Biscuits make a happy home and happy life.

The episode begins with Gator, who somehow managed to lean himself against a tree and free himself from the rope binding his wrists. He stumbles around blindly until he finds the dugout where his father just was.

While the standoff continues and Alpha team begins moving, Gator soon emerges above ground from the dugout and follows the sound of shouting in the distance.

Roy joins Oden and asks if he saw a man in a dress with a haircut like The Three Stooges. Well, at least he’s specific. Oden loves moments like this when the violence comes fast and is over just as quickly. Roy asks why Oden isn’t out inspiring the men, but instead, Oden tells Roy that he saw Karen. Roy did as well, and he laments that Karen didn’t just shoot Nadine when she had the chance.

Oden calls his daughter soft, which might be why Roy hasn’t killed her yet. Could also explain why Nadine is still alive and Gator is such a weak fuck-up. Okay, Roy’s had enough. He tells Oden to stand up so they can settle this like men, but when Oden stands, Roy slashes his throat. As Oden’s life leaves him, Roy tells his father-in-law to rot in hell.

This is where Karen conveniently returns. Roy chases after her and runs right into Dot, who shoots him in the abdomen. Roy falls to the ground and laughs just as Dot prepares to finish him off.

Before Dot can do so, the FBI arrives and orders her to drop her weapon, all while Dot screams that she’s the hostage. Well, technically you’re an escaped tiger. Dot tries to chase after Roy, but Witt holds her down to keep her from running after him. Instead, Witt gives chase after the sheriff.

With that, the shootout commences as both sides open fire. Witt follows a trail of blood leading him to the dugout. Roy, in hiding, tries to ambush Witt from behind, but Witt turns around and orders Roy to drop his blade. As Witt calls for backup, Roy tells him that his destiny is at the other end of this tunnel.

Roy eventually complies and begins to lower his weapon…until at the very last second he springs forward and plunges the blade deep into Witt. Roy tells Witt not to fight it, saying that it will all be over soon. Witt’s body slumps to the ground as Roy continues into the dugout.

While Karen is arrested, Dot is helped by one of the agents, but all she can wonder is whether Deputy Farr got Roy.

No, the federal agents did, as Roy escapes from the dugout and is immediately apprehended. How did they know where he would be? Agents Joaquin and Meyer inform Roy that his son gave him up.

Gator, sitting on a stretcher, hears Nadine’s voice and calls out to her. She embraces Gator, who deeply apologizes for everything. Gator asks if Dot really saw his mother, and she says that she only thought she did. But what she did see was a beautiful angel in a dream. Gator then asks if Dot will come visit him in jail, and to that much Dot agrees. Not that Gator can see Dot nodding her head, though.

She does promise to bring him oatmeal raisin cookies, though.

Agent Meyer arrives and informs Dot that Wayne knows she is okay. Dot then asks Meyer to take her to Witt Farr to thank him, but Meyer just shakes her head, confirming the worst to Dot. As Witt’s body is carried away, Dot is driven home.

She soon arrives at her house and has a joyful reunion with Scotty and Wayne.

Lorraine is also here and has learned that Dot managed to shoot Roy in the stomach. Indeed, she did. For the first time as far as we can tell, Lorraine is actually proud of Dot, who goes in for a hug. Lorraine does not reject the embrace.

We jump forward one year as Dot and Scotty join Indira at Witt Farr’s grave. Dot asks Indira if Witt was ever married, but all he had was a cat named “Lucky.” The cat is now with Indira. Witt’s mother came to the funeral along with Witt’s six sisters. Scotty tells her that mom that she wants six sisters, without understanding the amount of work that would take. Dot says they can maybe start with one.

Indira tells Dot that she likes the new ads with her and Wayne together, since they’re moguls now and opening a new location in St. Paul. Wayne is the people person who does sales, while Dot handles strategy at home. Hopefully this means smoothing out Wayne’s strategy of giving away cars.

As Indira takes her leave to meet Lorraine for some unfinished business, she promises the two that they’ll see her again. while Dot and Scotty head out to enjoy Wayne’s chili. Before stopping to get sour cream, first. Scotty can have M&Ms, but only if she drives.

We then jump to a federal penitentiary in Thompson, Illinois where Roy has two visitors: Lorraine and Indira. Lorraine likes seeing Roy in a jumpsuit, while Roy would love to see a noose around Lorraine’s neck. He doesn’t think Indira would last, but Lorraine would be Queen Shit.

