S02.E10: Palindrome

[knaankos]

The Gerhardt's Eagle flag looked more like the Albanian flag than the Nazi flag to me. Not sure what that means if anything.

As far as Hanzee not looking like Mr.Tripoli... The easy obvious answer to that is the writers made it up as they went along. I don't think that in season 1 they planned the entire backstory for Mr Tripoli. Probably only came up with that when planning season 2.

[Bama]

I felt like Lou's frustration with Peggy's blabbering descent into "BUT I'M A VICTIM, TOO" was because he was trying to comfort her with his Vietnam story and it's ultimate meaning - doing anything to protect your family - and let her know that while the circumstances that brought Ed and Peggy to that freezer were stupid and misguided, Peggy and Ed both were, at the end, trying to protect "their family" the best they could.

 

Peggy's fatal flaw was that she could never, ever see how her actions - or sometimes inactions - impacted the people around her. From Rye, to Ed, to Constance, to Hank, to Lou - hell I could go on listing just about every character on this season - Peggy never once stopped to ask "If I do what I want, what does that mean for [fill in the blank]?"

 

Even at the end, in Lou's car she's more worried about serving time in California than pondering the fact that her husbands and tens of people - innocents and criminals - are DEAD because of her.

 

Hell, her pondering about "Why did that man have to walk in the road???" made me scoff out loud.  How about wondering, "Why didn't I just call the police when I ACCIDENTALLY hit a man?".

 

It's always ALL ABOUT PEGGY.  And Lou, of all people, just doesn't have any give a damn left for that kind of narcissism.

 

Lou wasn't dismissive of Peggy because she was a woman.  He was dismissive of her because she's kind of an asshole.

[Bama]

OH!  And we found out Hanzee is Otto's illegitimate son from the family maid/cook.

 

Whatshisface from Buffalo - when he talks with Milligan and the remaining Kitchen brother - he says, "Remind me which one you are again?  The kid Otto had with the maid?"

[VCRTracking]

Wow, I had never thought of that. It does shed some light on his interactions with the Gehrhardts.

 

Felt bad for Mike. Welcome to the 80s.

 

I can also imagine what also irked Lou was when Peggy's going on about her struggles he's thinking about Betsy who's facing death with such courage and strength. Loved her line:

"When this life is over, and you stand in front of the Lord, well you try telling him it was all some Frenchman's joke."

Edited December 15, 2015 by VCRTracking

[Lonesome Rhodes]

I was super pleased to see how Constance's constant egging on of Peggy to actualize led to most of this mess.  Peggy did recognize that Connie had more in mind than just being a good friend and it squicked her out.  Well, Peggy, there's gonna be a long line of Constance's who will be so very happy to actualize themselves as Connie wanted to do using you.  In prison.  Basically, Constance was Peggy's Malvo.

 

I was sad to see that Bear chose to shoot Simone in the chest, instead of the brain.  Much more chance of suffering the way Bear did it.  

 

Buffalo is gonna be hella pissed about losing so many men.  Since they are now considerably weakened themselves, did say, Allentown make a move on them?  

 

One of the many reasons I so love Fargo is that it so well devolves human behavior to basics.  We can try all we want to think/rationalize our way through inherent  biases and tribalisms.  The problem is there is always a hungrier entity all-too willing to tear that all down and reduce it all to basic survival (war).  It's certainly true that Peggy did not ask for Rye to come into her life.  Yet, if her strong survival/ego instincts weren't there to begin with, she could never have acted as she did.  Same deal for Lester.  And same deal for untold billions of folks in the history of mankind.  Hank was wrong about "communication" being the core issue defining human imperfection.  It's deeper.  So, too, is how goodness can actually overcome, now and again, the worst of us.  YMMV.  Anyway, I love Hawley and the show for thrillingly conjuring up these ideas/concepts/philosophies.

 

Mike's valedictory as the "King" was absolutely tremendous.  He boiled so much of what I just wrote down to a couple of basic observations.  That he was reduced to that hideous desk and ordered to become a corporate lemming?  A beautiful actualization of Hell on earth for him.  It gave even more power to the "fixer's" litany of the rise and fall of everything and everyone.  All the thinking and rationalizing of the smartest and strongest can't change that.  Thank you, Noah Hawley!

 

I am struggling to make the desired connection to Reagan's use of the alternate reality of his movies so informing his real-world understanding with Peggy's use of the very same thing (through a Reagan movie!).  Is the meta point Hawley was shooting for that Camus is onto something with his assertion that life is an absurdity?  I love that Lou was on the receiving end of both Reagan's and Peggy's explaining super deep questions of life through cinema/alternate reality.  His Betsy would just look at him and scoff.  "Lou, she might say, you do what you can for the six-year old girls of the world."

