Fargo – Blanket

By: Kelly Kearney

After getting hit by a truck and landing herself in a coma, Dot wakes up in the hospital to find a gloating Roy leering over her bed. “I got you,” he says, and since there are no signs of the first Mrs. Tillman (was Camp Utopia a dream?) The injured Jane Doe was at the mercy of the Sheriff, who just happened to be her monster of an ex-husband. She was ID’d at the scene as Nadine Tillman–a wayward wife returning home during her husband’s election year. With her chained up at the ranch, he can focus on winning what he assumes is a slam-dunk race. He has no idea a certain billionaire found out all his dirty secrets and has her plans for his political career and the plan starts to unfold at the debates. Whatever it takes, Lorraine and her right-hand man, Danish Graves, will make sure Roy is the first Tillman to lose a Sheriff’s race in Stark County.

Over in Minnesota, everyone is still looking for Dot when Officer Witt Farr stumbles on her and Roy checking out at the hospital. His gut and the terrified look on her face tell him his savior from the Halloween shoot-out could use a bit of saving herself. The problem is that Gator has it out for him, and along with Roy running the town, the Tillmans are too powerful to take on alone. Saving Dot might require Witt Farr to team up with Olmstead and her possible new boss, Lorraine Lyon.

Hostage Negotiations

In the opening minutes of the episode “Blanket,” we find Danish Graves (David Foley) thumbing through a ledger titled “Debtors of North Dakota.” After highlighting a few accounts we see him pop up at the local courthouse alongside three clients holding legal documents to change all of their names to the same name. It’s an odd request but the clerk grants it. Could this have something to do with Lorraine’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) plans for Roy (Jon Hamm)?

Speaking of name changes, while filling out her hospital discharge papers Roy orders Dot (Juno Temple) to sign her name “Nadine Tillman” but instead, she signs it “Help Me” hoping Nurse Kim (Shelley Kinaschuk) sees it. Using his knowledge of the woman’s recently paroled brother, Roy threatens to send the man back to jail if Kim doesn’t look away from the red flags this not-so-happy couple is waving. Things for Dot only get even worse when Officer Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris) shows up to the hospital escorting an injured drunk (Caleb Ellsworth-Clark) and runs into a very uncomfortable Dot with her ex. All of his attempts to see if she is all right are met with hostility, and that includes Gator (Joe Keery), who never misses a chance to pull rank on the officer who caught him stealing evidence in an earlier episode. The tension radiating off of Witt Farr can only be matched by the myriad of emotions pouring out of Dot’s eyes as she realizes the more questions he asks the worse the situation will get for them both. She tells Witt Farr to go home and then tells Roy she will refuse to go with him if he hurts the officer. She leaves with Roy and immediately Witt Farr calls Officer Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) to fill her in on what went down. Indira is concerned– and rightfully so, since Witt Farr compared the look in Dot’s  eyes to a trapped animal. It might be up to the two of them to track her down because those two FBI agents in this case are useless.

Inside a red barn at the Tillman ranch, Dot is chained to the floor and listening to Roy rant scripture about her punishment for the broken vows she made to him and God. She reminds him of all the bones of hers he broke but Roy sees that as a rancher breaking a wild horse; those injuries were her lessons learned. With chains around her wrist, Dot tries to appeal to Roy’s family values by bringing up Scotty and how much a child needs their mother. “It’s not just me!” she says. “What you’re doing, you’re doing it to them too,” and she means Wayne–her current husband and man she isn’t ashamed to say she loves. For a moment Roy does seem slightly torn over ruining this kid’s future birthdays and Christmases but that care is short-lived and he fires back at Dot that Scotty’s entire existence is a mistake. The “fruit of the poisoned tree” he calls the child and one of a series of mistakes Nadine made after she broke her vows. Roy’s bruised ego seems to matter more to him than his religious fanaticism and is another example of his hypocrisy when he glosses over the fact Nadine was fifteen-years-old when he forced her into marriage and his bed. According to him, the age of consent doesn’t matter if “you had your hair and your menses” and every excuse after seems more disturbing than the last. After more pleading followed by verbal abuse, Dot is at her limit and threatens to kill Roy if he doesn’t let her go. Cue the new Mrs. Tillman, Karen (Rebecca Liddiard), who walks in with two ranch hands carrying a cot for Dot. Karen is drowning in her internalized misogyny as we watch her smack Dot the second she hears the woman insult her marriage with, “third times a charm.”

Taking Out The Trash

After getting that call from Witt Farr, Indira goes home to change clothes for her shift and what she finds in her bedroom closet isn’t her freshly ironed uniform. Lars (Lukas Gage) is naked in bed and his mistress (Kelsie Vanstone) is hiding in between her slacks and jacket! Not only is her husband an unemployed golfer racking up debts faster than he can dream up his next big break, but he has also been sleeping with other women while she is at work! Indira does her best to control her anger as she continues to get dressed. She tells the other woman Lars is all hers now because she wants him gone by the end of her shift.

Back in the prison barn, Dot is using her time wisely tapping into those MacGyver skills as she shimmies-off a sharp piece of metal from the frame of her cot. Now she can see her way out of those chains while Roy is in town for his big election debate.

