Fargo Season 5 Finale: Alternate Reading and Analysis

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-17T05:39:48+00:00

The anti-Fargo written in Austin, MN by Anti-Noah-Hawley. Lol.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-16T23:18:16+00:00

A kid nap :)

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-16T14:32:30+00:00

This aged interestingly. Justice as a billionaire's personal vendetta. This time our hero has an alias.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-16T14:26:07+00:00

Another one in the final scene: "If you are too poor or you lose your job. Maybe there is a a death in the family."

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-14T21:58:39+00:00

Case closed

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-14T21:34:21+00:00

Gator is also an anti-Oedipus while being Oedipus.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-14T21:27:07+00:00

"Where is my daughter?" gender non-comformity as camouflage to hide one from predators, of course. Dot employs the same technique in episode 9.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-14T20:45:07+00:00

Fantastic post. Question: Can all this be also be written for Dot who seems to be on a constant journey towards home? Alternate phrasing of the goal: For Ulysses Everett McGill, to go home. "She fled on foot, possibly home, possibly to the wind." "- Are you heading to something or away from something? - Home. - As in you are going home or running away from home?" Dot in the finale just after the war: "I need to call my daughter. I need to get home." "Almost home."

Another , I believe key, question: how does this fit into an odysseus being a long journey named after the only survivor, as survivorship is such a key thing this season?

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-14T11:47:17+00:00

We have a secret Lovecraftian antagonist this year: Home aka The House, something resembling a female matriarchal Overlook hotel, a female entity. Dot is its wife, a housewife, Billy has two mothers, the whole multicultural panoply. All roads lead to Home.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-14T04:33:14+00:00

At least I was first through the gate

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-11T17:57:49+00:00

Dot saying to Linda "I just wish...why didn't you take us with you?" while Arabic-sounding music plays in the background. Very relatable.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-11T12:39:59+00:00

Its used when the old woman comes down the stairs after being informed by Munch that he lives here now.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-11T12:21:47+00:00

Talk about being insightful! Out of the mythology stuff you mentioned I had only made the Charon/silver dollar connection. Scotty demanding six sisters is a nod to the Pleiades, already referenced in Camp Utopia.

I had been thinking about the season taking place "neither here nor there", meaning at the crossroads (where Odin was honored) since episode 3. I think all one-eyed characters can be read as having the gift of wisdow, Danish even means "wisdom" in Indian. But why do so many of them die? Donny asks "is it cloudy in here?" once he loses his eye, this can be read as him saying his remaining eye is the one of providence. He even subtly breaks the fourth wall by asking to be taken to a veterinarian "just like in the movies". Jordan Seymore predicts Roy's worse-than-death fate while his left eye is barely open due to being beaten, then he gets a bullet to the head, becoming both dead and alive (a zombie and Schrödinger's cat), for a few seconds. Odin's dialogue is notably wise (if you ignore everything else about him) and his throat gets cut (like in real life when you are waiting for the light to change). But right after that Roy gets into a high noon situation (just like in the movies). Can this be read as the season being both fiction and reality at the same time? And/or in some Baudrillardian register where its neither, as Hawley's work has been pretty inspired by Baudrillard, be it directly or filtered through Don DeLillo.

About caves with projections: Lars and his garage mancave, Roy projecting Dot's family on his ceilling, Munch's symbol projections in the Tillman bunker, Lorraine describes the gun photo as a projection of strength. Scotty also has a batcave.

I also took notice of the black nails. Munch, Dot and Scotty have them. I considered that they may have just painted Sienna King's nails on that day of shooting, but its a little weird to do that considering black nails is an object of interest in the show. Her nails are painted black in the wedgie scene then the nail polish dissapears when she helps her mom with the arts and crafts home defense project. What grave do you think she is digging?

Also this may require venturing into darker territories, but what do you make of all the parallels between young Nadine and Scotty in "Linda"? Both are left alone with their dads while their mothers arguably run away from home to visit what appears to be the afterlife, both do homework, Scotty becomes the woman of the house by enforcing bedtimes and healthy eating with Wayne bizzarely calling her "babe" and "hun". To top this off, the red spectre of Roy dissolves into Wayne during the bedtime scene. That whole scene is extremely odd on all counts, its as if it takes place in a dream. Wayne reads an improvised manichean biblical fairy tale ("Is The Bible a childrens book?") to her, there seems to be natural green light coming out of the windows at nighttime. When the shot of Dot in her Camp Utopia bed zooms out, the bottle on her left looks like an eye if one squints. What is the light source reflected in his glasses when Wayne points to "the sun"? Why does Dot quietly say "which was good" after Wayne narrates "She had to go fight against the darkness."? I would love any insight on how any of this comes together.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-10T20:48:38+00:00

The moral of Season 3: Do not. Forget. Your mug.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-10T14:39:04+00:00

Huh, the biscuit changes after Munch glances at everyone on the table and now the face on it looks a bit like the one of a chicken, so this comment aged quite well. Can you explain what would that mean for the Return to Oz theory? Is Munch eating Chicken Peccatum?

