Well, my prayers have been answered after last week’s exercise in wheel-spinning: Fargo gets back on track in episode six thanks to some clever writing around the complicated politics of who we choose as allies and enemies, and an absolute tour de force performance from Richa Moorjani from beginning to end.
“The Tender Trap,” so named after the gentleman’s club Vivian frequents, sees Indira taking on a temporary lead role in a Dorothy-less episode. Moorjani has done great work this season as Fargo’s resident Good Cop (seems like there’s always one each time) but in an episode built around her, we get a chance to linger a little more on the subtleties on her performance: the way she scoffs but holds back fury when Lars tells her he wants a “wife,” the kind who “swaps recipes with the other wives”; her kind but firm boundaries around Scotty and her safety; and, of course, her relationship with Lorraine. Both women have been fascinated by the other from afar, and finally at this episode’s close, they might finally be getting on the same page. We’ll get there.
The first order of business is Roy’s ongoing crusade to reclaim Dorothy. His plays are psychological as well as brutish: He humiliates and threatens Vivian out of doing business with Lorraine, less out of it being part of a grand plan and more his soreness over the Lyon matriarch getting the better of him last week. The next day, he discovers Gator and Bowman kidnapped the wrong sap from the hospital, executing Jordan (RIP, king, I loved hearing you yell about your intestines) and telling Gator he’s got a “back luck problem. Someone somewhere’s got an upside-down horseshoe with your name on it.” And it’s true. Everything poor Gator touches turns to shit, so it’s time to “take luck out of the equation.” Re-enter: Ole Munch.
Munch, absent last week, gets a supervillain-style reintroduction, heavy boots thudding on the frozen ground, his out-of-time outfit of choice, kilt and all, freshly laundered. Roy pays him what’s owed and then some, due to things going “sideways” previously. That’s one way of saying “Sorry I told my son and employees to shoot you in the head,” I guess. Credit where credit’s due: Gator never lets his repeated, routine humiliations stand in the way of attempting bravado. He jaws at Munch before he leaves, but of course Munch, being Munch, calmly gets in his face, says something cryptic and sinister, and drives off into the ether. Gator, in a scheme that’s bound to go well this time, turns on the tracker he affixed to Munch’s jalopy.
This season of Fargo has been punctuated by powerful scenes of conversations across a table, invisible battle lines drawn. Noah Hawley has always loved playing with the yin and yang in this show. (Season three featured warring twins, for Chrissake). Munch is very much a man of black and white, dead and alive, and says as much, but it’s fascinating to see these other characters, in their shades of grey, choosing their sides depending on the battle. Obviously and hilariously, the FBI agents don’t get very far in their interview with Wayne (in all his childlike wonder) and his father (who brought gimlets to the hospital!). Indira, however, has great distaste for their need to find Dorothy as a means to taking down Roy, rather than helping this woman who can’t stop running, even to tell a single person what made her this way.
She says as much, too, to Lorraine, when she brings Scotty back to the Lyon household after deciding there’s no fate worse than being babysat by Lars Olmstead. Here, she and Lorraine finally have a proper showdown in peak Fargo fashion: Lorraine dividing the world into women who apologize and women who take, rich and poor, victims and those who work. As if to put a finer point on the way the Lyons operate, Scotty plays pretend with war figurines in the adjoining room while Lorraine pokes and prods Indira for an opening to begin the battle. Here, though, Indira simply refuses the game, dropping Dorothy’s thick, horrific file on Lorraine’s desk and telling her in as many words, this isn’t a game, it’s a person. “I’m sure I don’t need to see that,” Lorraine demurs. “People who claim to be victims are the downfall of this country.” Indira snaps back “Have you ever once heard her call herself a victim?” She finally aligns Lorraine with someone else she reminds her of: Dorothy. Two women who, in their own ways, have “made their own reality,” as Danish Graves put it two weeks ago. Later, she opens the file and sees, for the first time, the pure violence and cruelty in Dorothy’s past. She stops, looks up, and thinks, just for a moment, about what it would be like to be someone else.
Stray observations
- Don’t worry, Lorraine hasn’t gone good. After Vivian cuts ties as ordered, she sends Graves to the Tender Trap and puts a phone in his hand, over which she tells the banker she’s called in a favor with the SEC and, in no uncertain terms, he’s ruined. “Your mistake was thinking death is the worst thing that could happen to you.” I’ve seen split opinions about just how far Jennifer Jason Leigh takes this character’s wicked stepmother act, but as someone who loves whatever Patricia Arquette is doing in Severance, I’m all in on the vamping, maximalist Lorraine Lyon.
- Lorraine’s desperate “Oh, not now!” as her invalid son is wheeled into her office got a big ol’ laugh from me.
- I have a feeling getting spectacularly dumped by Indira is the absolute best case scenario for Lars, who has “DOOMED” written all over him. Also, of course he’s fucking his personal trainer.
- Even in a show like Fargo, and an episode that wore gender-based violence on its sleeve, Roy striking Karen was a visceral, jarring moment. The force behind it, her stumble, and Roy immediately switching gears again as if nothing happened. A bullet would be too quick for this man.
- Munch soliloquy of the week: “A boy complains when he thinks the world is unfair. A man knows better. Who lives, who dies [...] you don’t yell at the boulder for being a rock.” Take that, Gator! You boy!
- I can’t see Indira taking Lorraine up on her job offer, pragmatic as it may be finance-wise. But it goes to show once more how Lorraine wields wealth like a bulldozer. The moment she meets resistance, she reaches for the checkbook. Dorothy and Roy have also gotten the “name your price” deal when they were causing their respective commotions.
Fargo is available to stream now on Hulu.