Fargo – Lay Away

By: Kelly Kearney

War has not come to Kansas City yet, but after this week’s episode it looks closer than ever. With Satchel and Rabbi on the run, and Gaetano in the hands of Loy Cannon, both families enact a plan to seize control by pointing their enemies in the direction of a lie that could be the first shot heard around the Midwest world.

The Mayflower Special

After Dr Harvard (Stephen Spencer) received the tell-all letter about a certain red headed nurse’s murderous extra-curricular activities, Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley) fulfills her promise to bake her boss the best macarons he has ever tasted. When she arrives, baked goods in hand, Harvard placates her by trying one of her heavenly vanilla flavored treats. After moaning through a few bites, the inevitable happens. The doctor collapses to the floor gasping from the poisoned cookies while his merciless nurse gets a better look at that letter. Signed “a concerned citizen” means Oraetta isn’t any closer to uncovering the author, so she belts out a scream to draw attention to the dying Harvard. Not that it seems to help as the head of the hospital stops breathing long before anyone (his secretary included) can swoop in for a rescue.

While Mayflower is taking care of the racist doctor who refused to help Don Fadda, his son Josto (Jason Schwartzman) and hitman Constant Calamita (Gaetano Bruno) are standing over the body of Antoon (Sean Fortunato). Assuming his death is linked to the disappearance of Satchel (Rodney L. Jones III) and probably Rabbi Milligan’s (Ben Whishaw) doing, Josto orders Constant to find the Irishman and kill him. That’s not all, when he finds Rabbi he also wants Constant to kill Satchel. After all, that was the original plan before Rabbi interfered. Having no idea his boss is about to set him up, the killer Calamita agrees to do the job. The two men leave Antoon laying in the snow, assuming he would make a good meal “for the birds.”

Loy Whips Sense into Leon

When we first met Leon (Jeremie Harris) early on in the season he was bragging to Doctor Senator about his managerial skills. Now that Senator is dead, Leon tries to offer up some advice to his boss, Loy (Chris Rock). The newbie in the Cannon crime syndicate says Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito) should die for ordering the death of Loy’s consiglieri but that’s not at all what the boss wants to hear. Taking off his belt, Loy punches and whips Leon, mocking him for the advice he never asked for. Opal (James Vincent Meredith) steps up to stop Loy from killing the man and the whole beatdown gets interrupted by a phone call about a meeting at 3 p.m..

Outside of Loy’s home base Deafy (Timothy Olyphant) meets Weff (Jack Huston) for a little partner steak-out. The conversation between the two quickly turns to Bible scripture and it’s clear Deafy knows Weff is on the take from one, possibly both, families. He tips Weff off when he mentions the Mormon concept of “blood atonement,” related to those who break God’s “Thou Shall Not Kill” Commandment. To be forgiven by God you must sacrifice your own life for the ones you took. Convincing Weff to stay in the car and not storm Cannon’s home base, he lets it slip that he knows Weff is working for the mobsters and he is not too keen on being lied to about it. Instantly, Weff flies into a rage and says if he crossed paths with Deafy’s Mormon God he wouldn’t need an atonement because he would kill him, too. This doesn’t sit well with the religious Marshal, pushing him to call it quits on their partnership. As he exits the stake out car, Deafy offers Weff one last piece of advice, “Careful how many sides you play, Palomino. Even a gold coin’s only got two faces.” It’s a warning and a threat wrapped up in one last goodbye. Deafy leaves and Weff is left alone in the car smacking himself in the face.

A Lioness Will Always Protect her Cubs

After Josto ordered Constant to kill Rabbi and Satchel, he shows up on Loy Cannon’s front stoop only to be met by Buel (J. Nicole Brooks) and the blasty end of her shotgun. When he asks how many children are in the home, Zero (Jameson Braccioforte) included, she reminds him of why you never mess with a lioness who’s protecting her cubs. Luckily for Constant, she doesn’t kill him on the spot, so he tips his hat and leaves before anymore lives are lost. Later, he snoops through Satchel’s bedroom and finds a newspaper clipping with an advertisement for a feed store. Perhaps, that is where Rabbi took the boy?

After a brief encounter between a shy Ethelrida (E’myri Crutchfield) and Lemuel (Matthew Elam), who was sent to the funeral home to start turning it into the new Cannon warehouse, we spot the Smutny family ghost again. This time the supernatural being pops out of one of the coffins on display. The young man misses the ghostly visit and knocks on the coffin asking, “Anybody home?” Luckily for him the ghost never responds.