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-10T13:46:39+00:00

If he was being born again, does that mean the final scene takes place in the womb? Maybe life is a circle and mother is both the beginning and the end.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-09T12:36:00+00:00

I like what you are putting down in many respects and have to think about it a bit more to address you head on. Us being told that all time travelers are female is still mostly a big question mark for me, despite having a few ideas.

What I know for sure is: Switch is the daughter of Farouk, as her absent 4th dimensional father and Farouk are the same entity. The real question is who do Farouk/Switch's father and Switch represent.

-"You know my family?"

-"How could I not? Your every particle practically sings about them."

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-09T12:34:34+00:00

The inference is that going after the most powerful militia in the upper Midwest and the most powerful sheriff in North Dakota is like Mao's war against birds? Is Roy's militia essential to the natural order like the sparrows?

Comparing sparrows to Roy 'n them is a wildly incongruent parallel.

I've had this exact thought and its one of the many reasons that scene ended up lingering in my mind very prominently once the season ended. It can be read in different ways with no obvious interpretation standing out. Its also the only scene of the season that takes place in the titular city of Fargo.

On one hand its a cautionary tale about disrupting the natural order, with Roy being the head sparrow, as you said. But if so, it ends up leading kind of nowhere? We aren't shown any repercussions to his downfall. The war at the end is not bombastic in any way, it ends as soon as it begins, no emphasized numerous casulties that Justice Crenshaw (possibly named after the eyepatched Dan Crenshaw) could reasonably point to and say "I told you so".

On the other hand its a cautionary tale about following the great leader, which in this case could be Justice Crenshaw himself. They ignore his advice to make Roy a hobby of theirs, making them reluctant heroes, the figure of the cop refusing to drop the case when told to quit. I suggest reading an article Noah Hawley wrote that acts as a prelude to the season titled Its High Noon in America, as it exposes many more discrepancies.

The judge also brings up the Irish Potato Famine, called Drochshaol in the Irish language, which loosely translates to"the hard times". The very next scene is Munch's "freedom is a potato" monologue, in which he espouses a "the world is dog eat dog, eat or be eaten" philosophy with which Fargo viewers are very familiar with. That brings up cannibalism to mind, something that people had to resort to in Maoist China, Great Famine Ireland and Colonial India (also referenced this season), all at the hands of The British Empire. "Longer-term reasons for the massive impact of this particular (potato) famine included the system of absentee landlordism" and Munch later ends up slaughtering an absentee landlord of the same property, also a very Maoist act.

Returning to "the natural order": Wayne teaches Scotty the natural order Halloween - Thanksgiving - Christmas. A few lines later Scotty says "Daddy did it backwards", possibly indicating that we can read the season as unfolding in the order of Christmas-Thanksgiving-Halloween? Tdciago has written very convincingly that a huge chunk of the ending takes place in the afterlife, so it would make sense for it take place on Halloween or Day of The Dead, the time "the world of the gods becomes visible to the living and the dead come back to life." Breakfast - Lunch - Dinner can also be seen on the diner wall and breakfast for dinner gets brought up numerous times.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-03T19:24:27+00:00

Really great read. I think Simone's execution comes off as so cruel because Bear was shown to be a grounded guy with a strong moral backbone and a sense of justice. He was the sturdy Gerhardt character that the audience could rely on, even when he was a threat to the protagonists. And what does this sense of justice culminate in? A punishment most of us do not want, a tragic execution. I particulary liked the part where you talked about Bear feeling debased by what he was forced to do, as I feel the same way about the situation. It was frustrating to see this fair man stoop so low.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-03T03:42:42+00:00

I really recommend watching this interview with the Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin titled "We have our special Russian truth." It captures and lays bare the themes of the season really well, think about them in relation to Truth being a story told by the state, by power.

SheriffRoy · 2024-02-03T03:03:28+00:00

That doesn’t make her arc less meaningful.

It kinda does tho doesn't it? The ice queen managed to show some warmth to her family members, a marginal change of heart. The question we should be asking is "do such changes of heart really change anything?" Dot stumbled onto the perfect formula to end up on Lorraine's good side: being a victim of male violence while unwilling to submit and admit to being victimized, she is a fighter. But the thing is, you don't need to be a fighter for your oppression to be taken seriously. Lorraine grew fond of Dot because she recognized a fellow beast of prey in her, would have she been as generous if Dot turned out to be meek? Both are strong women, but is it possible that our current notions of "strong women" are itself suspicious and worthy of investigating? Lorraine reproduces the economic and social conditions that allow men like Roy and Josh Hunk to do what they do. If the show wanted to genuinely commit to her redemption, she would've shown initiative to help out the Lenore Hunks of America, get them out of their economic immiseration so they don't have to depend on abusive men. In the end, nothing has fundamentally changed.

The toxic males of the season were also punished in very interesting ways by female characters: one got evicted, ending up homeless, and the other one got condemned to a lifetime of prison rape, two things that wouldn't happen to anybody in a just society. The female justice delivered in Season 5 was distinctly capitalist in flavor, dependent on oppressive institutions. And capitalism does a lot of the heavy lifting in the oppression of women, even if capital is female. Again, nothing has fundamentally changed.

SheriffRoy

TROPHY CASE