Fargo – Camp Elegance

By: Kelly Kearney

Since the season opener the tension between the Faddas and the Loy Cannon’s mob has been building to a violent conclusion. While the first of many shots have already been fired, Josto and Loy have managed to hold off the battle, but things are starting to escalate to a point where neither mob boss can stop what’s coming. War is at their doorstep and an innocent child might pay the price for the crime families’ squabbles.

Fighting a Mindset

We begin with a sullen Ethelrida (E’myri Crutchfield) who makes her way home to find a dark cloud hanging over her birthday celebration. She hugs her overly quiet parents and blows out the candles with little mention of the missing piece of cake Loy (Chris Rock) forced her mother to give to the hungry Fadda kid. In the dark and depressing kitchen, the Smutny family quietly wishes their youngest a happy birthday.

Across town Detective Odis Weff (Jack Huston) heads home to his dark and gloomy apartment and, just as he is about to relive himself, a man hiding in his shower jumps out and attacks him. The two struggle with the assailant wrapping Weff up in the shower curtain and holding him steady for a lecture from Loy. When Cannon arrives he explain to Odis what he is up against and it looks an awful lot like that age old foe, systemic racism. “I’m fighting four hundred years of history. I’m fighting a mindset,” Loy says and, for now, the key to winning that fight is Weff. Stuck between two warring crime families leaves Odis with very few options when Loy orders him to retrieve his son Satchel (Rodney L. Jones III) from the Faddas any way he can. Outside Deafy (Timothy Olyphant) watches Loy and his men leave Weff’s house as he munches his way through a carrot like a villainous rabbit.

Odis isn’t the only person Loy sends out on a mission. After the murder of Doctor Senator (Glynn Turman), Cannon needs to send the Faddas a message. What better way than to make Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito), who ordered the hit on Senator, pay. Of course, Loy is not interested in getting his hands dirty so, luckily for him, he has two ex-convicts who owe him for their muddled and vomitous hold up. Just like Weff, Swanee (Kelsey Asbille) and Zelmare (Karen Aldridge) have a job to do and the Sardinian Fadda is the target. When the ladies arrive, Gaetano assumes they’re both prostitutes until the bullets start flying. Paolo (Nick Di Brizzi Jr.) goes to check out the commotion, but when the Zelmare comes blasting through the Fadda’s office door Gaetano opens fire and mistakenly kills his pal Paolo! Distracted over his comrade’s death, Swanee uses it to her advantage and she shoots the Sardinian in the head. A bullet is no match for Gaetano’s thick skull, which manages to deflect it and leave him only slightly injured. Bleeding but very much alive, the women drag the Italian’s limp body out the door.

When Gaetano wakes up, he finds himself tied to a chair with Loy Cannon gearing up for another one of his monologues. This time the topic is boxing. As the attacker from Odis’ apartment, Omie (Corey Hendrix), is taping up his hands, Loy talks about the famed fighter Sugar Ray Robinson. The champion boxer wasn’t just fighting an opponent in the ring, he was fighting an entire system that was set up to hold him back. Robinson had to borrow a union card to get his first shot in the boxing ring. Without breaking the rules, one of the greatest fighters of all time would have been KO’d by the same racist policies that hold Cannon back. Loy isn’t about to let that happen to him or his business, so he is taking matters into his own hands. If the cards are stacked against him, just like they were for Robinson, then he is going to circumvent the system. He motions to the now taped up featherweight fighter, Omie, and orders him to unleash a good old fashion beatdown. This is payback for Doctor Senator’s execution which he says, “is the one that got you killed.”

Striking Deadly Deals

Meanwhile, Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley) is called in to the office of her new boss, Dr. Harvard (Stephen Spencer). Apparently, Ethelrida’s letter made its way to his desk and he has questions for the nurse about its contents and accusations. The Angel of Mercy admits she does attend her dead patients’ funerals. After all, “it’s the Christian thing to do,” but fervently denies having anything to do with their untimely demises or the souvenirs she swipes from their corpses. Harvard is unsure with what to believe, but the charming nurse does her best to convince him into keeping the letter out of the hands of the hospital’s HR department. After some cajoling and batting of her lashes, Harvard agrees to keep the accusations to himself but orders her to steer clear of any future patient funerals. For now, her job is safe, but can the nurse keep her killer tendencies at bay? It’s hard to say because the elderly people she cares for really grate on her nerves. Case in point, her current groaning and moaning patient. With Harvard watching her the killings will have to wait until she’s no longer under professional scrutiny.