Edited December 15, 2015 by Lonesome Rhodes

[loki567]

This season was a lot more No Country for Old Men than it was Fargo so maybe it's only appropriate that similar to No Country, it ends with the cop five minutes late to everything and no climatic shoot-out. But after season one's finale and the disappointment I felt there was no confrontation between Malvo and Molly, I wish Hawley would give us one finale that didn't feel so... traquil. 

 

And really what was the deal with making Hanzee into Tripoli? Bothered me more than the Aliens. Didn't seem like there was any benefit to it other than, "SEE!? Season one and Two are connected!" It felt beneath the show in a way. 

 

Still I'd classify this season as a big jump up in quality and I'll definitely catch season three. 

[candall]

 I don't grasp the palindrome.  

 

"I never thought she'd be dumb enough to sucker me."  Hee.

 

How in the world did anyone recognize tiny baby Simone in the photo?  I was trying to figure out some heritage clue for Hanzee being a Gerhardt.

 

Opening sequence + music were powerful.

 

I appreciated the slow pace and wouldn't have wanted them to keep going like, er, gangbusters. Game of Thrones sold me on giant action set-pieces for the penultimate episode and saving the last one for the characters.  Post-coital cuddles.

[loki567]

 I don't grasp the palindrome.  

 

The best explanation I read from Reddit: 

 

Hanzee couldn't get in to the American dream, Peggy couldn't get out. Milligan got what he wanted, not what he wanted (a black cowboy has to change his spots). Lou understands his place. Hank has broken through identity (in an ego shift after his wife died) and is trying to construct an archetypal language, after he's seen too many incarnations and versions of misunderstanding and violence. This all started to War Pigs by Black Sabbath. It's a clear condemnation of American society (the mob is corporate America), but of the systems in place of our own understanding (ego), and the projections and expectations we all think we think. Our brainwashed minds are poisoned.

It's a story about place. I think it's a story about enlightenment. Until you realize it's all the same shuffling paradigm (archetypal), you will finish where you begin, the start is the end and the end is the start, as in a palindrome.

Been into Jung lately.

[Conan Troutman]

So Peggy is actualized now, after all. Well, that and fucked.

Didn't think it would be that dark (I thought Ed would just dump her), but okay. What a great job by Kirsten Dunst bringing that character to life.

 

We did get the Solverson family dinner after all, against all odds. Yay!

Mike Milligan's ending was another curve ball I'd never would've guessed. Damn that was sad.

 

Is some demented mind at CBS planning a Mike and Molly spinoff? I'd maybe watch that.

[Spartan Girl]

At least Hank and Betsy survived the show. Disappointed that Hanzee lived though.

I never thought I'd say this but part of me actually pitied Peggy. Unlike Lester, she was obviously crazy and not so much calculating. Her rant in the car did kind of make sense...but I'm gonna have to side with Lou: people were dead because of her.

I love that Ed's final moments realized just how nuts she really was.

SQUEE at seeing Molly, Gus, Lou and their kids in the future!

[ToastnBacon]

Let's talk about our last moments in 1979.http://previously.tv/fargo/fargos-bonnie-and-clyde-reach-the-end-of-their-story/"> Read the story

Oh for Pete's sake!

You do know this isn't really a true story, don't you?

At least you put it in quotes. ;)

Good review.

[Inquisitionist]

I'm in a quandary about Lou's Viet Nam timing.  He was there for the fall of Saigon, which occurred in the spring of 1975, and he'd previously mentioned an incident that happened on a river patrol in 1974.  The season is set in 1979 and Molly is referred to in Ep. 2-1 as being 6 years old, which would make her birth year 1973.  Lou is played by 40something Patrick Wilson, but maybe is supposed to be more like 34-ish.  Would Lou have gone to Viet Nam for the first time in 1972, post-Molly's-conception, when he was already married and in his late 20s?  Did he go earlier but then come home on leave to marry Betsy?  The timing doesn't make sense to me, even though I loved the story about the family in the Chinook.

 

My favorite reveal, however, was that Peggy hallucinated the smoke in the cooler, plunging herself into a Ronald Reagan movie-world.  Of course, it would make sense to think that Hanzee was after them in that store -- she didn't know that Lou was anywhere around, let alone on the chase.  But the smoke... wow.  She was more than a bit touched, ya know?

[ToastnBacon]

The Gerhardt's flag wasn't a Nazi symbol.

Eagles have been a common symbol on coat of arms and family crests for centuries.

Plus, Otto's father left Germany after WWI.

