An old fashioned truck cruises down an icy road; the radio
speaks of President Truman authorizing the use of U.S. troops to assist in the
fight against North Korea without going to Congress to declare war. (A time stamp reveals it’s 1951, a year of
heaviest causalities in the conflict which will affect the Gearhardt family.) A boy and his father enter a movie theater;
the picture is Moonbase Freedom starring Ronald Reagan. (Another Reagan
reference as in the season opening.) Men in long coats check the man for
weapons at the door. A middle-aged Otto
tells his son Dodd to “Be like the heads of Easter Island, not a sound!” Otto speaks to a man who is likely the member
of another crime family. There is a
power struggle between the families but Otto insists he doesn’t want the throne,
just a seat at the table. The man speaks
about the science fiction movie and the plan of the U.S. government to go to
the moon. Dodd stares intensely at the
movie screen where a U.F.O. has landed. The boss scoffs at Otto, “I’m the only
one who sits, every one else is on the floor!” A man points a gun to Otto’s head. The other boss continues, “Stupid to bring
your kid!” Otto replies, “He has to learn how men are..” Then little Dodd stabs
crime boss in the back of the neck. Otto
goes to work on the man’s cronies, killing the rival’s men with a gun.
In the present day of the story, Dodd drives with his nephew
Charlie down a similar lonely road. Dodd asks Charlie what his plans are for
the future. Charlie admits his father
wants him to go to college to be a lawyer, but he’s more interested in joining
the “Gearhardt family business.” Charlie
asks to demonstrate his shooting skills to his uncle. They pull over and Charlie shows, despite his
one useless arm, he can still shoot well with the other arm. His uncle is
pleased.
Dodd and Charlie meet Joe Bulo’s men at a donut shop. Dodd is a fighter not a talker and the meeting
quickly goes south. Dodd takes out a
cattle prod to stun one of the men and lets Charlie punch the man twice as he
holds him up. High on his victory, Dodd
orders some donuts and makes the Kansas City syndicate pay.
At the Gearhardt compound Floyd is readying to sit down with
Joe Bulo. Hanzee drives alone. Betsy and Lou sit down with a new oncologist.
The doctor mentions Nixon had declared “War on Cancer” and she may be eligible
for clinical trial. Explaining how the “Xanadu” trial works isn’t exactly
encouraging, Betsy’s chemo so far has not helped and there is chance she won’t
receive the new medicine but a placebo. (Which the doctor compares to
“Smarties.” Great!)
Hanzee drives his truck to Luverne. Ed, wearing tube socks is “making the beast
with two backs” with Peggy. Ed is
confident they have conceived during this session, but Peggy goes to the
bathroom and takes her birth control. Ed
joins her in the bathroom, babbling on about his dreams of a bigger home, kids
and buying the butcher shop. He reminds
her to “say no to the seminar” and the viewer gets an eyeful of his butt as he
jumps into the shower. (Couldn’t we have seen Kristen’s butt instead!)? Peggy complains she needs the seminar to
“reach her full potential.”
Hanzee arrives at the Waffle Hut crime scene. He goes inside and looks at the blood on the
table and floor. Outside, he follows the
blood in the snow from the waitress. He looks at the tire marks in the snow and
finds a piece of broken glass. Hanzee
holds the glass up to the light and looks up at the trees. For a moment, he sees an otherworldly light
and strange noises. (U.F.O. residual?) Hanzee gets back into his truck and
makes a stop at the Auto Body Shop. He
finds the Blumquist’s car and matches the piece of glass to their car’s broken
taillight. A young mechanic confronts
him and tells him he “can’t be in here.” Hanzee finds the registration in the glove box
and pulls a knife on the young “Sonny.” Sonny
tries to intimidate him by saying how he was in ‘Nam and they used to call him
“Mad Dog.” (A crazy lie!) Hanzee asks him pointedly, “Do you miss it?” Hanzee tells Sonny about his experience in
Vietnam, working the tunnels and killing the enemy. Karl interrupts this
discussion and asks Sonny if there is a problem. Sonny replies he doesn’t know.
Hanzee, seeing a gun on Karl, takes his
leave. Sonny tells Karl, “He seemed
angry!” Karl tells him to call the
sheriff.
The bedsprings are getting a workout at a local motel. The Kitchen brothers sit playing cards. Mike and Simone are the couple making the
noise in the next room. Simone asks for cocaine and whines about being too
young to experience the sixties. “I could have woken up one day and named
myself Flower-Rain-Blossom!” Mike says
the seventies were always coming and “Flower-Rain-Blossom is on methadone in
Bismark turning tricks for breakfast meat!” (Mike has the best lines of the
show.) Simone continues to wax nostalgic but admits to Mike, “You probably have
got to kill my dad!” Mike deduces Rye
has shot the judge and is hiding out somewhere. Simone is confident Floyd will compromise with
Kansas City. She lets Mike know her
grandfather is going to the doctor today and Mike is interested in the details.
Lou helps Betsy out of the car. He tells her he’s thinking of taking Molly
ice-fishing that weekend. Betsy reminds
him to bring real food and not just beef jerky.
She adds, “She’s six and a girl, you’re going to have to learn this
stuff.” She knows she’s dying from
cancer and is trying to ready Lou to become a single parent to Molly. It’s a heartbreaking sentiment that she’s
accepted her disease and death while Lou remains willfully ignorant.
Lou meets Hank at the Auto Body shop. He tells Betsy’s father about her
participation in the clinical trial before addressing the matter at hand. Sonny relates Hanzee was looking at the
Blumquist’s car. Lou recalls Ed’s
strange behavior that night at the butcher shop. Lou feels certain the car and the Waffle Hut
murders are related.
