Longtime "Fargo" fans will recall when, in Season 1 of the FX series, Billy Bob Thornton's Lorne Malvo character stated that he hadn't tasted such delicious apple pie "since the Garden of Eden." We all put on our tin foil hats for that one, coming up with wild theories about his evil origins. Well, folks, "Fargo" Season 5 just made that mystery box look like child's play. Episode 3, "The Paradox of Intermediate Transactions," written by series creator Noah Hawley and directed by Donald Murphy ("Caper"), features a 500-year flashback (à la the Coens' "A Serious Man") that will surprise, delight and completely unmoor you.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Fargo" Season 5, Episode 3.
Hilariously, we learn that Sam Spruell's 'Ole Munch' was munching on all our trespasses as a sin-eater in pre-Reformation England. He's at least 500-something years old — older than America itself. That means something in an episode that name-drops 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence. And for a season so full of moral, spiritual and financial debt, it's easy to see the parallels between a debt collector (like Jennifer Jason Leigh's Lorraine) and a sin-eater.
"Fargo" Episode 3 is sprawling and bold, blowing past anything we've seen before on TV (save for "Twin Peaks," maybe) and landing on a hypnotic mix of philosophies, religions and genres. Read on for all the illuminating details we spotted, plus our theories about what the heck it all means.
Another Murder at the Gas-N-Go
Michelle Faye/FX
Gator (Joe Keery, "Stranger Things") has summoned Roy (Jon Hamm) to the Gas-N-Go where Ole Munch murdered his deputy and left behind a note reading "You owe me." With no video evidence of the crime, Roy and Gator make it look like a car accident. In one of the more meta moments of the season, Gator swears he'd beat Munch mano-a-mano and Roy dismisses his naïveté: "Like 'High Noon?' That only happens in the movies, son. Real life, they'll slit your throat while you're waiting for the light to change."
Easter Egg: "High Noon" is a cultural touchstone for "Fargo" writer-creator Noah Hawley. In Season 2, Jean Smart's mob boss character tells her trigger-happy son that a gang war won't end tidily like "High Noon." In 2022, Hawley even penned an op-ed in The Atlantic titled "It's High Noon in America," in which he argued that the reluctant hero compelled to triumph over evil is a simplified version of morality, which always has a grey area.
Roy returns home to his mousy wife Karen (obviously a joke), played by Rebecca Liddiard of "Alias Grace," and their twin daughters. Karen's father, the local militia leader Oden Little (Michael Copeman, "When Hope Calls"), is there urging Roy to acquire weapons for some kind of takeover: "Things are in the works, kid. 1776. We're not gonna take this country back with harsh language." Roy shrugs it off and stares at his and Dot's wedding photo on the wall. Later, Roy smokes weed in bed as Karen propositions him with some of their fetishes ("How about angry feminist?"). He pushes her aside like she's nothing, and she turns away looking terrified. He stares at the ceiling, which morphs into a view of Dot sitting at her kitchen table, and says, "I see you." Whether or not Roy and Dot actually have some psychic connection, his view of her is violative.
Ole Munch Is a 500-Year-Old Sin-Eater
Notice the hand sign! (Frank W Ockenfels III/FX)
We cut to Bismarck, North Dakota, where an alcoholic elderly woman finds Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) in a rocking chair in one of her upstairs bedrooms. He says, "I live here now" and, in one of the funniest moments of "Fargo" ever, we cut to "500 Years Earlier." In Wales in 1522, a starving, ragged Munch acts as a sin-eater at a funeral. A quick Google search will tell you that village sin-eaters in the British Isles were paid a pittance to spiritually absorb the sins of a dead person by eating a ritual meal. Sin-eaters housed all the sins of the people they absolved, making them outcasts. It's implied that all those sins have kept Munch alive all this time.
Munch cries as the priests urge him to recite, "For thy peace, I pour my own soul." An empty cup is magically filled with wine—evidently, the manifestation of the dead man's sins—and Munch is forced to drink it. He's given just a couple of coins for his troubles and cast out of the church as the attendees stare at him. Back in the present, the old woman is baffled and returns to her beer and TV. In short, Munch is either eternal or just, you know, older than the United States; he either has no soul or a bunch of sinners' souls; and you bet he'll collect what Roy owes him. If Roy Tillman is a stand-in for fundamentalist Christian America, then Ole Munch could be read as the more ancient, Old-World force come to collect on America's sins.
North Dakota Deputy Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris), on crutches, checks Donald Ireland's (Munch's dead associate) file at the station, but Gator has just removed all the contents. Gator denies it (in the dumbest possible terms), but Witt has no recourse. He heads to a diner and does some internet sleuthing. He finds Gator in the news in connection with missing evidence (part of what the Feds are after Roy for), as well as some headlines about Roy's rocky re-election campaign. Just then, Indira sends him Dot's mugshots and Witt instantly recognizes her from the Gas-N-Go.
All Hallows' Eve
Michelle Faye/FX
Back in Minnesota, Dot (Juno Temple) prepares for battle. She smartly dismantles her street signs and convinces Wayne to purchase $5k worth of weapons and ammunition from Gun World, but she can't pick up her artillery until her background check clears next week. She buys pepper spray in the interim. Meanwhile, Lorraine (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Danish (Dave Foley) try to throw the cops off Dot's scent. She's a wolf in sheep's clothing, but they plan to keep her "close" for now. Indira (Richa Moorjani) is baffled: They have DNA evidence and Witt's eyewitness statement. But her superior gives in to Lorraine's posturing. The cops have "no function" within the walled garden of the wealthy and powerful, says Lorraine. They're only meant to keep the rabble from getting in. Rabble like, say, Ole Munch.
Roy instructs Gator to kidnap Dot (her real name is Nadine) tonight, on All Hallows' Eve, "in which the world of the gods is made visible to humanity and the dead come back to life," Roy says of Halloween, which derives from a pagan festival. "That's what Nadine is." We then get a prolonged montage of all parties doing various rituals. Ole Munch listens in on Roy with his police scanner, reads the Bible then eats one of the pages. He tells the old woman, "Going out, mama," and we see him in what looks like Dot's neighborhood. Dot answers the phone to hear Roy singing, "Nadine, is that you?" (We don't actually see Roy on the phone.) She hangs up, terrified, and goes trick-or-treating with Wayne and Scotty.
While Roy sits in his private church staring at Jesus on the Cross, a naked Munch performs an occult ritual in a snow-covered hovel somewhere. (Wasn't he just in Dot's neighborhood?) He sacrifices a goat and bathes in blood while reciting a Latin incantation. Occult symbols float magically around him, then we see him step into Roy's home, where his twin daughters are fast asleep. Dun dun dunnn!
New episodes of "Fargo" premiere Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX and stream the following day on Hulu.
