Fargo – Linda

By: Kelly Kearney

In this week’s episode of “Fargo,” Dot goes on an epic journey of self-discovery that ends in a horrifying reunion she never expected. Meanwhile, Wayne is still struggling with making sense of everything post-brain fry but knows keeping hope alive for Scotty on her mom’s return is the right thing to do. The wrong thing to do is do your father’s dirty work, and Gator still hasn’t learned that lesson. Once again the bad luck kid is back to screwing up plots that only put him further in debt to Ole Munch. With only two episodes left, “Linda” sets the stage for the climactic battle between the Tillmans and everyone else. May the best Lyon win!

Kevin

After a brief recap of how we got to where we are, we open on Irma’s (Clare Coulter) house and a visit from her anti-semitic bully of a son, Kevin (Laurent Pitre), who interrupts breakfast to shake his mother down for her disability check. Kevin seems to be a loser and a moocher who must only come around when he needs something because he’s unaware of his mother’s new house guest. When Ole (Sam Spruell) hears Irma’s son berating her in the kitchen he goes downstairs to meet this Kevin-who turns his aggression onto the floppy-haired sin cake eater. Irma’s son demands to know why his mother didn’t tell him about her renter and demands his cut of whatever Munch is paying her. Only, Ole isn’t paying Irma in cash, he is trading his room and board for security. He compares himself to a dog in the yard keeping watch of the property, but Kevin calls him a “freeloader” who is “taking advantage of a poor old woman.” He orders Ole to pay him rent for living in his mother’s house and after an uncomfortable back and forth, Ole begrudgingly hands Kevin the money but the look on his face says this is the last time that son disrespects his mama. Kevin doesn’t even make it to the front sidewalk before Ole comes tearing out of the house wielding an ax and drives it straight into the man’s chest. That watchdog had a limit and treating Irma like dirt was beyond what he could take.

Dot’s  Journey

Next, we catch up with Dorothy (Juno Temple) on the road to North Dakota to finally deal with Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm). After falling asleep at the wheel Dot pulls into a truck stop diner just as the song, “I’m Your Puppet,” By James and Bobby Purify, plays on the radio. It’s a little wink and nod to not only what’s to come in this episode but also Dot’s desire to cut the strings between herself and Roy. She was his puppet to use and abuse and now she wants her freedom. After ordering some coffee and dodging the nosey waitresses’ questions about whether she is heading somewhere or running away from it, she orders a smiley-faced pancake pick-me-up and then gets back on the road. Her next stop is an abandoned oil rig where she digs into the ground to uncover a postcard that reads “Camp Utopia.” It acts as a guide to her final location: The Cult of Lindas. Now, whether or not this is a cult could be up for debate, but a group of abused women living off the land and all bowing at the feet of their leader Saint Linda (Kari Matchett), feels cultish even if it’s a safe space from horrible men. Saint Linda A.K.A. Linda Tillman is the Puppeteer–literally and figuratively, of this group and even the members go by variations of her name. Right away we can tell Dot not only knows Saint Linda, but from the second we see her punch the woman in the face rather than say hello, we know their history is a checkered one. What we find about Linda comes out organically as Dot gets to know the members of this feminist movement. Saint Linda isn’t just Roy’s runaway wife, she is also Gator’s mom–whose actual name is Peter, and this commune in the woods was her escape from her marriage to Roy. Unfortunately, running from her husband and son had dangerous implications for the young Dot. We also learn the women of this camp work out their traumas as well as their form of community justice through puppet shows which becomes an issue when Dot reveals why she came to Camp Utopia. She isn’t running from her current husband or interested in adopting a Linda name and playing with dolls, all she wants is to convince the first Mrs. Tillman to come out of hiding and testify against Roy. Not only is she a witness to the abuse Roy doled out but we learn she is the entire reason Dot wound up in the Sheriff’s crosshairs. Sadly, Linda rescued a fifteen-year-old Nadine from the streets and brought her to the Tillman home and whether her intentions were pure or selfish remains to be seen. Dot thinks that going the legal route is the best way to put this Roy nightmare to rest and she needs people in her corner like Linda if she has any chance of taking down the Sheriff of Stark County. There is just one problem: convincing Linda to come with her is going to require Dot to play by the camp’s rules. But doesn’t this new version of Linda owe her for what Roy did to her? We don’t know what that is yet but Linda doesn’t seem to think so. In fact, feminism flies right out the window when Saint Linda victim-blames by washing her hands of any responsibility for Dot’s trauma. She claims the choice to live with the Tillmans was her own. Both women can’t agree to the truth of their pasts, so the Lindas call for a trial to determine who is at fault and whether or not their leader should help Dot. The tribunal will be done through a puppet show and Dot is tasked with making a strung-up version of herself to tell a tale that’s so convincing it can break through Saint Linda’s mental hold on the group. If they rule in her favor, Linda will help her. Everything is on the line now.

Over at Wayne’s Auto, we see how getting your brain fried doesn’t bode well for a stellar job performance. Wayne (David Rysdahl) is letting sales slip by trading old cars for new on pinky promises and biblical charity. What’s not slipping is his parenting. He entertains Scotty (Sienna King) at work, and later, we see him keeping the hope for Dot’s return alive when he reads their daughter an imaginary book about his wife’s amazing adventures. He tells Scotty she is off protecting rainbows by fighting the darkness. He is very sweet and it’s nice to see what Dot is fighting for as we see her defend her husband to one of the women at the camp named Lindo (Sarika Wolf). She along with the other Lindas, assumes all men are as awful as the ones they ran from. Lucky for Dot, Wayne is the only good husband and father on this show, as the rest seem fit for a Fargo woodchipper.

