Pancakes and puppet shows are a dangerous mix.

The episode begins with Ole Munch upstairs in his new home as Mama Munch’s son argues with her, even though she’s making him a sandwich. Her disability check is a few days away, but Ole Munch enters the kitchen and informs the son that he lives here. Ole Munch is here for a trade, not payment.

The son, saying he’s the landlord, threatens to call the police unless Munch presents some money. Munch does indeed present a wad of cash, with the son demanding the same amount every month.

As he leaves, Ole Munch rushes towards and hits him with an axe. Probably not gonna get any more of that rent.

Following this, we rejoin Dot on the road. She briefly falls asleep at the wheel, but awakens and changes the radio station. She stops at a truck stop and takes a seat at a booth just as a woman serves her some coffee. Almost immediately, in fact! She asks if Dot is heading to or away from something. Instead, Dot asks if the place serves pancakes, which are apparently the best in the county. That’s debatable.

Dot eyes a board full of recipes and fliers before closing her eyes just as she soon receives her pancakes.

Look, I don’t care if it’s a truck stop, IHOP, or wherever, nobody gets their breakfast that fast!

Whatever. Dot hits the road again, but pulls over and continues on foot as she approaches an windmill. Why? Because underneath some rubble, buried in a hole is a small box and, inside, a card, which simply reads “I’m sorry,” from Linda. On the front of the cards reads “Camp Utopia,” which was also displayed in the truck stop.

Back on the road, Dot passes a sign for Camp Utopia, but she soon finds herself low on gas. Of course, the car comes to a stop as Dot heads into the woods towards Camp Utopia. Convenient, but roll with it for now.

Night soon falls as Dot approaches a cabin in the woods. She enters and finds an audience of women watching a puppet show. The show displayed? The man hitting his wife over and over with a paddle for doing something wrong.

This stirs something in Dot, causing her to back into the table, alerting the others. She soon faints.

Must not be a fan of puppet shows, this Dot.

The next day, Dot awakens and finds a woman watching her. Dot says she’s looking for Linda. The woman says that Dot found her, but Dot wants Linda Tillman, as it’s her married name. The woman had one, too. Most of the women there, too. Now they’re just variations of Lindas. She got her first letter, so she’s Lindo, played by Sorika Wolf.

See, when you leave a man who abuses and controls you, it means you take on a new name. But Dot’s Linda was named Linda before. Dot presents the postcard and asks about the puppet show.

Rather than answer that, Lindo takes Dot around the area, where women are chopping wood and doing tai-chi. Dot loves her current husband, but she needs Linda’s help to deal with a past situation.

Dot is brought to the main house, which was built by Saint Linda. Even when one Linda leaves, Saint Linda stays. She took Dot in when she was on the street. Less like a mother and more like a Venus flytrap. Dot gets greeted by various Lindas, but wants to meet her Linda.

Indeed, Dot reunites with the real Linda, played by Kari Matchett, and punches her in the face as a greeting. Well, that’s not very nice. Dot announces that she’s Linda for a ride because Roy’s found her and she needs Linda to tell the police all the things he did to her when they were married. Linda can’t leave because the women need her.

Dot maintains that she needs Linda more, plus Linda, who is Gator’s mother, used her and fed Dot to Roy so she could escape. Linda maintains they both made choices. Linda asks where Dot’s daughter is- she’s not there, but Dot left her so they could take care of business.

When there are two versions of the truth, a tribunal must be held. Linda already told her truth, so she and the other Lindas will watch Dot tell her story so they can discover the actual truth. But before Dot can tell the truth, she has to make her puppet.

Back at Lyon Motors, a still brain-fried Wayne has company at work as he goes over Scotty’s homework with her. A family enters with their heart set on a good car, but a worker tells Wayne their credit isn’t the best. So they don’t qualify. Wayne figures just trade their car for a car, but that’s not how capitalism works. Yes, they have a 2005 car in good shape, but it’s still not the best decision.

Either way, the worker goes along with it while Scotty and Wayne decide to get bear claws, though Mom is still out there. Maybe they can skip the donuts for now, then.

Back at Camp Utopia, Dot talks with…another Linda, this one played by Queeny Kuffour, about the puppet show. It’s a way of expelling the trauma, and then you take your new name and leave. Dot has a name already and doesn’t have time for this, as she has a mission. She’d rather take Linda and go instead of indulge in this puppet show nonsense, but she’s got no choice.

Time for dinner, as Dot joins her Linda. Dot talks about the food that her husband and daughter like. As for Dot? She’s open to anything. She tells Linda that Gator is trying hard and wants to be good- especially like his father. Linda remembers that Dot always saw things clearly.

Dot respects what Linda is doing for these women, but she doesn’t need a doll to say what’s on her mind. Maybe she could’ve used one before Wayne and her new life, but she knows who she is. That’s what’s important. But still, Dot can’t skip the puppet show. The things that happened after Linda left? This is the process. Dot wouldn’t be here if she didn’t need to be here, even though Dot came for Linda’s testimony.

