist skills she employs learned before or after her time at the compound? Her switching all the street signs in her immediate neighborhood, in the era of GPS, shows she knows even just a few seconds of confusion is valuable time she can put to use, when the inevitable arrives.
• What with the “This Is Halloween” needle drop last week and Gator’s kidnap crew all donning Nightmare Before Christmas-licensed masks this week, it seems like Noah Hawley’s a big Henry Selick fan, and joining the celebrations for the film’s thirtieth anniversary. If I were a tad more cynical, I’d note that both it and Fargo share the same parent company…

Fargo is available to stream now on Hulu.