Summary
Fargo subverts expectations by delivering an episode that feels like a finale out of nowhere, raising questions about where exactly the whole thing might go with so many episodes still remaining.
Season 5 of Fargo is full of surprises. And that’s a little surprising in itself since the whole thing feels so much like quintessential return-to-form Fargo that you’d think it’d relish in the expected and the anticipated, safe in the knowledge that’s exactly what fans were hoping for. But Episode 4 is happy to play with the typical structure of a series, delivering what feels like a closer almost smack in the middle of the season.
This presents a lot of intriguing potential as we progress, since if we’re doing the home-defence set-pieces now, what on earth are we going to be doing next week? “Insolubilia” is good on its own terms, but it’s great as a suggestion that there’s still plenty more to come from the season.
Fargo Season 5 Episode 4 Recap
Anyway, things kick off where Episode 3 implied they would, with Gator and his goons, all in very elaborate Nightmare Before Christmas cosplay, breaking into Dot’s home and being greeted by a series of booby traps, counter-attacks, and general violence. It doesn’t go well for Gator and his men, one of whom ends up dead, but it doesn’t go especially well for Dot and her family either since Wayne is hospitalized, Dot’s real name Nadine is shouted all over the place, and the house burns down.
What’s funny about all this is that doesn’t change anything in the immediate, since Dot was already lying to everyone about everything and just has to keep doing so in increasingly difficult-to-believe circumstances. This works as a gag, but it also functions as a way to rope in Lorraine, Witt, and Indira, all of whom are suspicious of Dot but have no idea what she’s really up to. “Insolubilia” really feels like the season starting to coalesce properly.
Thematic Connections
The episode also establishes thematic links between different characters and subplots as well. Roy, for instance, has a touch of supernatural fear about him, which makes Ole Munch sneaking into his house and daubing runes all over the walls particularly frightening; Indira is in debt because of her childish wannabe-golfer husband, and Lorraine has made a fortune collecting debts. And so on.
Either way, nobody’s buying Dot’s cover story, no matter how convincingly she and Scotty can regurgitate it. What seems to be happening, though, is that the history between Dot and Roy is being explored from two different positions that will eventually meet in the middle. You’ve got Dot’s happy housewife survivalism on one side of the equation, and then whatever Roy’s actually up to in North Dakota on the other. Joaquin and Meyer aren’t investigating the case for the same reasons as Indira and Witt, but they’re bound to arrive at the same conclusions sooner or later. Dot is covering up her past, Roy has enough power and reach that getting rid of him would be more trouble than it’s worth, and Roy’s dogged pursuit of Dot is going to make his apprehension of immediate concern to everyone.
Absolute Power
It’s also becoming a lot clearer what the thematic undercurrents of this season are. I’m sure it’ll become more explicit later, but the gist of things seems to be a critique of old-fashioned notions of power, primarily through Roy and Lorraine. Roy is a throwback in the classic sense – he’s a corrupt misogynist who believes he should be allowed to do whatever he wants as a God-given right, which is such a preposterous viewpoint that even Ole Munch points it out to the old lady whose house he’s staying in: “Only kings had the freedom to want. And now everywhere you look you see kings. Everything they want they call their own. And if they cannot have it they say they’re not free.”
What this means, essentially, is that Roy’s throwing a childish hissy fit. It’s just a nice way of saying it.
Lorraine represents a different kind of power: being so wealthy and connected that she can essentially build – or buy, one supposes – her own reality. Dot increasingly finds herself caught between these two warring forces, who don’t even know they’re at war with each other yet.
How does Fargo Season 5 Episode 4 end?
The episode ends with Roy setting up Joshua, the abusive husband he threatened earlier in the season, as a fall guy for the crimes of Ole Munch. He lures Joshua into a shootout that proves fatal for him and gives Roy a convenient figure to pin the blame on, but his problems are far from over. Gator returns to inform him that he didn’t manage to capture Dot after all, so it’s very likely Roy will now have to take matters into his own hands.
What did you think of Fargo Season 5 Episode 4?
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