But Dot must testify first. Then they can decide if Linda should go, or if Dot should stay.

Okay, so what about Gator? After loading his sniper rifle, he hits the road and follows the tracer’s signal. The beeping gets stronger and stronger until he arrives outside of Mama Munch’s home. He then takes a position across from the house and tries to get a good shot with his rifle.

He hits a target, but this turns out to be the body of the son from earlier. The whole thing is an elaborate setup with Ole Munch pulling a rope and smoking a cigarette.

Gator, believing he’s done the impossible, inspects the car and retrieves the tracker. He then checks the backseat and finds the bag of money in the backseat. He smashes one of the back window to get the bag of money, only for Mama Munch to start beating on him with a bag of oranges. Gator shoves her to the ground hard as the back of her head cracks against the icy pavement. Gator retrieves the money and flees.

Ole Munch heads outside and finds Mama Munch on the ground, dead. To say he’s enraged would be an understatement.

Still probably a more dignified death against the pavement than Gaetano’s in Season 4.

Back at the Lyon estate, Scotty joins her father inside, telling him that it’s bedtime. He’s got a story to read, so he decides to read from an invisible book. How novel. Chapter one tells the story of the hero named Dorothy, who was the son’s favorite. Everywhere she went, there were rainbows. She could do anything, like climb a tree or wrestle an alligator. Everyone she met, she put a smile on their faces.

But the darkness hates the light and the ugly things come out at night. So in order to save the rainbows, Dot had to fight against the darkness and leave the flowers and birds- her family- at home. Until you go some place, you can’t come home.

Dot decides to work on her puppet and even gives it a nice dress and wig. The entourage of Lindas has gathered for Dorothy’s testimony and struggle. No one is to challenge or interrupt, as the sisters will hear her truth.

So time for the puppet show as we interrupt this episode of Fargo to bring you Thunderbirds. Before Dot was a wife, she was just a girl, all skinned knees and make believe. Then she got her monthly, and the wolves came. When she ran, she ran away from everything. One day, when Dot attempted to steal from a store, she met Linda Tillman, who took her home.

She brings her to meet Roy and Gator, and Dot was just 15 at the time. She found Roy stern. Linda suggests that Dot finish her education instead of working for her supper. She pushed Dot towards Roy so the two could be alone.

Things were bad for Linda then, as Roy started beating her, which Gator and Dot overheard. But that’s no excuse for what happened next. Roy indeed taught Dot her math, and he found her quite pretty. One day, Linda had to go visit her sister, and Dot was the woman of the house until she got back. As for what happened next? Roy enters Dot’s room and saw her limping. He decides to take a closer look…

Linda returns, with Roy telling her that he and Nadine had a great time. Roy beat Linda every night, and he’d then come to Nadine, smelling like cigarettes. One day, Linda left. Roy wasn’t sad because he had his true love with Nadine, who thus became Roy’s new puppet.

The end.

The puppet show has concluded, with Linda thanking Dot for the presentation. It wasn’t easy to hear, but they heard it. Dot has earned a new name, but she knows who she is: Dorothy Lyon. Linda agrees to join Dot so they can face Roy together.

You know, Dot would make an excellent puppeteer.

So Dot and Linda hit the road. Linda apologizes for leaving Dot, but Dot wishes that Linda took her and Gator with her. Linda has no response, but Dot knows that Linda will explain when she’s ready.

Oh wait, this didn’t happen? Dot’s still at the truck stop with her pancakes? Never mind.

As Dot heads outside, where it’s now suddenly snowing for some reason, a random semi truck rushes through the truck stop, slamming through a van- and Dot’s Kia- that careens right into Dot!

I hope the pancakes were worth it.

Later, Dot awakens at a hospital and asks about her Kia, but apparently she came in by herself. Also, it took a second to identify Dot. Luckily, her husband is here. Dot thinks it’s Wayne, as that husband never leaving her side sounds just like him. Also, he’s easy on the eyes.

But, of course, it’s Roy, who is happy to see Nadine again. He’s been worried sick about her. Dot, trapped in a hospital bed, can only watch Roy approach as the episode comes to a close.

Well, that was a fun little trip. After being away from the spotlight, Dot takes center stage again as she sheds even more light on her story in the most illuminating description of the life that she lived with Roy Tillman. But “Linda” also played with our expectations, as the episode had you questioning what was real or just a dream.

On rewatch, the clues are a bit more evident. As mentioned, Dot got her pancakes almost instantly, which is impossible unless your server is also The Flash. I can forgive Dot knowing where to go to find Linda’s letter because I believe she’d remember that detail, but then the car happens to run out of gas right by a sign that leads her to Camp Utopia?