[Inquisitionist]

Hamish's reference to a 401K seemed slightly anachronistic, too, but apparently these savings vehicles were just starting to be used in 1979.

[Maire]

There's an excellent documentary, I think it's called "Last Days of Vietnam" that shows the fall of Saigon. There is footage of the helicopter/chinook rescues which are exactly as Lou described.

Loved the finale, especially the happy, for now, Solverson family.

[benteen]

Very good episode and not quite what I was expecting for the finale.  Was glad to see as happy an ending as possible for Lou and his family.  KD was great in that scene but she's still self-absorbed so I don't blame Lou for shutting her down.  Mike's fate was hilarious.  Loved seeing the Season 1 actors pop up at the end.

[FormerMod-a1]

Buffalo is gonna be hella pissed about losing so many men.  Since they are now considerably weakened themselves, did say, Allentown make a move on them?

 

 

I assumed they meant Buffalo, MN.

[RustbeltWriter]

I really enjoyed the finale and think the slow pace is exactly what the show needed at the end. Last episode gave us the Massacre at Sioux Falls and really, after that, there's only the wrapping up to be done. 

 

The discussion in the squad car between Peggy and Lou was spot on perfect for both characters. They are products of their times so judging them by conventional mores is useless. Lou was trying to explain to her how Ed felt and what he was trying to accomplish. Peggy remained blind to it right until the end, insisting that she was the victim and trying to explain why it was all about her. Lou's curt "People died" statement was the frustration any cop would feel after hearing a criminal try to explain how they are really the victim from the backseat of a squad car for the thousandth time. He just didn't want to hear it again from someone who was ungrateful for all the opportunities for help and protection she received. After all, he sat in her living room and offered her a way out and she turned him down. Now dozens of people, including police, are dead.

 

Hanzee getting away to become a surgically altered crime boss in season 1 and the introduction of Numbers and Wrench were a nice tie in. It was sort of subtle and a nice call back.

 

I'm glad we didn't see Lou get shot or Betsy die. We know those events will be occurring but it wasn't necessary to shoehorn them in here. It was enough to see Lou and Betsy turn off the lights and share a kiss in the dark.

[ToastnBacon]

I assumed they meant Buffalo, MN.

I think I remember seeing a New York plate on his car in the episode he first showed up.

I took note of it because Buffalo used to have the Italian mob and I wondered about KC's connections to the Italian mob.

I just brushed it off as infighting between KC and Buffalo with the Gerhardts being caught in the middle.

[BaseOps]

Goddamn, it still blows my mind that this went from being seemingly the most ill-advised show on television (a TV remake of a Coen Brothers movie?? Get outta here..) and it now has two perfect seasons under its belt... 

 

Kirsten Dunst was just incredible. I gotta say, I haven't seen her in much for a long time, but this totally changed my perception of her abilities. Even as Peggy was totally oblivious to all of the unnecessary death and destruction that she caused, I couldn't help but feel bad for her. That scene in the car with Lou was brilliant. I can't get over the dialogue on this show. It manages to be so charged and often profound without ever even boarding on cheesy. Another great example was Betsy talking to Noreen - a really beautiful conversation that with lesser writers or actors could have been totally cringe-inducing. 

 

I've got so many random thoughts floating around: Hanzees and Mike's endings certainly weren't what I was expecting. I think Mike's wrap-up is among the best, because as much as it made sense you know it's gotta be so damn unsatisfying for him. I absolutely loved Lou, Betsy, and Hank's final scene. And the flashforward to Molly and Gus was unexpected and great. While I hated to see Ed die, I loved that he dumped Peggy right before. All he wanted was his simple life...

 

Overall, again, I'm just blown away by Noah Hawley's storytelling ability. If anyone is interested, I recently finished a fantastic novel of his called "The Good Father", and while story-wise it's not similar to Fargo, the storytelling and themes are. I can't wait for season 3, and I hope they take their time again to make it as unique, deep, and beautiful as S1 and S2. For my money, the series has surpassed the greatness of the movie, which I thought was basically impossible. Kudos to everyone involved. This is what great TV is all about. 

Edited December 15, 2015 by BaseOps

[islandgal140]

This episode just about broke my heart.  I couldn't stop crying and still feel teary.  And Ted Danson's speech about one language at the end?  It killed me, man.   

 

A heart represents love? Everyone knows picture of a house means home?

 

Sounds like Hank invited emoji!! A true visionary.

 

 

 

You were way ahead of your time Hank!!! LOL!!!

