Fargo – Raddoppiarlo

By: Kelly Kearney

Sibling rivalry leads to a power struggle in the Fadda family, which finds Josto and Gaetano both trying to take control of their family business. Meanwhile, Loy Cannon cements his plans to take over their Slaughterhouse and turn it into his own financial, and very illegal, institution.

There’s a New Sheriff in Town

We open with the case of the two female escaped convicts, Zelmare (Karen Aldridge) and Swanee (Kelsey Asbille), and the man sent to Kansas City to find them. U.S. Marshal Dick “Deafy” Wickware (Timothy Olyphant) is a Mormon outsider with a penchant for racism, a self-righteous judgments and long wordy rambles about his faith and what sets it above the rest. Deafy is a perfect example to this season’s themes of how outsiders can come in many colors, ethnicities, and religions, and still turn on each other rather than the oppressive system that shoved them to the outskirts of society .What’s interesting about Deafy is, in many ways, he is considered as  much of an “other” as Loy (Chris Rock), the Faddas, and any minority in the year 1950. At the time this takes place, Mormons had separated themselves from other predominately white Christian sects, remained steadfast in their bigotry towards blacks and immigrants, and in some regions of the country, were considered a menace to faith itself. Deafy, with his cowboy fashion and his tough attitude, is aware of suspicions surrounding his beliefs, so it’s no surprise to him when the Kansas City police chief reminds him that he could be shot for just existing in some areas of this country. The problem with Deafy is, while he knows his faith puts him at odds with societal norms, he seems to shrug those off as if his badge offers him immunity to the very oppression he inflicts on others. If he is in the same boat as Cannon and the Fadda’s, he doesn’t seem to recognize it, which must take some level of effort to ignore the obvious considering how smart he is. His level of intellect far exceeds that of the chief and most of the cops in town. It’s why he doesn’t seem pleased with the bumbling and totally compromised, Odis Weff (Jack Huston), who is assigned to assist him in the search for the two convicts. Likewise, the nervous Weff isn’t too keen on the job either. Especially when his boss uses his relationship with the Faddas as a reason for the team up, almost as if Deafy is his punishment.

It’s not long before Deafy, Weff and a few of Kansas City’s finest interrupt the Smutny family’s Thanksgiving dinner by breaking down the front door and tossing their home in search of the bank robbing convicts. Floor by floor they search for the escapees until the make their way down to the funeral home’s embalming room in the basement. Drawer after refrigerated drawer they search through the funeral home’s cold storage looking for the hidden women. When they get to the last two the corpses, or should I say the smell of the corpses, the cops stomach’s turn forcing them to flee the room and skip the last drawer. It’s a good thing too because Zelmare and Swanee are hiding in that drawer and for now they are safe from Deafy and his team. Empty handed the cops leave and the two women emerge to ask Thurman to drive them out of town. He agrees to hide them both in a coffin in the back of the funeral home’s hearse. It seems like a decent plan until Swanee starts to scarf down Nurse Mayflower’s (Jessie Buckley) homemade pie. She finishes off a good portion of the poisonous treat and then the two women climb into the coffin for their escape – an escape that will need some funding and who better than Loy Cannon and his slaughterhouse of underground finances? That’s right, the two women have been keeping an eye on Loy’s takeover of the Fadda slaughterhouse and know that it’s a prime target to rob. After all, Cannon is known as the local loan shark, and after watching him the day before flaunting rolls of money in the face of a local man just trying to find an in with Loy’s business, they know behind those doors sits riches beyond their wildest dreams. Unfortunately, inside the coffin the pie kicks in but it hasn’t thwarted Swanee’s plans to rob the black mob boss.

Brother vs. Brother

While the two women plot their robbery Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito) and his brother Josto continue to disagree on how, and who, should run the family business. The brothers couldn’t be any more different. Where Josto (Jason Schwartzman) sees himself as a cold hard mob killer, the truth is he lacks the psychotic personality traits it takes to be one. Unlike his brother Gaetano, who literally eats, sleeps and breathes, death threats the crazy eyed Sardinian lives by the rule that murder is a lucrative part of their business. It’s a power grab and he sees his brother’s unwillingness to start a war with Loy as a weakness that can not be ignored. It’s clear he thinks he should be running the family since he has no problem with sitting in the boss’s chair and ordering Rabbi (Ben Whishaw) to go with Constant Calamita (Gaetano Bruno) to kill Loy’s son, Lemuel (Matthew Elam). Something that Josto has not only refused to do but has repeatedly said could mean Zero Fadda (Jameson Braccioforte) would pay the price for any moves they make on the black mob. Gaetano doesn’t care what happens to Zero, or if this hit ends in war. In fact, it seems he is hoping it will. It’s why he intimidates Irish Rabbi, who is well versed in family betrayal, into this plot to stir up this peace agreement with Cannon. The Irishman knows what this is and he quickly sniffs out this unapproved hit the minute Calamita points out Loy’s son exiting a local church. He knows Josto didn’t order this and when they pull up next to Lemuel he refuses to follow orders and shoot the eldest Cannon son. Rabbi and Calamita struggle over the gun, resulting in a few bullets ricocheting off of Canon’s car, but never hitting the intended target. Not that it matters. Lemuel saw his attackers and it’s only a matter of time before his father gets word of it and a Kansas City mob war breaks out. Rabbi threatens to tell Josto about what Calamita and Gaetano have done and then he exits the car with both his and his partner’s gun and walks home. He is not about to be blamed for whatever consequences come from a power struggle between the Fadda brothers. Besides, not all the members of the Italian family want a war. Some even have friendship within the opposing families. Like Doctor Senator (Glynn Turman) and Ebal Violante (Francesco Acquaroli) – two men, with similar career paths, who can relate to one another over a diner breakfast and a walk down memory lane.

