Fargo – Trials and Tribulations

By: Kelly Kearney

Fargo episode two picks up on from where we last left off, with Dot Lyon as a wanted woman and everyone from her mother-in-law, to a Sheriff in North Dakota has the Midwestern housewife in their crosshairs. In “Trials and Tribulations,” we find out why Dot is on the run and who that cowboy is in her heart-pounding dreams.

Male Supremacy and Other Marital Tips from Roy Tillman

We open in North Dakota with a narration from Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm), the man from Dot Lyon’s (Juno Temple) cowboy-themed dreams. From atop his horse and staring at his billboard for reelection, we learn Tillman was born into a family of cattle farming Sheriff’s Roy believes a wife’s job is to “abide” by the rules her husband sets. Roy is a throwback to not-so-better times, where misogyny ruled the marital bed and chest-beating masculinity was rewarded. To say this man is full of himself would be an understatement but since he is the law in his small town, nobody is going to check him on his toxic personality. As the camera scans the dusty desolate landscape of Roy’s town, it eventually settles on a diner, where the Sheriff is counseling a couple, Josh (Sean Depner) and Lenore (Kelsey Falconer) on the proper ways to beat your wife into submission. The couple had a row–as seen by the bruises on the wife’s face, and went to Roy for counseling. Of course, he wraps that little domestic violence message up in flowery excuses about natural orders and wifely duties but the end game is to beat wives–lovingly until they learn to live by their husband’s rules. His archaic ideology doesn’t sound much different from the husband’s–who is not very open to Roy’s advice and it prompts the Sheriff to toss a hot cup of coffee in his face and then hold his beaten wife’s hand as he tells her to fix her marriage through sexual submission. He also has one of his deputies strangle her husband until he gets the message: violence against women is fine as long as men use it as a learning lesson. This husband went too far, even if–according to Roy, that is also the woman’s fault. As the couple leaves Gator Tillman (Joe Keery) – Roy’s son enters and we can see he too is following in the Tillman tradition; Gator is a Sheriff in the neighboring Stark County. He has news for his dad and it leads Roy to Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) hiding out in a barn. Roy isn’t pleased with Ole Munch’s failure to capture Dot as we quickly learn she is his wife and has been on the run from him for over a decade. Dot was right to be worried about her fingerprints landing in a police database because that’s how Roy was able to find her. He sent Ole Munch to go get her but the task was much harder than he expected and he wanted to be compensated for the beatdown the little woman gave him and his now-deceased partner. Roy agrees and tells Gator to pay the man but when he escorts Ole Munch outside, his deputies are waiting to put a bullet in his head. Ole Munch gets the upper hand and wrestles Gator’s gun away from him and manages to escape mostly unscathed-unlike Gator who winds up with a broken arm and a very bruised ego.

A Housewife or a Conwoman?

Over at Dot and Wayne’s (David Rysdahl) house in Minnesota, Officer Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) got word that the missing wife has returned but she isn’t buying the woman’s, “I needed a break” excuse. Something doesn’t add up, and all the blood and destruction she left behind says she must be lying, but why? That’s the case Olmstead is on. While the couple is being interrogated by the police, Danish Graves (Dave Foley) and Lorraine Lyon (Jennifer Jason Leigh) are also on the case but their reasoning is less about protecting Dot and more about safeguarding the Lyon’s fortune. Lorraine thinks Dot kidnapped herself–a very common theme in the Coen brothers’ universe, just to grift her out of money. She has convinced herself Dot is a scammer and orders Danish to go talk to Wayne while she pops in to scare the young mother out of whatever she might be planning. When Dot returns home from an outing with Scotty, she finds that her mother-in-law broke into her home to wait for her. The whole thing is disconcerting but Loarriane’s wealth makes her think she owns everything–including Wayne and Dot’s home. This housecall isn’t to offer up sympathy but to offer her money in hopes it convinces Dot to leave Wayne and Scotty. She is offended and her response is best described as restrained volatility, as Dot smacks Lorraine down with a threat and a smile. As her accent melts away, she makes it clear that she has worked herself to the bone for this life and will stop anyone- no matter who they are, from ruining it, and that includes her husband’s rich mother. She ends the conversation by telling the woman to sleep with both eyes open because nobody takes what’s hers and lives to talk about it.

