It’s snowing in Halloween! Must be a Minnesota thing.

The episode begins almost with Roy meting up with Gator at the service station as they look over the body of the deputy. Gator can’t believe that Ole Munch would return to the scene of the crime, not to mention getting the jump on him again. First order of business is to find priors or accomplices of Ole Munch, who will no doubt come for them again. Also, note that Gator didn’t find Munch, but did find Donny.

Right now, the truck goes in a ditch and the death will be reported as accidental. Also, the unfortunate news must be shared with the dead man’s fiancées. Roy will take over from here after Gator has had two losses.

Roy heads home to speak with his wife, Karen, played by Rebecca Liddiard, and Oden, played by Michael Copeman, who asks Roy about another run on ammunition. But Roy has enough problems with weapons going missing and now the feds are on his ass. Roy looks over some photos, including a few wedding portraits where, next to him in one, is Dot.

As Roy rests and smokes in bed, Karen asks what Daddy wants tonight: angry feminist? Lonely hitchhiker? Karen even brings out the handcuffs for the occasion.

I instantly like Kinky Karen, but Roy’s busy staring at the ceiling and not in the mood for sexy time. He’s too busy obsessing over the one that got away. In fact, it’s almost like he can see her.

So can we, as we rejoin Dot as she nervously stares out her window. So what does Dot do?

She starts switching street signs. Enjoy your morning commute tomorrow with no confusion whatsoever.

That morning, as Dot makes a shopping list and checks it twice- including items like cheese puffs, dish soap, and a pistol- Wayne tells Dot that they have an appointment at Gun World. Dot has decided that Wayne will be a zombie for Halloween, while Dot and Scotty will be zombie hunters. Apparently, Scotty signed off on it. They can maybe even find body armor at the gun shop.

Over in Bismarck, North Carolina, it’s a snowy Halloween as an elderly woman arrives home. This is Mama Munch, played by Clare Coulter. She settles in and watches some TV when she hears a noise from upstairs.

She heads into a room and finds Ole Munch in a rocking chair. He tells her that he lives here now. So I guess he lives there now.

We then jump to…500 years earlier in Wales, Kingdom of England, in 1522. A man who looks very similar to Ole Munch is tasked with feasting from a plate of food sitting on the body of a dead man. Why? In forgiveness of his debts to man, he must consume the sins of the deceased man before him.

He agrees and eats from the plate set atop the corpse. When he finishes, another man gives him some wine and tosses him some coins before sending him off into the night.

It makes sense in context, I’m sure.

So anyway, back in the present, Ole Munch reiterates that he lives here now. Mama Munch considers making a call, but decides against it and goes back to watching women’s tennis. Good choice.

Wayne and Dot head to Gun World, with Dot looking for a home defense solution. Dot points out a very specific 12-gauge shotgun worth $1300, as well as a gas-operated gun. Hell, Dot would probably buy out the entire store if she could. It’s expensive, but peace of mind is priceless.

However, the clerk, played by Brendan Fletcher, informs them there’s a mandatory waiting period to make sure Dot and Wayne aren’t psychopaths or socialists. Damn federal mandate.

Well, onto the pepper spray, then.

Over at the Tillman ranch, Gator hypes himself up as the fucking winner that he is.

Deputy Farr arrives at the precinct, on crutches, and asks another officer about evidence from the service station incident. Indeed, Gator has arrived before Deputy Farr and is going through an evidence box. He pockets Donny’s wallet just as Farr comes downstairs and accuses Gator of stealing evidence.

Gator talks about his own experience on crutches after being tackled by a Black quarterback. Farr asks what Gator took, and Gator promises that he’ll do to Farr what he did to the quarterback if Farr accuses him of stealing. Farr doesn’t back down. So Gator confesses that he…took Farr’s mother out for dinner. Gator then leaves as Farr goes through the Donny Ireland box, finding nothing but a Slim Jim wrapper.