Lorraine tells Roy that him filing an appeal was a mistake. While Roy believes his trial was rigged, Lorraine tells Roy that she’s the single largest donor to The Federalist Society, which controls the courts and selects judges all the way up to the Supreme Court, with the President’s blessing. So they’re the Court of Owls, basically. Roy’s going to be in prison for a long time.

But Roy says prison the way the world should be: a natural order and no apology, with the strongest on top. You fuck the weak, kill your rivals, and sleep with one eye open. Either way, Lorraine informs Roy that his real punishment is about to begin. What’s this mean? Well, as Indira leaves, Lorraine tells Roy that 85 percent of prisoners are in debt with interest accruing and families put out on the street.

So Lorraine started a private fund to help certain prisoners free themselves from this burden. This also includes fresh cash each month in their commissary accounts, Vaseline, Vienna sausages, that kind of thing. Roy actually asks which prisoners, and it’s two nearby prisoners and all of the men in cell block D, B, and A. No luck for cell block C, I guess.

It’s a mighty Christian act on Lorraine’s part, Roy says, but Lorraine this comes from an older text written on stone tablets during the age of the stone fuckers. Nadine had nothing to do with this, as she’s just a girl scout. Lorraine fights her own battles and Roy needs to pay for what he’s done, but Lorraine doesn’t want him dead.

She wants him alive for a long time, but while he lives, she wants him to feel every blow, each humiliation, and the fear that his wives felt. Before leaving, Lorraine slides Roy a pack of cigarettes, saying they’ll come in handy. Sure, if you want cancer. Don Draper’s no stranger to cigarettes, you know.

The Fargo movie theme would’ve been great for the end of this scene, but where it ends up being used is equally great.

Scotty and Dot arrive home, and Scotty has M&Ms, so she must’ve driven home, right? Anyway, Wayne doesn’t talk that much when his wife and daughter come in the house. Why?

Because they’ve got a visitor. Yes, Ole Munch is here, and according to Wayne, he knows Dot. Munch says that he freed the tiger so the tiger can finish her fight. But this does not mean the man is finished with her. As Wayne goes on about seeing a tiger at the Minneapolis zoo, he realizes he never got the fella’s name. Munch introduces himself as Mook: Oola Mook. I think.

Wayne, the swell guy he is, stands up to introduce himself, but gets nowhere, so he goes to get a pop. As Scotty and Wayne handle the groceries, Munch speaks to Dot alone, saying they will finish their engagement. Dot thought they were done, but the debt must be paid. A man’s flesh was taken, now a pound is required in return. Wayne interrupts to give Ole Munch some pop, and for that much a man is grateful.

Munch explains that he’s not from around here, but across the sea and he’s been here a long time, from the age of the carrier pigeon and six hundred tribes. A man comes, never having seen a mountain and cannot remember the year of his birth. He is paid to soldier, but one night he wanders from his post, drawn by the sounds of the river.

Dot asks why a debt must be paid. She understands keeping a promise, but people always say debt must be paid. But what if you can’t? If you’re too poor or lose your job, or there’s a death in the family, isn’t the better, more humane thing to say that debt should be forgiven? Isn’t that who people should be?

Anyway, Wayne points out that there’s a game starting at 7, so it’s time to make the biscuits. After all, it’s not chili without biscuits. I have never heard of that food combination before. As Wayne and Scotty set the table, Dot tells Munch that whatever he came here for, the family is halfway to supper and it’s a school night. So either Munch washes his hands and helps, or they do this another time.

Ole Munch chooses proper hygiene as he washes his hands. As Wayne takes his coat, Scotty shares a fun fact from school: chimpanzees can learn how to drive. Munch tries and tries to talk about his code, but the family keeps interrupting him, like Dot saying that instead of using water, she uses buttermilk for biscuits.

Dot asks Munch if Roy is the one who paid him to come here with his partner to try and kidnap her. He took a job that had a risk and he got hurt. He can’t be mad at the risk because that would be like getting mad at the table you stubbed your toe on. Dot knows that Munch had a mom across the sea and she loved him. If someone came for her, she’d do whatever it would take to get back to him.

Munch believes Dot is saying that is as if life is a circle, but instead, it’s a line. Mother is the start, and this is the other side. Dot, of course, doesn’t know what that means, but what’s she’s saying is it’s a choice. Munch made a choice.

