Fargo – Welcome to the Alternate Economy

By: Kelly Kearney

After three long years Fargo is back and coming to you from Missouri? That’s right, we’ve left the snowy landscapes of Minnesota and North Dakota for warring mobs in Kansas City. Set in 1950, Season Ffour tells the timely tale of post-World War II America and all of its inequities that helped to craft a system of oppression still thriving today. In a time when black Americans and immigrants were limited in the options for their success and where anti-immigrant signs in store windows and were only outmatched by the river of hate flowing through the streets of a Jim Crow country. How do you grab a piece of the American pie if you’re never invited to the dinner table? Many hungry men found ways around it by choosing to take their pursuit of happiness by force. Loy Cannon played brilliantly by Chris Rock, along with his Italian mob counterparts, were those men who fought to sew their rightful place in the fabric of American crime history.

Ehthelrida’s History Report

“Here’s the thing about America – the minute you’re relaxed and fat enough, somebody hungrier is gonna come along looking for a piece of your pie.” That is a quote from sixteen year old student Ethelrida Pearl Smutny’s (E’Myri Crutchfield) whose task was to present a local history report that sets the stage for season four’s theme. Ethelrida is as clever as she is brave. She is a burgeoning scholar with a passion for truth running through her veins thicker and hotter than blood. In the opening sequence the teen manages to untangle the details of an oppressive system that pits immigrants and people of color against each other while scurrying for the scraps left for them on the road to the American dream. With a graphic novel script and split screen approach, Ethelrida introduces decades of crime bosses who ran the streets of Kansas City while also posing the question; in a nation of immigrants and the enslaved, who decides which oppressed outsider gets to be an American? For Ethelrida, her intellect immediately puts her at odds with the current times and certainly with the administration running her school. Being bright and introspective can be just as offensive to your oppressors than acting like the criminal they assume you are. Her paddle sore backside is proof of that. As she hobbles her way out of the principal’s office, Ethelrida quickly dissects the rise and inevitable fall of numerous crime syndicates in the city. The Jewish mob, who fell to the Irish mob, who in turn fell to the Italian mob, who are now up against their latest rivals, the Black mob. The one thing that sets these mobs apart from other famous crime families are how they remain at peace with each other in the same city. The youngest son of each leader’s family is offered up to their enemy to raise as their own. It’s a sort of insurance policy to keep the violence to a minimum and the family’s out of each other’s way. Decades of tradeoffs worked until Rabbi Milligan (Ben Whishaw), the son of the Irish boss who was traded to the Jewish family, turned on his birth right in favor of the Italians he was traded to in a second peace keeping ceremony. With a third trade in his future, Black leader Loy Cannon and his rival Donatello Fadda (Tommaso Ragano) agree to business as usual, but this time it’s sealed in blood. This new tactic is the first of many thanks to the Italian’s heir apparent Josto Fadda (Jason Schwartzman). Nothing about this younger generation of mobsters is ruled by the old ways. In fact, when Donatello and Loy meet in a park to discuss the details of the trade Josto risks the families’ peace agreements for some racist posturing and chest pounding threats. The rules of diplomacy go right out the window with them, something that Loy and Don are still trying to adhere too. In fact, Loy touches on the truths that make them equal on the streets when he says to Donatello, “I’ve seen the signs: No Coloreds, No Italians. So, we’re both in the gutter, like it or not.” Two totally opposing sides from two different worlds both trying to access the game from the spectator’s seats. Their fight isn’t with each other as much as the system that forces them into these survival modes.

The American Dream is on Loan

After their meeting in the park, Loy and his consiglieri Doctor Senator (Glynn Turman) try and fail to convince a local white banker to buy into their credit card idea. Loy spins a good tale about the foundations of America being built on the idea of wealth and not actual cold hard cash. The banker disagrees and thinks people wouldn’t spend money they didn’t have, so the answer was a resounding no. In fact, the banker likens the idea of credit to a criminal enterprise because apparently banking used to be about protecting your piece of the pie instead of fluffing interests rates so the rich get richer and tank the housing market, otherwise known as “the good old days.”

While Loy is trying to break into the commerce game, the Fadda family is having their own troubles from inside a parked car. After what seems like a failed hit from courtesy of their black rivals, Donatello clutches his chest like he’s having a heat attack. His son Josto panics until The Don releases a toxic plume of nuclear gastric wind that almost finishes off what the black mob started. As all the Fadda family hangs out the car windows gasping for air, some young neighborhood kids playing with a BB gun do the unthinkable! An innocent game of cops and robbers sends a BB blasting through the car and into the carotid artery of Donatello Fadda! He’s bleeding out and Josto orders the driver to hurry to the hospital. Time is running out to save the old boss’s life! There’s just one problem: the closest hospital only treats whites so the ER turns the Italian mobster away. With a race across town to a facility that will save him, Don Fadda’s life hangs in the balance. It’s why his son is so thankful for his father’s caregiver, Nurse Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley) who is a perky, wordy, multisyllabic rambling redhead with a golden personality that can only be outshined by winning Minnesotan accent. She is basically one part Midwestern dream and one part angel of death! Over a snorted line of stolen hospital drugs, Josto asks Nurse Mayflower to look out for his injured father. Her promise to stay with him until the Lord brings him home would make anyone, high or not, question her nursing qualifications, but not Josto. The jury is still out on whether or not he truly cares for the old man. It seems more like Josto was hoping this grim reaper in a nurse’s frock would help him steal his daddy’s throne, especially after their earlier arguments over how Don handled Loy Cannon when he should have just started a war and taken control of the neighborhood by force.  What is certain is Nurse Mayflower’s love of murder and a suffering Donatello is next on her hit list.

With his guards otherwise occupied, Oraetta executes the Italian mob boss with a poisonous shot to his IV drip and then sucks his golden ring clean off of his finger like some kind of souvenir. The head of the Fadda family is dead and eldest son Josto, along with a new breed of mobsters, will replace him.

It’s not long before we find how Ethelrida fits into this whole story and, yes, she isn’t just the narrator, but the daughter of a white funeral home owner Thurman Smutney (Andrew Bird) and his black wife (Anji White) who just happens to live across the street from the killer nurse. That’s not all, the curious teenaged storyteller walks in on her parents hosting a closed door meeting with none other than the black mob’s leader, Loy Cannon! Apparently, the funeral home is floundering in debt and Loy, who has his eyes set on the finance world, is the go-to guy for personal loans. As Ethelrida said in the opener, “History is made up of the actions of individuals and yet none of us can know at the time we act, that we are making history,” and those words will undoubtedly ring true when this family is faced with the price they will have to pay for taking money from a mob boss. Every choice leads us to another and for Ethelrida’s family and the psycho nurse across the street, all paths lead to getting caught in the crossfire of a simmering mob war.