While Nurse Mayflower grits her teeth and tries to bare the living, her mobster boy toy Josto (Jason Schwartzman) gets word from Constant about his brother’s capture. Allowing Cannon to kill the uppity Gaetano seems like a win for Josto until Ebal (Francesco Acquaroli) arrives with news from their New York bosses. They have agreed to help the Faddas if they end this war with Loy Cannon. The Fadda family has two weeks and, no matter the tactics, the New Yorkers want it over and done with quickly. That’s not all – they also want Josto to make peace with his brother, which doesn’t fit in with his plans to let Loy take his wildcard of a brother out. Josto is stuck between following orders and his own desperate attempts at holding onto his position by killing off his biggest threat.

After a brief flashback of Doctor Senator reminding Loy of what’s at stake if he breaks the peace agreement to bring Satchel home, Odis Weff shows up at the Fadda home to do just that. When he gets there he is immediately grabbed by Constant who says Josto wants to see him. Nervously, he leaves as Rabbi Milligan (Ben Whishaw) watches the entire scene unfold with suspicion. It’s his job to protect the Cannon boy, but it’s quickly becoming a personal mission. He sees himself in Satchel which makes it difficult for him to separate his work from his feelings.

War Stories and Deadly Decisions

It’s not long before Odis Weff arrives at Joplin’s just as Ebal is updating Josto on New York’s change of plans. Now their Manhattan bosses want him to do a trade for Gaetano – cash, territory, whatever Loy wants. Fadda needs to make it happen and it needs to be done by 3 pm today! Constant (Gaetano Bruno) chimes in with his opinion that Gaetano wouldn’t want to be a part of the trade, making his brother wonder which side the henchman is on. He is clearly team Sardinian, so Josto turns to Weff and orders him to find his brother before the 3 0’clock time limit. As Weff leaves Josto turns to Antoon (Sean Fortunato) and orders him to go grab Satchel and take him for a last ride. Killing Loy’s son is a message the black mob cannot ignore, but first Antoon has to make sure Rabbi is occupied. Before he heads off to kill the youngest Cannon son, Antoon tells Josto that this move will likely end in Zero Fadda’s death. A son for a son is what this war will boil down to, but Josto has a plan for that. He is going to pin Satchel’s murder on the disloyal Constant, killing all the threats to his throne at once.

When Antoon arrives he finds his wife asking Rabbi to put in a good word for her husband with the boss. Satchel is watching TV and Antoon orders Rabbi to Josto’s office while he looks out for the boy. The plan stinks and Rabbi’s reluctance to leave proves he can smell the hit coming. He tells Satchel goodbye and the minute he is out the door Antoon tells the boy to get in the car, the two are going for a drive. Antoon’s wife knows what is coming and blesses herself as if God can protect her from what her husband was ordered to do.

When Rabbi finds Josto in the ally of Joplin’s nightclub the boss confirms his worst fears – Satchel is going to die and Milligan’s job is to meet with Ebal while Antoon carries out the dreaded deed. Faced with letting this boy pay for the sins of his father and the Faddas doesn’t sit right with Rabbi, so he skips the meeting with Ebal and takes off to find Satchel. When he arrives at the house to find the boy gone, he flies into a panic and takes off in the direction of Antoon who is just pulling into the now defunct Camp Elegance Relocation Center. As he walks the boy through the snow covered grounds of the run down center he talks about what his life was like when he first came to America. As a child he was a WWII prisoner of war and this country was the land of hope and endless amounts of food. For a kid who was eating his own leather shoes before he landed on free soil, everything seemed like a dream. America filled his starving soul with hope, something he never had before. As he strolls down memory lane he tells Satchel to go down the stone steps to check out where he carved his name as a child and the dutiful boy follows his orders. As Satchel bends to trace his finger on the signature carved in stone, Antoon pulls out his gun readies himself to end Satchel’s life; ironically, in the very place he found his rebirth. Faced with the reality of what he is about to do, Antoon has a change of heart and puts the gun back in his pocket before Satchel can see it. In a split second Rabbi emerges from behind Antoon and shoots the man dead! The sound from the gun sends a stunned Satchel spinning around to find his friend and protector Rabbi standing over the dead man’s body. The boy isn’t daft, he knows Rabbi just saved his life, and now it’s a race to flee before the streets are filled with bodies. “It’s a war now, for real,” he tells Satchel as the two drive off in Antoon’s car. Rabbi’s fate was chosen for him and he is not going to let that happen to Satchel. He tells the shell-shocked boy that they will find a place to hide until the war is over. If at that point Satchel wants to go home, Rabbi Milligan will bring him home – if there is still one to go back to.

As the credits roll we get a quick glimpse at Oraetta Mayflower and her moaning elderly patient from earlier. As the man takes his final gasping breath, Nurse Death exits from is room with a smile in her face. Just because she was ordered to stay away from her patients funerals doesn’t mean she still cannot find joy in their deaths. Out of all the mob bosses, criminals, dirty cops, hitmen and henchmen that rule the Kansas City, nobody is deadlier than the chipper red headed nurse. She is the Angel of Mercy nobody sees coming. Well…nobody but Ethelrida, the clever birthday girl.