Dramatic religious music plays as the Gearhardt’s and Kansas
City meet at the hotel. Floyd sits across from Joe Bulo. She asks where Mike is
and Joe lies and tells her he is “running errands in Kansas City.” Floyd offers a compromise deal, which will
give Kansas City a “partnership not a sale.” Floyd knows they may perceive her as an old
woman with a weak back and stomach but she assures them she’s tough. She tells them Otto would have killed them
during their first meeting. Joe brings
up the incident at the donut shop, where Dodd attacked two of his men. He asks Floyd to guarantee the “boys will
abide.” She assures him she can control
her sons but this upsets Dodd and she orders him out of the meeting. Joe makes it clear he doesn’t trust Dodd.
Otto Gearhardt is leaving his doctor’s appointment. The driver curses to discover another car has
parked too close for him to load the wheelchair bound Otto into the car. Another
car pulls around from the back of the building. Suddenly, the driver is shot, and the two
other of Gearhardt’s guards. Mike exits
the building and shoots another woman. Mike
walks up to Otto and says, “Joe Bulo says ‘hi!’” The old man is left alive but without a way
home.
At the meeting, Joe informs Floyd that the price they had
offered has dropped by three million dollars. They have twenty-four hours to accept these
new terms and anything less than complete surrender will mean all out war.
Bud the butcher asks Ed where he was yesterday. (Creating an
alibi with the car.) Ed is wearing a neck brace and explains he had an
accident. Bud tells him his down payment
check to buy the shop has bounced. He
has had another offer from a man up in Sleepy Eye who wants to be closer to his
family. Bud gives Ed an ultimatum, get the money to him by Friday or he’ll sell
to the other party. Ed goes to leave the
shop, Bud reports the meat grinder is making funny noises. (Too much Rye!)
Ed marches over to Peggy’s salon and they speak together in
the alley. At first, she is concerned something has gone wrong with the
“accident” and murder cover-up. Ed
reveals he is upset Peggy spent the money on the seminar after he had told her
she couldn’t go. Peggy sees it
differently, “I talked and you talked.” But
she didn’t feel he had listened to her reasons for going to the seminar. Hanzee drives past slowly looking intensely at
the couple. Ed demands Peggy “get the
money back or we’re screwed!”
Peggy returns to the salon and Constance confirms her check
has already been sent for the seminar. She
asks Peggy to “look in the mirror.” She
convinces Peggy that no man should tell her what to do. She makes Peggy say, “NO MORE!” (Pronounced
naw-maaweer) to letting others run her life for her. (But, isn’t the seminar
just people taking her money and telling her how to live her life, and isn’t
Constance bullying her too!) Peggy smiles at herself in the mirror. No way Ed
will be getting that money back for the butcher shop.
A melancholic opera plays as Floyd and her sons drive home
from the meeting. Dodd rests his head on
his mother’s shoulder and cries. Does he
regret his actions or are they just sharing a tender moment before the storm?
Hanzee enters the Blumquist’s garage. He sees a stain on the floor and tastes it,
then looks up at the bottle of bleach Ed used to clean up Rye’s blood. Hanzee
enters the home and kneels by the fireplace. He reaches inside to extract Rye’s
charred belt-buckle. (I knew that belt buckle would remain and incriminate
them!) A car approaches the home and Hanzee casually walks out the back. It’s
not the Blumquists, but Lou. Lou waits outside on the front porch.
When the Blumquist’s return, Ed says, “What the heck?” when
he sees the law waiting on the porch. Lou tells Ed, “You have to invite me in!”
They do, as nervous as turkeys in
November. Lou states he saw their car at the Auto Body shop. Ed repeats the lie about how he slipped on
some ice. Ed notices the fireplace
screen is misplaced and possibly Lou see it too. Lou asks if he looks inside the car, would he
find blood? Lou asks if Ed was in Vietnam to which he says no due to a medical
condition. Lou says, “Sometimes, we’d see a guy whose been mortally wounded,
but his brain hasn’t had time to register the pain. The guy will ask if he’s
going to be okay and people lie and say, “You’re going to be fine.” If you had
been to war, you’d know that look. You
and Peggy have got that look!”
Lou explains, the man they hit was Rye Gearhardt, whose family
hurts people for money, and they will be coming for them. Lou says if they
confess now, maybe they can fix things but the window is closing very rapidly. Peggy stands up and tells Lou he’s out of line
and he should leave. Lou turns to Ed who
confirms, “It’s probably best.” Lou
sighs as he gets up and implores the couple lock their doors.
Otto has made it back to the Gearhardt home. Floyd holds his stiff body. Bear comes to the door, asking her what she
has decided. She kisses Otto, and rises
from bed. She tells her son, “It’s war!”
Betsy stares at a pill bottle containing the trial drug. Lou is outside, tying knots in an old rope. He tells her he thinks she got the “real”
drug. Betsy shrugs, “Do you think that or just hope?” Lou explains he feels the whole world is out
of balance, he says he’s going to stay out here and make sure we’re safe. Betsy kisses him goodnight and goes
inside. A sweet Irish dirge about murder
plays over the closing credits.
This episode was fairly straightforward, the lines have been
drawn and war is coming to Fargo and Luverne. The preview for next week features Ronald
Reagan’s 1980 campaign bus and more problems for Peggy and Ed. Lou seems very close to solving the Waffle Hut
murders, but there may be no one left standing to be brought to justice after
the Kansas City/Gearhardt war. What do we make of Dodd’s flashback at the movie
theater? Is it to show he didn’t choose the Gearhardt family but has had to be
obedient? If Kansas City has decided bloodshed, Dodd will need to lead the
family into a bloody battle.
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