Edited December 15, 2015 by islandgal140

[Magic]

I guess it's Palindromic that Hanzee "had" wanted to leave that mob life and went on a rampage after cracking, but in the end is heading right back to that life with a different mob.  But it is really hard to imagine that "Hanzee" would want to become whiter and get such a big nose, lol.  But whatever.  I can kind of appreciate what this episode was doing.  But so much was so deflating over what seemed possible before, even the UFOs, Mike's future, Hanzee's future, Peggy's future.  The Solverson's and Noreen, were the only ones who didn't have a deflated future.  And maybe the shit cop. 

[teddysmom]

There's an excellent documentary, I think it's called "Last Days of Vietnam" that shows the fall of Saigon. There is footage of the helicopter/chinook rescues which are exactly as Lou described.

 

I grew up in the 60s/70s and remember the footage of the fall of Saigon on the news.  People clamoring onto helicopters on the roof of the US Embassy, the helicopters being pushed off ships into the bay.  It was just god awful. 

 

I loved what Lou said about protecting your family and loved ones, no matter what.   Man or woman, you get through some pretty bad stuff and survive and it does feel like a privilege, not a burden.  You get up and push that rock back up that hill one more day, and be thankful.

 

And don't go tryin' to tell God it was some Frenchman's joke.  

 

Overall, again, I'm just blown away by Noah Hawley's story-telling ability. If anyone is interested, I recently finished a fantastic novel of his called "The Good Father", and while story-wise it's not similar to Fargo, the storytelling and themes are. I can't wait for season 3, and I hope again they take their time to make it as unique, deep, and beautiful as S1 and S2. For my money, the series has surpassed the greatness of the movie, which I thought was basically impossible. Kudos to everyone involved.

 

 

 

 

This episode just about broke my heart.  I couldn't stop crying and still feel teary.  And Ted Danson's speech about one language at the end?  It killed me, man.

 

 

ITA with both.  I was sitting there thinking "I can not believe I'm crying at the end of Fargo.  And that this is the best tv since Breaking Bad. 

Edited December 15, 2015 by teddysmom

[knaankos]

This episode went 1 for 4 on the big speeches and "deep" stuff. Big swing and miss with Mike's sovereignty talk. Bigger swing and miss with Lou and Peggy's talk. Hank's talk at the end came close but still a miss.

The only thing that resonated was Betsy's comment about telling God that life is a Frenchman's joke

[Stratego]

It was not a NAZI flag--it was the Imperial flag of Germany.  Otto's father fought in WWI for Germany, and emigrated to the US in 1919.

 

Recall Lou's statement about taking Peggy back to Minnesota in his state cruiser--"...after the week I had, if anyone has a problem with me taking Peggy...".  Combine that thought of Lou with Peggy's rant about her problems, white American women's problems of self-actualization and society and it's very easy to see Lou's rebuke of Peggy of "People died".  Lou was almost one of those who died and Peggy was the root cause of everything.

[ToastnBacon]

I just got off the phone with the women's studies department at my university.

They are also calling the Peggy and Lou scene in the prowler sexist.

I tried convincing them otherwise, but they wouldn't listen to me and ended up calling me a sexist.

[JyDanzig]

Adding to the chorus here, but it really does require a highly biased and selective reading to get an endorsement of sexism and white privilege out of Lou & Peggy's final scene.  It is possible for a show to depict sexism without being itself sexist, which is what this show is doing.  Asking for the hero character to spell out that sexism is a socially destructive force... that's the bad note you'd get from an exec, if this was a broadcast network.  We don't need Lou to do this.  It wouldn't be true to his character, but more importantly because this has been an major theme of the season, explored at length through Peggy, Floyd, and Simone (and to a lesser extent Constance).  All of whom are fully-imagined, multi-dimensional female characters who interact in complicated and individualized ways with the sexism of their time.  The fact that they're not right about everything doesn't mean their points of view are to be fully dismissed, and Fargo isn't attempting to do so.

Edited December 15, 2015 by JyDanzig

[Tara Ariano]

There's a time and place for stylized dialogue, but just as with the obnoxious Jabberwocky recitation, in between Hank, Lou, Betsy, and Mike, this episode pushed it way too far. Nobody talks like that. Nobody talks like that!

 

That's funny, because when I was listening to Hank's speech again to transcribe it for my post, I was struck that his cadences were EXACTLY like my grandpa's, who's lived his whole life in Saskatchewan (Canada's Minnesota).

[Rhetorica]

Hank's language was based on the Triangle of Meaning, the study of Semiotics. Basically, the theory claims the word is not the thing and an individual's inference determines the meaning. After WWI, many communication theorists tried to understand how the war became about. Needless to say, they thought it was a breakdown in communication.

