The two-episode "Fargo" Season 5 premiere sets up what might be the most political installment yet of the long-running anthology series. Episodes 1-2, written and directed by series creator Noah Hawley, present a razor-sharp kidnapping plot with gut-bustingly funny beats (classic "Fargo" fare). But they also act as a capsule send-up of the contemporary polarization that's turned PTA meetings into war zones. Consider the first few moments of the premiere:
The season opens with Yes' 1971 hit "I've Seen All Good People" and a definition of Minnesota Nice onscreen, which states that the "aggressively pleasant demeanor" is "often forced." Then, we see Dorothy "Dot" Lyon (Juno Temple) huddled with her daughter Scotty (Sienna King) at a school board meeting-turned brawl. The math teacher grabs Dot and yells, "No one's listening to me!" She tases him, then accidentally stuns a cop, too. She's arrested by female deputy Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani), who says, "What's the world coming to?"
That madness infects this "Fargo." It's set in Minnesota in 2019, making it the most contemporary season yet. Jon Hamm's Constitutional lawman, Sheriff Roy Tillman, spews cartoonishly out-of-touch misogyny. On the other hand, Sam Spruell's mysterious Ole Munch feels elemental and eternal. The result is a rollicking good time with a deeply unnerving connection to something supernatural? Evil? With eight episodes left in this morality play, it's too early to tell what that dark shadow is looming over all that Minnesota Nice. But, aw jeez, it's there.
Below, we recap every beat you might have missed in Episodes 1-2, spotlighting the "Fargo" easter eggs we noticed along the way.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Fargo" Season 5, Episodes 1-2.
Episode 1: 'The Tragedy of the Commons'
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In jail, Dot worries about her fingerprints going into a "national database." Her doting but hapless husband Wayne (Dave Rysdahl) bails her out, and they drive straight to his mother's mansion for a Christmas card photoshoot (complete with AR-15s). Lorraine Lyon (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the ruthless CEO of the nation's largest debt collection agency. She dominates everyone around her, including her daffy British husband and her surprisingly good-natured henchman-slash-attorney Danish Graves (Dave Foley). That night, Dot struggles to fall asleep as shots of Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) riding horses and leading a dinnertime prayer flicker across the screen. The song "Hey Joe," about a man who murders his unfaithful wife, plays.
The next day, Dot is home alone enjoying a vapid, feel-good morning news program when Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) and his dimwit associate Donald break in. She puts up one heck of a fight. After falling down the stairs, she manages to slice off Munch's ear with an ice skate. They kidnap her, noting that "he" said to bring her in alive.
Easter Egg: In "Fargo" (1996), Jerry Lundegaard's wife is also watching daytime TV when Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) kidnap her. She also falls down the stairs. Oh, and their son's name? Also Scotty.
Wayne and Scotty come home to the bloody scene of Dot's kidnapping. He calls the police, and Indira Olmstead is the first on the scene. Later, Lorraine and Danish assume Dot's kidnappers will send a ransom demand; they resolve not to involve the authorities in order to protect Lorraine's business from unwanted press. We then see Indira sorting through past-due notices at home. Her unemployed husband, an aspiring professional golfer, is glued to his pricey golf simulator. It's clear that Indira is our Marge Gunderson/Molly Solverson-esque put-upon detective to root for.
Dot Gets Away
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That night, Munch and Donald are pulled over for their stolen plates while Dot is handcuffed in the backseat. Munch kills one officer. The other, Deputy Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris) flees to a nearby gas station with Dot. Witt takes a gunshot wound to the leg, and Dot once again proves her "Die Hard" chops. She pours ice on the bathroom floor, causing Donald to slip and fatally hit his head on the toilet. She hits Munch over the head with a frying pan, cartoon-style, but doesn't shoot him — either because she doesn't have it in her, or because she's interrupted by Witt's cries for help. She uses a small yellow snow shovel to make a tourniquet for Witt's leg, and he says he's going to put her in for a medal for civilian bravery. She returns to find Munch has disappeared. In the wreckage, a paper reading "Breakfast! The most important meal of the day" reminds her of Scotty, and she disappears from the scene just as backup arrives. We finally hear the familiar "Fargo" theme.