As the clock strikes 3 p.m., Josto arrives for his meeting with Loy, that the two set up during the beatdown phone call. With Gaetano a constant thorn in his brother’s side, Josto is not eager to have the Sardinian back home. With the New York crime family demanding his release, the Fadda boss has no other choice but to work something out with Loy.

At the start of the meeting Ebal (Francesco Acquaroli) immediately apologizes for the murder of Doctor Senator. The two men were friends, even if they were on opposite sides of this war. Be that as it may, New York (who seems to call the shots for both Cannon and the Faddas) says Gaetano is too valuable to lose and so Josto is willing to offer Loy a trade – The Fadda brother for all the slaughterhouses on the east side of Kansas City and all the trucking routes between Cleveland and Dallas. If Loy agrees, New York and the Fadda’s will send Gaetano back to Italy where he can no longer be a nuisance to Loy or Josto. Loy appears interested and Josto sweetens the deal by ignoring Ebal’s advice and pinning both Senator and Satchel’s death on his brother and his right hand man, Constant. It’s a plan that would make Machiavelli weep; killing two annoying birds with one very angry stone seems like a win, win for Fadda. Instead of taking vengeance on Zero, in a life for a life trade, Josto wants Loy to kill Gaetano instead. After all, he was the one who ordered both hits without Josto’s knowledge or so he claims. Loy stares down his enemy as if he knows he is being double crossed and then yells at Fadda and Ebal to “GET OUT!”

Devastated over the news of his murdered son, Loy reminisces about the conversation he had with Satchel on the day of the families son-trade. He told the worried boy that one day he would come home and for some reason this changes his mind about killing Zero, which he was planning to do when the boy finished brushing his teeth. He then tells Buel that their boy is dead and the woman unleashes a heart wrenching roar, like any lioness who lost her cub would. The two go to bed and as Loy holds his grieving wife, he thinks about his son and the last time the two were together.

Unfortunately for Loy, the hits do not stop coming. The next morning he orders Opal to pull the car over when he spots a billboard advertising the new Diner’s Club Credit Card. It depicts a happy white family asserting their financial privilege like a proverbial kick to the gut. Once again, black America is pushed to the sidelines and this just enforces Loy’s theory that the only way to get ahead is to take success by force.

It’s a Trap!

Across town Weff thinks of his dead wife as he packs his bags and prepares to run. Not only is he playing both sides of this gang war from the middle, but now his ex-partner, Deafy, knows he’s on the take. It’s only a matter of time before he winds up dead or in jail, so running makes the most sense now. Before the detective can bolt, Opal shows up to take him to Loy. When the two arrive at Cannon’s gym Zelmare (Karen Aldridge) and Swanee (Kelsey Asbille) are there and Loy tells Weff to cover his ears while the three of them talk. Handing the two women train tickets out of town, Loy tells them to head to Philadelphia. At first, Zelmare argues that she doesn’t want to leave, but when Cannon threatens to kill her sister if she doesn’t obey both women take the hint and head to the train station. With that taken care of Loy turns his attention to Weff for one of his famous monologues. He explains that the Faddas are forcing his hand and he sees right through their double crossing strategies. They set a trap where they expect Loy to act like the animals they are. “They can’t rise to our level, so they gotta drag us down to theirs. But it’s a trap.” A trap indeed. And Loy isn’t falling for it. In fact, he sets up his own trap, proving he can’t be duped by some two-bit Italian mobster like Josto. Ignoring Opal’s advice to “kill or be killed” for an even better plan that flips Josto’s on its head. The key will be Weff, who Loy says is now his partner in bringing the Fadda family down.

As the episode draws to a close, Loy makes a final visit to a roughed up Gaetano. Bleeding but in good spirits, Gaetano is rambling off the names of all his victims and how they were killed. After Loy drops this truth bomb into the volatile Fadda’s lap, he might be adding his baby brother to that list. Cannon tells him Josto offered up the slaughterhouses in exchange for his brother’s life and Loy plans on taking the deal but not fulfilling his part of the bargain. Instead, he is choosing to free Gaetano and point him in the direction of Josto, knowing the power hungry man will have no issue taking out his sibling competition. “This thing is done,” Loy says as Gaetano prepares to leave. He then turns to Omie (Corey Hendrix) and orders him to kill Constant, too. Opal, who is standing next to Loy ,lets out a sigh and mutters, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” because after this is done there is no turning back.