I. A. Richards and Charles Kay Ogden developed the Basic English program, an international language based with an 850-word vocabulary. Obviously, this language never caught on because there are too many meanings to words. I loved teaching this to students. If you're interested,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_reference

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Fargo's Bonnie And Clyde Reach The End Of Their Story
Let's talk about our last moments in 1979.

[ChromaKelly]

Peggy was batshit and self-absorbed to the nth degree. Lou was not being sexist in dismissing her with "people died". People died because of her actions. All she had to do was call the police when she hit Rye, like 99% of people would do. She had numerous opportunities to get out of the mess she put herself and her husband in, but no, she's actualized. Poor her, trapped in a male-dominated society. Yeah sorry but people died.

[hendersonrocks]

I assumed they meant Buffalo, MN.

 

There is a Buffalo, MN (and it's a lovely town), but I also thought the new crew was visiting from Buffalo NY - didn't the guy that got blown up last night make a reference to coming out to help (which I took to mean from a fair distance) in an earlier conversation with Bear? Even if not, there were big differences in accent, style, and hair that I thought were meant to show that this guy wasn't from around here.

 

I loved last night's ending. It warmed me up that I get to keep imagining the happy Solverson's and Hank holding down the Rock County fort for a little while longer. It also led me to tell my dad, also of good Rock County stock, that he's a good man too. 

 

Off to watch Season 1. Luverne being in the show this season brought me into Fargo, and I'm oh so glad it did.

[Rockstar99435]

 It wouldn't be true to his character, but more importantly because this has been an major theme of the season, explored at length through Peggy, Floyd, and Simone (and to a lesser extent Constance).  All of whom are fully-imagined, multi-dimensional female characters who interact in complicated and individualized ways with the sexism of their time.  The fact that they're not right about everything doesn't mean their points of view are to be fully dismissed, and Fargo isn't attempting to do so.

 

And they all died. Every woman who tried to fight her situation and better herself died (or loses her freedom), while the happy homemaker ends her story by lovingly serving her husband and father coffee.

[Ohwell]

As for Peggy, sure, she was the author of her own misfortune, but Lou could have pointed out that her desire for independence could have been addressed in a more constructive way, or that there were other ways of pursuing the freedom she craved. He could have pointed out that her fate and Ed's had nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with her shitty decisions and her inability to face reality. Instead, he eulogized Ed for "protecting" Peggy--when in fact she did most of the protecting--and engaged in philosophical musing about men's "privilege" of protecting helpless womenfolk--which is especially rich in a series where the men had a talent for getting themselves and the people around them killed, and where Dodd and Otto's brand of toxic masculinity seems to have led to the Gerhardts' downfall--all the while sneering at Peggy's heartfelt outburst about being trapped in her life with a curt "PEOPLE ARE DEAD." It was some sexist garbage.

But Lou was right.  People ARE dead and her whining about her life pales in comparison to that fact.  Lou was rightly pissed off with both her and Ed for not being truthful (although I think he felt some sympathy for dead Ed because Lou realized that Ed got caught up in Peggy's shenanigans) which prompted the PEOPLE  ARE DEAD line.  I loved that he spit that line out and it shut her up.  Fact is, if Peggy was so unhappy in her marriage and wanted to move to California, she could have done just that.  There were no children to consider.  Plus, a pretty blonde white woman who could do hair wouldn't have had a problem getting a job.  But on the bright side, she can actualize herself in prison.  

[Eyes High]

and let her know that while the circumstances that brought Ed and Peggy to that freezer were stupid and misguided, Peggy and Ed both were, at the end, trying to protect "their family" the best they could.

 

I think that's an inaccurate reading of the scene, since that anecdote comes in the context of his discussing men's "burden" or "privilege" of protecting the family. Whatever praise he has is reserved for Ed, who was doing his best to bear the "burden" of protecting the family, not for Peggy, who went outside her womanly role and is therefore not worthy of praise. That Peggy actually did most of the protecting is irrelevant, since she was transgressing by trying to take on the "burden" rightfully reserved for men. Again, sexist bullshit.

 

 

 

Lou wasn't dismissive of Peggy because she was a woman.  He was dismissive of her because she's kind of an asshole.

 

That's not how the scene was written. Lou could have dismissed Peggy's selfishness without going on about how tough it is to be a patriarch and snapping at Peggy's explanation of her plight. As it was, it was sexist garbage: Lou putting Peggy in her place for having dreams of a life beyond a wife and mother. He was basically upbraiding her for having a problem with the straitjacket of female gender roles, because it's such a burden to be a powerful man. He needed to shut the fuck up, but the scene quietly affirmed Lou's rightness by having Peggy subside into silence.