When we see the unlikely friends, Senator tells Ebal a story about his time serving the country in World War II. He was assigned to Herman Goering and his job was to interrogate the Nazi henchman and gather evidence for the upcoming Nuremberg trials. After six weeks of getting Goering to brag about his Nazi plots and crimes, Doctor Senator composed a 400-page report, with footnotes, that he hoped would seal the monster’s fate. He was proud of what he had done for his country, but when he presented the report to his superiors it was tossed directly into the trash. Apparently, the only thing he was good for was making that Nazi squirm from being interrogated by a black man. The contents of the report meant nothing and it was a bleak reminder of how little the country valued black patriotism. To fight for a country who never fought for you is a level of love for America that Ebal, an immigrant, can relate to. The smart and crisp dressed Doctor is a cut above the rest, but to the average white American he doesn’t deserve the respect a veteran, or a well-read man, typically gets. His only saving grace is that he is a man working in a world run by them, a privilege that people like Nurse Mayflower (and even Zelmare and Swanee) aren’t so lucky to have. That doesn’t mean the women in this story aren’t smart enough to find a way to squeeze through cracks of that patriarchal wall and take a pie of the pie for themselves. Even if that pie is poisoned.

The Robbery Leads to a Set Up

We next find Nurse Mayflower, in all her Angel of Mercy glory, sitting in a job interview with Doctor Harvard (Stephen Spencer). She has applied to the nursing position at this hospital and with her charm and feminine wiles she manages to convince him to add her to his staff. She even premises him home baked goods, which could very easily be his undoing, not to mention his ego that’s been fluffed the lethal red head’s attention.

After the interview Mayflower spots Josto watching the hospital from his parked car. He hasn’t given up on his need for revenge over how Harvard treated his father. So, it’s ironic that the woman who killed Donatello Fadda hops into the front seat of his car and immediately starts offering the mob boss drugs and sexual favors. After her realizes she is the nurse who “helped” his father, he allows her to service him, even though he can never remember her name. That fact doesn’t seem to bother Oraetta Mayflower though. In fact, she makes some joke about him calling her for a date, knowing the man hasn’t a clue of how to get a hold of her. She is smitten and Josto is definitely intrigued by her dominant go getter attitude.

With the Fadda and Cannon gangs occupied with their ever growing feuds, an unseen Swanee and Zelmare exit their coffin hide out and head to Loy’s office tucked inside the slaughterhouse. The effects of the pie start to make themselves known when Swanee’s gurgling stomach has her upchucking Thanksgiving dinner around the corner of their big hit. Armed and barely holding in the contents of her stomach and bowels, Swanee and a stocking covered faced Zelmare blast their way inside Loy’s financial sanctum. We see a team of men counting money and the two women scream their demands for everyone to fork over the cash. Zelmare barks orders at gun point while Swanee’s Ipecac pie is on deck to make a reappearance for both ends of her digestive system. Vomiting and clenching her backside, the female convict can barely stand though her intestinal revolt. Distracted by her girlfriend’s condition, Zelmare misses the hidden gun strapped to the desk of one of the man in charge of counting Loy’s winnings. When he pulls the trigger, he misses and Zelmare opens fire taking out a few of Loy’s men and leaving the gun slinger injured but alive. Luckily for her the injured man has no idea who these women are so when the boss catches word of what went down, he assumes it’s the Faddas trying to finish off what they did to Lemuel. Doctor Senator, who is not only Loy’s second in command but his voice of reason, wonders if there is more to these attacks than a simple mob hit. Does Josto not know this would spark a civil war or are these attacks the result of two brothers jockeying for power? If it is a matter of Gaetano vying for his father’s seat at the head of the table, then any move by Cannon’s gang could set off a killing spree that neither family wants. Considering everyone is so distracted by their own personal feuds and agendas, it’s hard to say who weas behind the orders. Doctor Senator wants Loy to get all the details before they pull the trigger on an all-out war. Any move they make could have dire consequences for their family’s success. If the translation of Raddopiarlo is “to double” something, then the even score between the Fadda and Cannon family is about to dive headfirst into double trouble. We can only hope Ethelrida (E’myri Crutchfield), and her bilingual education, includes the Italian verbiage in her next history report, because the fight brewing between these families, is definitely a story that could earn her an A.