However, Gator isn’t too smart, because he left his business card, which is what Farr gets when he heads back upstairs. He later does some research into Gator and Roy- who is in a tough sheriff’s race- but also receives Dot Lyon’s image, courtesy of an email from Deputy Olmstead. Farr then makes a phone call.

At the same time, Olmstead- who gets, but ignores a phone call- and a Captain Muscavage, played by Paul McGillion, speak with Lorraine and Danish about a break-in at Wayne’s home. Not to mention there’s a North Dakota state trooper who will ID Dot as present in the car of two men who opened fire on the trooper’s partner.

Lorraine wants to make the entire thing go away and is confident that this can be handled internally, but a North Dakota state trooper is dead. There’s real evidence that two violent men kidnapped Dot for reasons unknown. Lorraine isn’t worried, saying that she can protect her family.

But if the state trooper identifies Dot at the melee and wants to talk to her, they’ll need to go through Danish. Before the officers leave, Lorraine questions why police are needed, except to separate those who have money, class, and intellect from those who don’t. They’re gatekeepers. But inside Lorraine’s walls, they have no function and should remember that. The two officers.

As for Lorraine’s next move, she wants a security detail at Wayne’s home and at her own. Lorraine, having seen a glimpse of Dot’s darker side, calls Dot a wolf in sheep’s clothing and promise to keep an eye on her. Luckily, Danish has an ex-CIA pal who is looking into Dot’s past. Whatever Dot’s hiding, this guy will find it.

Ole Munch sits in his bed with a radio at his side, a blade, and various newspaper clippings all around him. He takes a puff from his cigarette as he continues listening to police chatter.

Gator and Roy talk about Nadine, nay, Dot, with Roy saying it’s better to leave her alone until after the election, especially with the feds snooping around. At least, that’s what he thought at first, but then he had a dream. It’s Halloween, and everyone will be dressed up in the busy streets, so it’s the perfect time to nab her. They can send two grunts in masks to nab her, none the wiser- and only guys they can trust.

This won’t end badly, I’m sure.

We need a montage! The Lyons get ready for trick or treating, Ole Munch goes out on a mission- and eats pages from the Bible- and the Tillmans get ready to put their plan into action.

But before Dot can go Suzy Homemaker on someone’s ass, she gets a phone call. The caller, Roy, refers to Dot as ‘Nadine,’ but Dot, a bit spooked, hangs up. She leaves her home and joins Wayne and Scotty to trick or treat. Gator, meanwhile, arrives at a street sign, but the signs don’t match the GPS on his phone.

Munch makes a detour to to cover himself in mud and the blood of a goat he recently killed as he repeats an incantation to himself while staring into the flames.

However, Dot notices a very specific van that’s been driving around the block. She eyes it carefully as it backs up and a masked individual stares at her.

Munch, meanwhile, covered in mud and blood, arrives at what I’m guessing is the Tillman home as the episode comes to a close.

Okay. In an episode that felt like moving chess pieces forward for an attack, I want to talk about the thing that stuck out the most: Ole Munch and however long this man may have been alive. Now, Fargo is no stranger to dipping into the supernatural.

After all, this is same show where fish once fell from the sky and where Peggy in Season 2 had a very casual reaction to a flying saucer. In the 1970s of all decades! So I’ll say that I’m not entirely sure of what’s up with Ole Munch, and I don’t Noah Hawley to explain it, either.

To be frank, there’s gonna be some weird shit in this show and you’re either on board or not. I imagine this is the same mindset that Hawley had with Legion, which only doubled down on its weirdness throughout its three seasons instead of letting up on it.

Now I’m not familiar with sin-eaters. I’ll admit that I had to look it up, but apparently it involves eating a meal in order to take on the sins of a dead person, with the food having absorbed that dead person’s soul. As a result, the dead sinner is cleared of their sins, while the sin-eater carries their sins. That could explain why Munch is spurned by those around him in the past and why he’s on his own in the present.