 

 

 

Combine that thought of Lou with Peggy's rant about her problems, white American women's problems of self-actualization and society and it's very easy to see Lou's rebuke of Peggy of "People died".  Lou was almost one of those who died and Peggy was the root cause of everything.

 

Lou is also white, and as a white male patriarch who benefits from a patriarchy, he has no leg to stand on to lecture others about their feelings about having to live in the world as something other than a white male, or to wax eloquent about the burden of being a powerful white male.

 

I don't mean to get personal on Noah Hawley, but only a white man could write that bullshit without throwing up and put it in the mouth of his show's hero and moral compass.

 

 

 

I was super pleased to see how Constance's constant egging on of Peggy to actualize led to most of this mess.  Peggy did recognize that Connie had more in mind than just being a good friend and it squicked her out.  Well, Peggy, there's gonna be a long line of Constance's who will be so very happy to actualize themselves as Connie wanted to do using you.

 

I wouldn't crow too loudly about how awful it will be for Peggy to be subject to lesbian advances in prison. We know she wasn't into Constance but who's to say she's not into women? I don't doubt that she loved Ed, but loving someone of the opposite sex doesn't necessarily make her heterosexual, and she found the prospect of sex with him pretty unappetizing. Peggy might find prison an opportunity for the sexual satisfaction that eluded her in marriage.

 

They are also calling the Peggy and Lou scene in the prowler sexist.

 

Good.

 

 

 

It is possible for a show to depict sexism without being itself sexist.

 

Sure. Depiction is not necessarily the same thing as endorsement. However, that ignores that Fargo is a very moral universe, where the "good" characters shake their heads over the "bad" characters' greedy, grasping desires. But when you explicitly link a female character's rejection of gender roles and drive for independence and freedom with evil--and, given the wider Fargo universe, place her on the same level as the greedy Lester and Jerry--and when you place a sexist speech in the mouth of your hero and moral compass where he upbraids her for her feminist presumption--the Season 2 equivalent of Marge Gunderson sighing over a "little bit of money--you are endorsing it. You're also equating feminism with greed. It's "greedy" for women to want to have it all. Better they just accept their roles as men's subordinates as the natural order of things and be properly grateful for men bearing the "burden" of protecting them. Bullshit.

 

That's funny, because when I was listening to Hank's speech again to transcribe it for my post, I was struck that his cadences were EXACTLY like my grandpa's, who's lived his whole life in Saskatchewan (Canada's Minnesota).

 

The cadences and rhythms were fine. The substance of the dialogue is what I had a problem with.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Eyes High

[RustbeltWriter]

 but Lou's interminable anecdote about the dude trying to land the fucking Chinook--although I hoped the reference to the "Chinook" was some sort of Alberta shoutout

 

A Chinook is just a big helicopter (CH-47).

[Rockstar99435]

What crimes exactly can Peggy be charged with? Definitely Rye's hit-and-run, but what about the rest of them? Sure, you can argue that "in the grand scheme" Peggy is responsible because she didn't come clean with Rye's death, but in a court of law? Can she be charged with any other crimes? Hanzee, Ed, and the Gerhardts did most of the killing. Maybe Dodd's kidnapping, but maybe Peggy can use 70s sexism to blame Ed. "I wanted to come forward, but my husband told me not to so I listened to him. I was so scared because I just a dumb, silly woman. It was his idea to kidnap Dodd and run to his uncle's cabin."

[Melissa56789]

 

Adding to the chorus here, but it really does require a highly biased and selective reading to get an endorsement of sexism and white privilege out of Lou & Peggy's final scene.

 

I think the fact that so many viewers find the Lou & Peggy scene offensive - makes the point of why Hank desired for create a new language.  One where what you say and what you hear are consistent....and conflict/wars could better be avoided.

[Ohwell]

If a woman gets rightly chewed out and shut down, why does it automatically have to be sexist?  If it had been Ed sitting in the back seat whining, and Lou shut him down, I doubt there would be much, if any, any outrage.  

 

Actually the conversation in the car between Lou and Peggy reminded me of the one in the movie where Frances McDormand is talking to the prisoner in the back.

 

It will be interesting to see what crimes Peggy will be charged with, besides the hit and run.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Ohwell

[ChromaKelly]

Lou is also white, and as a white male patriarch who benefits from a patriarchy, he has no leg to stand on to lecture others about their feelings about having to live in the world as something other than a white male, or to wax eloquent about the burden of being a powerful white male.

Lou has also been through hell in the past 24 hours, has been awake for that long, doesn't know if his father-in-law is going to make it, and  is worried about his terminally ill wife. So yeah, maybe he's not in the mood for Peggy's I'm A Victim crap. I took that Vietnam story as an attempt to relate to why she did what she did - she was trying to protect her family. But then she went off on the victim tangent and he called her on it.