Testify

Knowing she only has two days before she tells Officer Indira Olmstead (Richa Moonjari) she will be back for her daughter, Dot quickly gets to work carving and sewing up her puppet. Her and the other Mrs. Tillman’s running from Roy days are over. Linda has been hiding from him longer than Nadine has been Dot, so it is long past time these women take the trash out. After her puppet is made, Dot heads to a communal dinner where she updates Linda on Gator (Joe Keery)–who she claims wants to be a good person and not a replica of his father. She saw it in his eyes on Halloween–Peter is no Roy.

That’s not the only way the younger Tillman differs from his father; he also lacks his talent for murder. When we catch up with the “good” Gator, we see he followed the tracker on Ole’s car right to Irma’s house. He parks his car in front pulls out his gun with a silencer attached and hides behind a bush. Aiming it at a second-story bedroom window, Gator sees a shadow resembling Ole in a rocking chair, so he takes the shot. The bullet goes whizzing through the air piercing the window and splattering the brains of an already dead Kevin on the wall. Ole must’ve been expecting him so he rigged a rocking chair with rope and from the safety of Irma’s hallway, he pulled the strings on this macabre puppet show. Once again, the unluckiest Tillman failed to finish the job he set out to do but for now, he feels satisfied with himself. Before he leaves the scene, he goes to grab the tracker from under Ole’s car and spots the bag of money they gave him earlier sitting in the back seat. The doors are locked so he uses the butt of his gun to break in and that’s when Irma shows up out of nowhere screaming “THIEF!” She was coming home from the store– arms full of groceries, when she attacked the unsuspecting Gator and even got a few knees to the groin in before he threw her to the ground. She goes down hard, smacking her head on the concrete curb and bleeding out in front of her house. As the blood pools around her and her scattered groceries, Gator realizes the old woman is dead and reaches into the car to grab the money and then takes off. Ole must have sensed Mama was in trouble because he walked out expecting a scene but not this bloody one. A seething Munch rages, but Gator is long gone by then. He just made an enemy out of a man who makes a living at payback and consequences. Things will not go well for Gator.

A Puppet Show Tribunal

After working her creative fingers to the bone, Dot takes a deep breath and tells her version of how she met Linda and why she needs her help now. Her puppet tells the story of a young girl–aged fifteen, who had to fight off the men of the world the minute she blossomed into puberty. It wasn’t long before the young Dorothy ran away from home and right into Linda–who saved her from an unpleasant encounter with an overly handsy man. Linda played the part of the concerned mother-like figure just looking out for the wayward teen. She invited Dot into her home where she promised her food, a warm bed, and even an education. Of course, all of this seemed like a good deal to Dorothy until she met Linda’s husband, Roy Tillman. At first, Roy took an interest in Dorothy like any father and mentor would, but over time, that dynamic changed. Dot witnessed the cruelty Linda suffered at the hands of her husband and likewise, Linda witnessed the kindness Roy gave Dot. She knew her husband’s interest in this young girl wasn’t paternal and Linda started to see Dot as a way out of her abusive marriage. Every chance she got she pushed Dot in Roy’s direction until he became the girl’s tutor, father figure, rapist, and abusive husband, and it was all thanks to the trust she had in Linda. The woman used the teenager-like wedge between the bars of her martial prison and eventually managed to slip out and make her escape. She left Dot behind to fulfill her wifely duties–the same ones Roy thinks Dot skipped out on. Also in the puppet show, we find out that a very young Gator knew what was going on in that house and kept quiet out of fear and loyalty to his Dad. It seems he did have sympathy for Dot though and the two had a friendly relationship until those recent kidnapping attempts. In the end, Linda pulled Dot’s strings only to hand them over to her husband, the master puppeteer, and the rest is Lyon history! After the show, the Lindas have their verdict and side with Dorothy, officially grant her the name Dot Lyon, and then rule that their Saint has no choice but to testify against Roy.

On the road to North Dakota, Linda apologizes for what happened to Dot but the question still hangs thick in the air, “Why didn’t you take us with you?” Linda doesn’t answer her, so Dot keeps her eyes on the road grimacing out a thank you for agreeing to help her protect the life she fought so hard for. Cut back to the diner where Dot is staring at a happy-faced pancake. Was all of that a daydream? Confused she goes out to the parking lot where an out-of-control semi-truck slams into a parked SUV and pushes it into Dot! A week later she wakes up  in the hospital to a nurse telling her how lucky she is that her husband identified her. He never left her side and the weepy Dot assumes the man out in the hallway is Wayne. That’s when Roy walks in and leans over the terrified Dot in her hospital bed and says “I got you.” It’s a cliffhanger of an ending that left this viewer as horrified and confused as Dorothy! Was the cult of Lindas real or did Linda Tillman use that accident to once again, throw Dot under Roy’s bus so she could make her escape back to Utopia? Whatever happened in that diner,  Dot isn’t in any shape to fight Roy Tillman. Her last hope might be in the hands of her least favorite mother-in-law, Lorraine (Jennifer Jason Leigh)– who had better hurry up with those plans to destroy Roy because Dot could use the strength of that entire Lyon pride now.