Roy and Gator especially don’t seem to respect him that much and he comes of more as muscle. Capable muscle, but muscle nonetheless. But if Munch has been carrying these sins for centuries, that’s a lot of burdens to hold in addition to your own faults. That much baggage can make a man vengeful. Munch has a similar menacing presence to Lorne Malvo, who himself felt like evil incarnate.

But I doubt Munch is motivated solely by money. At least not anymore, now that the Tillmans took a shot at him. He’s out for revenge and I have no idea what this ritual he performed at the episode does. Get him into character? The man is already a living nightmare, but at the very least it adds to his menacing presence.

This feels like an inverse of what I don’t want from Dot’s character. Where I want as little of her past divulged as possible, I’m fine with Hawley not spelling out what we’re supposed to take from Ole Munch. Is he really centuries-old? Is it a delusion, if I wanted to dip into Legion-territory? Either way, it’s intriguing and I’m all in for it.

Dot continues to look for some form of security and sense of safety in her fortress. But she’s juggling two lives. She wants to be the happy housewife who happens to be a badass, but also keep a low enough profile to stay off of Roy’s radar. That’s already out the window since Roy knows her number and Gator has found her home.

Plus, her fingerprints are now in the system and the waiting period for the guns would just give Roy more time to make a move. But Dot is proactive and not waiting for her enemies to strike.

Switching the street signs is quite genius. It might also make the commute for neighbors a bit confusing, but it’s a smart idea that no one would see coming. Never mind Dot’s house of horrors. I love that this woman thinks outside the box. Again, that could’ve come from her experience with Roy, or even before that experience, but I don’t need or want this expanded upon. Just give me as much of Dot being a badass as possible.

I doubt her life is in danger because she’ll fight to protect herself and her family. Her new family. Though Wayne only gets to be a zombie instead of zombie killer, so maybe his odds aren’t as good as Dot’s and Scotty’s. Between the booby traps, Dot not wanting to talk about what happened at the service station, and now her knowledge of guns, Wayne should get the hint that his wife isn’t who she says she is.

Like Dot, Roy and Gator are making moves this episode, but we get a bit more insight into Roy’s home life. Polygamy is fair game and both he and his want enough guns to take back their country. But instead of focusing on his mission and what he has now, Roy is focused on the one that got away. As if Dot is the one challenge that bested him.

Gator is a shit stirrer. He’s young and lacks Roy’s focus and discipline, thinking that things will happen like they do in the movies. Him trying to intimidate Deputy Farr was a failed power move. Farr has dealt with men much worse than Gator, so he has no reason to fear him. That said, Gator’s a little sloppy, leaving behind a business card with his information.

Then again, even though Gator is an officer, he probably had to provide some form of card or identification if he wanted to view evidence. So I can’t get on his case too much, but it still felt like an easy mistake. More so now that Farr has his eyes set on the Tillmans.

Like Marge or Molly or even Deputy Olmstead, Witt is a cop trying to do the right thing. That could put him in the line of fire, but it’s admirable how hard he’s working to get to the bottom of this incident- all while on crutches. You can’t keep a good cop down.

While Gus may have been initially frightened off by Malvo in Season 1, that’s definitely not going to be the case for Olmstead when it comes to Lorraine’s words about police. People like Lorraine, who surround themselves with so many barriers, see the police as either more protection, or an obstacle. As Lorraine said, police are just gatekeepers. But that power only goes so far within Lorraine’s fortress.

However, if you put up that many defenses, then you’ve got something either worth protecting or that you don’t want exposed. Lorraine has money and influence, which don’t always equal power, but they keep her secure for now. She, like Roy, wants to keep everything internal, but in doing so, she’ll just attract more attention.

Again, “The Paradox of Intermediate Transactions” was about setup. Ole Munch is set to make a move on the Tillmans, while Gator and company are about to brush up on their Home Alone now that they’re about to enter Dot Lyon’s funhouse.