[candall]

Overall, again, I'm just blown away by Noah Hawley's story-telling ability. If anyone is interested, I recently finished a fantastic novel of his called "The Good Father", and while story-wise it's not similar to Fargo, the storytelling and themes are.

 

Well, THANK YOU for this.  It never would have occurred to me to check for a Hawley novel, but I'm excited to read it.  I was flipping through an old EW magazine and there was a thoughtful, interesting pre-Season 2 interview with him about his hopes and goals for this show.  I feel he succeeded beautifully.

 

Disappointed that Hanzee lived though.

 

Gasp!!!

 

The best explanation I read from Reddit: 

 

Hanzee couldn't get in to the American dream, Peggy couldn't get out. Milligan got what he wanted, not what he wanted (a black cowboy has to change his spots). Lou understands his place. Hank has broken through identity (in an ego shift after his wife died) and is trying to construct an archetypal language, after he's seen too many incarnations and versions of misunderstanding and violence. This all started to War Pigs by Black Sabbath. It's a clear condemnation of American society (the mob is corporate America), but of the systems in place of our own understanding (ego), and the projections and expectations we all think we think. Our brainwashed minds are poisoned.

It's a story about place. I think it's a story about enlightenment. Until you realize it's all the same shuffling paradigm (archetypal), you will finish where you begin, the start is the end and the end is the start, as in a palindrome.

Been into Jung lately.

Mm-hmm.  I might be looking too hard for "Madam, I'm Adam."  : )

 

The themes all seemed more about flux and change than universal truths circling back around for a backward/forward reference. 

[GodsBeloved]

Peggy could be charged with assaulting a police officer. I wonder if her conspiring to cover up her hit and run would be a separate charge.She and Ed did escape police custody so I guess she could be charged with that as well.

Edited December 15, 2015 by GodsBeloved

[knaankos]

One detail I didn't like. The guy from Buffalo had previously been shown as a rather nervous and twitchy kind of guy throughout the season. And then suddenly when he is staring execution in the face he is cool as a cucumber?

[islandgal140]

Excuse my ignorance but just wondering about something. At the beginning of each episode they did the whole this is based on a true story and names have been changed to protect survivors or whatever. Anyone know how much true there is to this story?

[BananaRama]

Hawley throwing in gratuitous sexist bullshit in the finale again establishes a disturbing pattern. Lou going on about how it's men's burden to protect their womenfolk, especially when 1) the police did fuck all to protect Peggy and 2) she was the one protecting Ed--and crisply shutting down Peggy pouring her heart out about how she felt trapped in her life with a "PEOPLE ARE DEAD" as if her feelings of being victimized by the wider culture that forces women into limited roles were meaningless was some nonsense. The treatment of Peggy's wish for a life beyond wife/mother as just another one of her quaint delusions and of Peggy as the independent, ambitious Bad Girl to Betsy's patient, resigned, devoted Good Woman was retrogressive nonsense even for 1979. It was downright Victorian. I call bullshit.

 

I'm looking forward to the more feminist TV critics tearing Hawley a new asshole for that bullshit. He deserves it.

Excellent comments and observations Eyes High. I enjoyed reading them. However, I think Hawley isn't commenting on current male/female roles in society. I believe he was having us see Peggy and Lou's perspective from 1979, when it was still new for women to venture outside of the traditional housewife and mother roles. Peggy felt trapped and why wouldn't she? If a woman wanted more than to be just a wife and mother, then she was judged by many as being a bad or damaged "woman". We now know 35 years later that women can be both excellent mothers and have successful careers at the same time. Hawley is reminding us that we've come a long way.

[GodsBeloved]

And they all died. Every woman who tried to fight her situation and better herself died (or loses her freedom), while the happy homemaker ends her story by lovingly serving her husband and father coffee.

Its interesting that the happy homemaker's daughter and husband end up switching roles. Molly is the cop and Lou loving serves her coffee.

 

Regarding the sexism, I think its equally important to note that Betsy's position as happy homemaker is just as important as anything Peggy, Floyd, Simone and Constance were trying to achieve. If it is Betsy's choice to be a homemaker, she isn't any less than the Peggy's, Floyds, Simones and Constances of the world.

[barbedwire]

I will truly miss this show.  It was my Monday night!  What a great cast:  every performance so fantastic.  Well done Coen brothers and all.

[AuntiePam]

Although...last week he had flashbacks of Simone, and this week he gazed at her baby picture and then turned it face down like he couldn't bear to see it, so maybe he did fall in love with her but just couldn't afford that luxury.