Easter Egg: Carl Showalter used a red snow shovel to mark the spot of the buried money in the original film, and the Supermarket King eventually found it in "Fargo" Season 1.
That night, a distraught Wayne wakes to find Dot in the kitchen furiously making Bisquick for Scotty's "most important meal of the day." She has twigs in her hair and her feet are bloody from running barefoot, but she claims she cut herself doing crafts and took off without notice to clear her head of the arrest: "I know you think I'm this perfect wife, mother. But you know even I got a breaking point." Wayne is baffled (and not totally believing her story), but he's beyond relieved to see her.
Episode 2: 'Trials and Tribulations'
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Episode 2 opens with Sheriff Roy Tillman counseling an abusive husband and his wife. "A husband is head of his household," he says. "Under him, the woman abides." Roy gives the husband a beating but tells the wife to forgive and be "deferential" towards him. Then, Roy and his son Gator (Joe Keery), one of his deputies, meet with their hired hitman Ole Munch, who failed to kidnap Dot. If he had known Dot was a "tiger," says Munch, "a man" would've charged triple for the job.
Dot is Roy's wife, it turns out. She ran from him nine or ten years ago, changed her name and married Wayne. When Roy spotted her fingerprints in the government database, he hired Munch to kidnap her. As far as he's concerned, she owes him a debt that can't be repaid with money alone. Roy and Gator arrange to execute Ole Munch, but he gets away, breaking Gator's arm in the process.
Dot and Wayne try to convince Indira that there was no kidnapping and that this was all a misunderstanding, but she's not buying it. Neither is Lorraine. She thinks Dot attempted to extort her but got cold feet. "She made promises to me, my son. To have and to hold, for richer and for poorer. And that's a debt we're gonna collect," Lorraine tells Danish, echoing Roy's sentiment. Later, she confronts Dot one-on-one, offering cash for Dot to go back to wherever she came from. Suddenly, Dot's mask (and Midwestern accent) drops: "Listen, bitch, I've climbed through six kinds of hell to get where I am, and no Ivy League royal wannabe is gonna run me off just because she doesn't like the way I smell," she tells Lorraine, adding: "Nobody takes what's mine and lives." Lorraine is visibly chilled.
Back in North Dakota, two FBI Agents, Joaquin (Nick Gomez) and Meyer (Jessica Phly), interrupt Roy's hot tub time to inform him that they're investigating his shady practices as sheriff. With his pierced nipples on full display, Roy tells them that right and wrong doesn't necessarily correlate with legal and illegal (he's not wrong?), and that his constituents trust him to know the difference.
Easter Egg: At Wayne's car dealership, they're advertising a deal on TruCoat — the same upsell Jerry Lundegaard tried to push on customers in the original film.
Ole Munch Strikes Back
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Meanwhile, the cops are finding more and more evidence that Dot was kidnapped. They have Donald's dead body at the gas station and Witt's testimony. Indira visits his hospital room to show him a photo of Dot. Gator saunters in claiming jurisdiction (the gas station was in Gator's neck of the woods). He "accidentally" deletes Dot's photo from Indira's phone before she can show Witt. Dot doesn't want anyone to know she was kidnapped because she doesn't want anyone to know about her past life as Roy Tillman's wife. Whether her secrecy will play into his hands remains to be seen.
Wayne is shocked to find that Dot has enlisted Scotty in booby-trapping their home, "Home Alone"-style. He tells Dot that Lorraine is "litigating" against her, on the grounds that Dot was in league with kidnappers in an elaborate extortion plot. Dot maintains that there was no kidnapping, and that she's merely preparing for an increasingly dangerous world. You get the sense that Wayne is not actually an idiot, but that he carries on believing Dot simply because he must. "You're my dream come true," he tells her. "You're mine," she says.
Danny Elfman's "This Is Halloween" from the "Nightmare Before Christmas" score plays as Gator and his buddy fuel up at the gas station where all the action occurred last episode. Munch appears out of nowhere and stabs Gator's second-in-command. The episode ends with Gator standing over the body, gawking at some kind of paper note Munch has left behind.
This week's funniest "Fargo" line: "Hun, look at me. I been in the hoosegow. I got lice possibly." — Dot
New episodes of "Fargo" premiere Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX and stream the following day on Hulu.