We watch as the cowboy swaggers onto the stage to the town’s applause and that’s when he notices three other men dressed just like him and standing at podiums next to his empty one. Not only are there sudden challengers to Roy’s seat, but they’re also the same guys we saw with Danish in the opening minutes and they all changed their names to Roy Tillman! Lorraine strikes hotter than iron because this prank turns the confident Sheriff into a mumbling and bumbling fool on stage. Things go from bad to worse when the moderator (Chelsey Reist) hammers him with questions about his overspending–like asking him to explain why a small-town Sheriff spent millions on militarizing their police department with the purchase of a tank. He stumbles to answer that million-tax-dollar question because what is he going to say? He used their money to arm his father-in-law’s MAGA militia in preparation for some imaginary civil war. To admit that would mean an end to his political career, so he shrugs off her questions but the crowd’s applause quickly turns into laughter and groans. He sounds like a fool and it gets worse when the other three Roys start to mimic every word he says. The whole prank turns what he thought was a slam dunk debate into more of a stand-up comedy show and his constituents do not take him seriously. It’s another blow to his ego and Karen in the audience can sense his mood change. Before she can stop him, Roy storms off the stage and into the audience– knocking down a journalist looking for a quote and then punching the outraged female moderator to the ground. The crowd’s laughs turn into horrified gasps as their sheriff escapes the angry crowd. There is no doubt they will take their feelings about what they heard and saw to the polls. Also in the audience, we see a very happy Danish who has underestimated how dangerous a toxic narcissist can be. Graves is used to the roar of a Lyon, who shreds her enemies in the arenas of business and politics but Roy is another monster altogether. He uses the law as a cover for his criminality and that’s where Danish and Lorraine made their mistake. They assumed a sheriff would, at the very least, pretend to follow the law. After all, the FBI is watching him.

The Sin Cake Eater is Hungry

While his father is fighting a war at the debate, Gator’s self-esteem is under attack from Dot’s truth bombs. After promising she didn’t rat him out to the FBI about the kidnapping attempt and house fire, Dot says she saw Linda and his mom misses him. She can take him to her if he lets Dot go, and that’s when things get very weird. Gator calls Dot a liar, as if he knows something she doesn’t. He was warming up to her but now he is ice cold. As he turns to leave Dot tries one last tactic to get him to let her loose–turning him against his father. She asks Gator if he knows why he is the only Tillman out of five firstborn sons who is not named Roy. It’s because Roy took one look at his scrawny newborn son and compared him to a lizard. He said he would rather have his name die out than let lizard-boy ruin it. Then Dot tells Gator to ask Roy if it is true and deep down Gator must know it is because he lashes out and wishes a motherless life on Scotty. He tells Dot he hopes she dies and then he storms off trying to hold back his tears. As Gator is leaving his father’s property he runs into a standoff at the front gates between his ranch hands and Officer Witt Farr. He is in no mood for questions, so he shoots his gun as a warning that if the cop doesn’t turn around and leave, the next bullet he fires won’t miss. Something possesses a prophetic Witt Farr to tell Gator that some form of justice is coming for him and he won’t be able to escape it. We see what that might look like when Gator hops into his car and hides in the backseat is Ole Munch (Sam Spruell). Ole is about to fulfill the cop’s prophecy by devouring lizard-boy’s sinful bits of cake!

Down the road from the Tillman ranch, Officer Witt Farr spots Danish at the gas station talking on the phone. He stops in to let the man know Roy kidnapped Dot and is holding her captive at the ranch. “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast. I don’t know how long she’s got,” and for whatever reason Danish keeps this news to himself. He must take pity on Dot, assuming his boss wouldn’t, and decides he might be her best chance. Unfortunately, taking matters into his own hands turns this entire episode upside down and does nothing but put Dot in more danger.

It Was Only A Dream

Back at the ranch, Roy is in a homicidal mood and Karen recognizes it right away. Rather than be his emotional punching bag for the night, she goes on a rant about Dot’s sins rubbing off on him like bad luck. She blames Dot knowing Roy will take his disappointment out on her and Karen will be spared his rage. Predictably, Roy does exactly that, and as he takes the long walk to the barn his anger grows into unbridled rage. He viciously attacks Dot–who puts up a decent fight by strangling him with her chains until they break free from the floor. She is no match for the much larger Roy, though, and he manages to get the upper hand and uses her chains like whips, chasing her across the floor of the shack. When he finally gets her by the throat, Bowman (Conrad Coates) interrupts to say Danish is at the main house waiting for him. He handcuffs Dot to the cot and promises her he will be back to bury her next to Linda. Now it all makes sense; the hope she found at Camp Utopia was all a coma-induced dream and the first Mrs. Tillman never found her freedom, she found the bottom of a mine shaft. That’s why Gator called her a lair and wished she died next. The reality blows out that fiery spark in Dot and all that’s left behind is a beaten and bloodied woman staring out into the bleak landscape of North Dakota–the last view she might ever see. Any hope of Danish saving the day dies when Roy takes his anger out on him with a gun, Almost instantly he shoots the man dead when he refuses to swap Dot for a guaranteed win at the polls.

Later, Dot watches as Roy’s workers toss Danish down the abandoned shaft followed by a bag of lye sprinkled on his corpse. If only he had answered his ringing phone before heading to the ranch he might’ve learned  that Officer Olmstead told Lorraine where Dot was when she showed up at the mansion to decline her job offer. He would have also found out Lorraine is now team Dot after reading through her court papers and seeing what a monster Roy is. She could have stopped Graves from ironically ending up in one of his own and helped Dot in the process. The episode ends without much hope as we see Dot shaking in fear and hiding behind her metal cot. It’s only a matter of time before she ends up like Linda and Danish, so let’s hope Lorraine can do what the FBI can’t and take Roy Tillman down before her son becomes a widower.