 

I don't think that was Simone's baby picture -- the little bonnet and the long dress were really old-fashioned.  I did wonder if Mike gave Simone a thought when he went back to the house. 

 

Here's a link to the NPR review of the finale, and the season.  http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2015/12/14/459707276/decency-and-discipline-and-the-good-people-of-fargo

 

He seems to be saying that the women of Fargo didn't end up where they did because of sexism, but because of the different "codes" the families followed -- or didn't follow. 

[ChipBach]

Its interesting that the happy homemaker's daughter and husband end up switching roles. Molly is the cop and Lou loving serves her coffee.

 

Regarding the sexism, I think its equally important to note that Betsy's position as happy homemaker is just as important as anything Peggy, Floyd, Simone and Constance were trying to achieve. If it is Betsy's choice to be a homemaker, she isn't any less than the Peggy's, Floyds, Simones and Constances of the world.

 

And this was 1979, when we didn't have "safe zones" on campus.  The "man - head/protector of the family" stuff was still a prevalent in american families.  I don't believe that automatically make the character evil.  It would be an anachronism to place 2015 values on a 1979 rural family.  Heck that model is still prevalent for most of the families on this earth.  

 

I thought the episode was awesome.  I LIKED Mike's king crap.  He was on a huge ego trip having walked into a perfect situation and he was thumping his chest at dirk diggler (whatever that dudes name was).  He thought he had just won his own crime family.  It worked even better when corporate america humbled him later.  (And get a haircut, the 70;s are over)...

[Eyes High]

And they all died. Every woman who tried to fight her situation and better herself died (or loses her freedom), while the happy homemaker ends her story by lovingly serving her husband and father coffee.

 

Precisely. "Bad girls"--women who are physically and possibly sexually abused and try to find their own way out, women who love other women, women with ambition, women who don't want to be wives and mothers, women who claim that women can be anything, women who refuse to stay home while the men do the dirty work--are punished. Good girls are rewarded with pure, if fleeting, bliss.

 

Regarding the sexism, I think its equally important to note that Betsy's position as happy homemaker is just as important as anything Peggy, Floyd, Simone and Constance were trying to achieve. If it is Betsy's choice to be a homemaker, she isn't any less than the Peggy's, Floyds, Simones and Constances of the world.

 

She isn't any less for making that choice, but she isn't any better, either. The problem is that the story clearly frames the domestic, maternal Betsy as better, the patriarchy-approved sort who knows her place in the world--wife and mother and that's it--and doesn't have airs above her "station" the way Peggy, Simone, Floyd and Constance do. That's pretty fucked up. It's also distinguishable from Lester and Jerry, since there was no gendered dimension to their motivations for doing what they did and their downfalls were not explicitly linked with a feminine rejection of female gender roles.

 

Also, did you notice that feminist beliefs are treated as a joke twice in the show? Peggy saying that women can be anything but being unable to give an example (hahaha! Silly little womenfolk, wanting autonomy but being unable to articulate their precise desires) and Floyd telling Simone that women don't need to be limited to gender roles seconds before the farm is attacked thanks to Simone trying her own play. It was disquieting at the time, but in light of 2x10, it's sickening.

 

If a woman gets rightly chewed out and shut down, why does it automatically have to be sexist?  If it had been Ed sitting in the back seat whining, and Lou shut him down, I doubt there would be much, if any, any outrage.

 

Women can be shitty and selfish characters and get called out on it without it having anything to do with the evils of feminism or with the horror of their rejection of a traditional domestic role. Nancy on Weeds makes Peggy look like a saint, and she does a shit-ton of damage to everyone around her. She gets regularly called out by the characters for her awfulness, who regularly catalogue the ways in which she's failed as a human being, but it's never a rant against the evils of feminism. Instead, her narcissism and thrill-seeking are called out as narcissism and thrill-seeking. Feminism is never dragged into it, and even though Nancy is a bad girl, she's never a Bad Girl whose worst qualities are explicitly linked to a rejection of traditional female gender roles. Not surprisingly, Weeds had a female showrunner.

 

I would have been fine with Peggy being treated as just another selfish, shitty character, whose selfishness led to her ruin, instead of a character Ruined By Feminism and her lack of interest in being another Betsy. Selfishness knows no gender, after all. It was Hawley's writing that dragged feminism into it. 

 

A Chinook is just a big helicopter (CH-47).

 

I'm aware of that, but I wondered if the mention of a Chinook was also a reference to the chinook winds in Alberta, a bit of an in-joke given that the show films in Alberta.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Eyes High