A society of formerly abused women all living under the same place, all of whom demonstrate their turmoil through a puppet show. It sounds too good to be true. Not too out there for the Fargo world, but still a bit of a stretch. Dot gets the apology that she wanted so much from Linda, which would be a nice storybook ending, but that ended up not being the case.

There are some interesting visual storytelling cues that give away how something is off. In the truck stop diner, Dot sees a recipe for chicken piccata, which is what the Lindas just happen to have for dinner. When Dot first arrives at the truck stop, it’s a fairly nice day outside.

But when she leaves not long after, there’s a snowstorm. It’s not impossible that it started snowing. This is Fargo. But a sudden shift in the weather like that? I’m no meteorologist, but I wager the odds of that are slim, even in Minnesota. So in a way, the episode came right out and told us that things weren’t what they seemed to be. A few things felt too convenient to be true, even if it didn’t break the reality of the episode.

So really, this episode served to give Dot a bit of catharsis. We’ve seen Fargo do this in past seasons, most notably the bowling alley in Season 3’s “Who Rules the Land of Denial.”

Here, it works as a way for Dot to unleash some, but not all, of the pent-up feelings she’s had since escaping Roy, not to mention confronting the woman responsible for handing her over to Roy in the first place. Linda isn’t blameless in this, and she’s definitely no saint, though she seems to have made peace with her decision, even if that comes at the expense of Dot.

I will maintain that I wish we knew next to nothing about Dot’s past- specifically where she got the set of skills that she’s displayed since the season premiere. I could go either way on her backstory, but as the season progressed, it became clear that the show would paint a picture of who Dot was before Wayne. So in that regard, I don’t mind having a puppet show be the method that displays Dot’s past.

For one, we can all identify with a puppet show, probably having seen one in our childhood. We use them to tell stories, but as the puppet masters, the puppets bend to our will and our reality. Puppets are innocent and expressionless, compared to the more emotional Dot who pours out her heart when she tells the other women what she endured at Roy’s hands.

With the reveal that this was all a dream, I’m left wondering if Linda is even still alive. I would guess not and that Dot managed to escape on her own, but the spirit of Linda and other abused wives may live on in Dot, as they all have the same goal of seeking justice for Roy’s actions. Linda endured her own abuse, but that doesn’t overlook that she brought Dot into this, when she knew fully well what Roy might do.

So can you blame Dot for punching Linda on first sight or referring to her as a Venus fly trap? Linda may have fostered a community of other women who faced their own turmoil, but Dot didn’t ask for this life or to become Roy’s puppet.

Through the puppet show, we see the impact that this had on Gator. Think back to his first encounter with Dot this season. Her first words were “Shame on you.” Both Dot and Gator witnessed Roy abuse Linda, and Gator saw Roy dish out that same abuse to Dot. The two were able to grow close in their fear over the family matriarch, and perhaps the two had more in common than we were led to believe.

It would explain why Dot was so disappointed that Gator seems to be emulating his father. At one point, he may have mad a more loving and sensitive side, but all of that is buried under all of the bravado in a desperate attempt to please his father.

What Gator can’t do is succeed at…well, anything. Why he wouldn’t think Munch is a step ahead of him is anyone’s guess. Like the men taking Jordan Seymore, now Gator has killed the wrong person in Mama Munch. Sure, Ole Munch might not have had some strong bond with her, but there was something there to him staying in her home. It’s the closest we’ve seen to Munch caring about another person.

Obviously he doesn’t care about that much about money- proving that when he gives Mama Munch’s son a wad of cash without a thought. Plus, he’s pretty livid about the fact that Mama Munch is dead, so if Gator was already on Ole Munch’s shit list, he probably just made it to the top spot. Congratulations. At this point, it might be better if he just did nothing. That way, he’d be less likely to screw up something.

Wayne’s brain is still fried beyond recognition, but it’s nice of him to find solace in spending time with his daughter. He might not be that great of a car salesman right now, but what is still important to him is family, and that shines in his conversations with Scotty as the two await Dot’s return.

Then we’ve got the ending. Talk about reality literally smacking Dot in the face. It’d be one thing if she just got knocked out, but then she winds up at the hospital. The nurse says she showed up by herself, so when she briefly fell asleep at the wheel, could that have been when the dream began and she just accidentally drove into a ditch or something? Did Dot actually get hit by a truck and then walk her ass to a hospital?

Either way, this one was obvious. There was no way it would be Wayne waiting for her. The nurse did say it took awhile to identify Dot, so it’s possible that when her name went up in some identification system, that’s what drew Roy to her, just like with her fingerprints. Now Dot, having shared her story, now stares down the wolf face-to-face. It’s a confrontation she’s been heading towards, but just not in this way.

Not all stories have a happy ending. That said, as we have three episodes to go, what will happen now that Roy has his precious Nadine back in his clutches? We shall see.