Fargo recap: You can’t outsmart a dummy

Let’s hear it for Danish Graves, folks. In a season full of bombastic performers, Dave Foley has flown under the radar a little as the Lyons’ personal fixer, but he gets his flowers—and a heartbreaking sendoff— in this week’s episode, “Blanket.”

We begin with a Graves/Lyon masterplan kicking into gear. Last we saw, Graves was being sent to North Dakota by Lorraine to “steal an election.” Now we have an idea of what that looks like: Roy’s ritual humiliation at a debate he assumes he’s easily going to crush. Graves, having identified three down-on-their-luck debtors in Lorraine’s ledger, has them all legally change their names to Roy Tillman (with some fresh new middle names, at least), pops a cowboy hat on each, and instructs them to simply parrot the Sheriff during the debate. It’s a tactic so gleefully stupid, ripped straight from the playground, and it knocks Roy on his ass. Even the moderator—with whom Roy seemed to assume a degree of familiarity—appears to have met Lorraine’s more…persuasive side, pushing Roy to answer questions about his overzealous spending. Does Stark County need a tank? I know the roads get icy but I’m guessing not.

Of course, Roy takes this out not only on Karen, but the newly-trapped Dorothy, locked up in a cabin on the Tillman compound, absolutely feral with rage and fear. Juno Temple sells the “caged animal” thing here with such startling believability, it’s no wonder Ole Munch had pegged her as a tiger right at the beginning of the season. I’ve loved Fargo’s music this year, but the scenes of Tillman abusing Dorothy are sparse and deliberately uncinematic: This is real horror we’re watching here. Worse than that, it’s everyday horror for a lot of people. Fargo lets these awful moments breathe, foregoing grandiose storytelling for a moment and simply laying out the truth of the Sheriff’s brutality. Seeing him played for such a fool at the debate feels like years ago. When it’s one-on-one in a cold, dark room, he consumes the light and air, an absolute monster.

Dot’s imprisonment also confirms a popular theory about Linda Tillman from last week, which I suppose is obvious in hindsight as soon as she’s called “Saint Linda.” Looking out across the tundra, chained to the floor, Dorothy sees that same creaking, skeletal little windmill she dug up the postcard from last week. Only it’s not in the middle of nowhere; it’s right here in Roy’s backyard, and I think we all know what’s really buried there. Gator’s almost affronted shock at Dorothy telling him she spoke with Linda is also confirmation enough.

While Dorothy’s capture is the main event in “Blanket,” the show also has a lot of table-setting to do with its upcoming final two episodes. Gator once again finds himself at the (absolutely zero) mercy of Ole Munch, who hides in the back of his car. God only knows the revenge he has planned for “Mama”’s demise.

Witt and Indira have their own tasks too, though Indira’s is far more cathartic: Walking in on Lars and another woman in her own home. It’s a welcome sight, Indira finally chewing out her absolute sandbag of a husband, but it also feels sudden. Lars’ “I want a wife” speech from two episodes ago is the last time we saw these two meaningfully interact, and while it obviously helps tip her over to the side of “fuck it, time to get mine” and accept Lorraine’s job offer, their marriage has never once felt like a serious consideration. It’s impossible to imagine how these two characters ended up together organically before we met them. So, Cheers to Indira, jeers to Lars, and thank God we got that little subplot swept off the board finally.

Witt’s having an even worse time, first seeing Dorothy, wide-eyed with panic, being signed out of hospital by the sheriff and stopping just short of getting himself killed, he later shows up at the compound and tells Roy’s crew, in no uncertain terms, to release her. There’s simply no room for the virtuous in Fargo, and Witt’s straight-talking decency gives me a bad feeling he’s got a mark next to his name when the guns come out.

It should also come as no surprise that Danish, after the stellar play at the debate, leaving with a big grin and everything, meets his end tonight. Roy Tillman is not a smart man, but he’s vicious when he’s made to feel small. After getting the heads-up from Witt, he heads back to Tillman to talk sense into the Sheriff. But this isn’t a man who works in the same cold logic as a Lyon, and Danish has sorely miscalculated how to get through to Roy. He makes some great points, but all that matters, in the end, is the bullet that rips through his gut. “If you’re so smart…” Roy says, before putting the final bullet in Grave’s head, “then why are you so dead?” There’s simply no reasoning with a guy who thinks a Simpsons joke is a badass line for an execution.

Stray observations

• Driving the particular “what happened to Linda?” point home, Graves is stashed in the, uh, grave, which happens to be under the windmill, after all.
• “You can leave the toilet seat up on someone else’s life from now on,” Indira tells Lars. Great line. I doubt a guy like Lars got the full meaning, mind.
• A nice little detail: Graves has five numbers on speed dial: four for Lorraine, just the one for Wink.
• Much as I love a self-serious string rendition of a pop song, the timing of a version of “Toxic” by Britney Spears felt… misplaced?
• DOOMED as he is, I can’t help but feel Gator’s story isn’t quite over yet, so I doubt a quick death at the hands of Munch is in the cards. What will be Munch’s slow torture of choice? Sound off! One thing’s for damn certain: He’ll be growling a pained, metaphor-heavy monologue throughout.
• I’ll be damned: Indira took the job after all. A smart move, objectively. Loathsome as she is, Lorraine’s now firmly at war with Tillman, so I’m going to have to stand with the rifle-toting loan shark in this one particular case.

Fargo is available to stream now on Hulu.