Across town, Lorraine’s right-hand man is doing a number on Wayne. Under his boss’s orders, he tries smacking some sense–literally, into the man and then puts Lorraine on speakerphone to tell him that Dot is either working with the kidnappers to extort money from them or she came up with that plan on her own; either way, she is not to be trusted. Wayne can’t even disagree because Graves would smack those words right out of his mouth and if we know anything about him, we know he is the weakest Lyon in the family’s pride.

 A Ballsy Lawmen Drowning in Suspicion

Back in North Dakota, we see a black government-issued car pull up outside of Roy’s home. The Sheriff is taking an afternoon dip in his hot tub and invites the agents–Meyer (Jessica Pohly) and Joaquin (Nick Gomez), to watch him as they explain why they are there. They work for the FBI and they’ve come to inform him that he is under federal investigation, but that doesn’t seem like news to him. It wouldn’t be the first time this renegade Sheriff caught the eyes of the Feds, it is a family tradition that he is quite proud of. Gator watches as his father runs circles around the FBI and then casually stands up in the tub–fully naked, to let both agents know who is really in charge. This man has no shame, and now that we know he has nobody to check and balance his power, his dangly bits are just another way of saying, “Come get me. I dare you.” After covering himself with a towel bearing his face and political slogans on it, he leaves both agents trying to make sense of what they just encountered..

Meanwhile, back at the house, Dot ropes Scotty (Sienna King) into a craft project where the two strip electrical cords to create one epic zapper of a barrier around the windows and doors. With a little added crushed glass sprinkled on the windowsills and a sledgehammer precariously hanging above the front door, any intruder who breeches her “craft projects,” will quickly and painfully learn why you don’t mess with Dot. According to her husband, all of this DIY stuff seems like a strange hobby for a woman who claims she wasn’t abducted. The fact his mother and Danish already put bad thoughts into his head, and now watching her boobytrap the house has made Wayne wonder who is telling the truth here–his wife or his mother? He wants to trust Dot but could she be conning him? His wife shrugs off his questions by saying she is just trying to proactively keep them safe. After that school board meeting she realized how unhinged people can be and this is just a simple precaution–like a security camera or some other form of home protection. Wayne chooses to believe her but his mother isn’t going to be so easily convinced.

Wayne isn’t the only one struggling with Dot’s narrative, Officer Olmstead doesn’t believe her either. So, when she hears about a shootout between a cop, two men, and a small female kidnap victim who seems to have disappeared, she heads to North Dakota to question Officer Wtt-Farr (Lamorne Morris) who is still recovering from his gunshot. That’s where she learns about this sweet and helpful blonde woman who Witt-Farr thinks deserves a medal for her bravery and help but nobody seems to know who or where she is. Olmstead has an idea and when she attempts to show him a photo of Dot so he can make a possible I.D. Gator Tillman interrupts her and asks to see the photo and then deletes it from her without her realizing he did it. Now she can’t show the photo to Witt-Farr and that gives him and his father more time to find Dot. Later, on his way back to his father’s house, Gator and his partner stop for gas and run into Ole Munch and his deadly knife. While Gator was inside buying snacks, Ole Munch crept up on his partner and drove a knife into his throat. Not being able to scream, Gator had no idea the man was lying dead on the ground until he spotted his body in the squad car’s rearview mirror. The man has a knife sticking out of his chest and attached to it, is a sign that reads, “You owe me.” It looks like Ole Munch isn’t going to be jerked around by a Sheriff and his son, and neither is Dot, who will do whatever it takes to protect the life she built away from her abusive and controlling ex. In episode three we will see just how far she will go to do that while Roy is knocking down every obstacle in his way blocking him from dragging her home to North Dakota.