Anyway, it’s dinner time. Wayne says he’s never been across the sea, while Munch explains that he came by longboat, with three dozen men pulling at oars in heavy rain. His hair grew long and he rode a horse without a saddle or reins. Then the cannon and musket came along and he was alone once more. For a century, he spoke to no one. Wayne, meanwhile, says he couldn’t go an hour without talking. And how!

Wayne then asks Munch if he’s ever driven a Kia, saying it’s like driving a cloud. Munch instead goes back to his past, saying that before the boat, the man ate fleas from the rats. He was frightened all the time. Then, one day, a man comes on a wealthy horse and offers him two coins and a meal. But the food was not food, but the sins of the rich, greed, envy, and disgust. But the man ate them because he was starving.

From then on, the man does not sleep or grow old. He can’t even die or dream. All that’s left is sin.

Dot knows it feels like that, what they do to people like them and make them swallow like it’s their fault. The cure? You have to eat something made with love and joy and be forgiven. Oh, so like Communion wafers, then. As the main Fargo movie theme kicks in, Ole Munch takes a bite out of a biscuit.

A man savors the bite and smiles as the fifth season of Fargo comes to a close.

A very simple, but sweet ending as Fargo bows out for a fifth time in a very strong season. Noah Hawley presented a season about the haves and have-nots, those who have and flaunt their power over the so-called weak, the crushing burden of debt, and above all else: Minnesota Nice.

The season premiere defined Minnesota Nice as “aggressively pleasant demeanor, often forced, in which a person is chipper and self-effacing, no matter how bad things get.”

No matter how bad things got for Dot and her family, they never lost their identities and sense of self. They were and still are good people to the very end, even to the point of having this man who has lived for centuries in their home. May as well start there. There are a few instances this season of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

There’s a scene in No Country for Old Men where Anton repeatedly asks a woman where Moss works. At this point, we’ve seen that Anton is a force of nature who will kill without hesitation. The woman doesn’t know that, but even still, she doesn’t buckle to pressure. She refuses to disclose any information and doesn’t ever raise her voice or lose her cool.

The same is true here with Dot. Whether she’s burning people’s faces, shooting someone in the stomach, or confronting a strange man in her home, she’s still the same kind woman we met at the start. So what does Dot do when Munch comes to settle a debt? Dot simply refuses. She won’t become a part of Munch’s story- he will become a part of hers. It’s a school night and they’re getting ready for dinner.

If Munch wants to postpone this battle, he can, but Dot refuses to budge. Her priority is her family, not some debt. The only way to kill kindness is with love, and Dot accomplishes just that.

The whole sequence at the Lyon household was very well done. You could tell immediately that something was off when Wayne didn’t respond very much and we could see how director Thomas Bezucha framed Wayne in the shot. It was clear that Munch was there, but that didn’t sap the scene of its tension. Wayne and Scotty don’t know this strange man or what he could do.

There was a feeling of dread that Munch could have killed any of them if he wanted, but I don’t think he would have. Much like how he had no reason to pursue Roy anymore, Munch’s qualm isn’t with Wayne or Scotty- it’s with Dot. They’re just bystanders, but bystanders who also have that Minnesota Nice. For all of Munch’s menacing presence, it’s deflected and blunted by the family just being their happy selves.

Munch is focused on his code, but the family is more preoccupied on what matters most: dinner. Munch had unfinished business, but Dot won’t play into that. Especially since she has no beef with him- he is the one who freed her, after all. Munch has consumed nothing but sin all these years, and Dot offers him genuine love- the same kind of love, I assume, that Mama Munch showed him when he came to her house.

The haves make the have-nots swallow what they’re given, but what if you were offered something worth swallowing? Phrasing. When Munch bites into that biscuit, you see the utter joy and passion on his face- something we haven’t seen all season. The Fargo theme kicking in is just the icing on the cake. For the first time in awhile, Munch finally feels mortal. He isn’t offered the sins of the rich, but just good, wholesome kindness.

Again, it’s so simple, yet effective in the way it diffuses the tension on all sides. There’s no need to settle a debt. Dot may have killed Munch’s partner, but that’s already come and gone. Why fight when they can just have dinner?

Dot knows just what to say to break Munch’s defenses, and she never comes off as condescending. That’s not who she is. There’s no right or wrong to the two of them: there just is. Eat something made with love and care and all is right in the world.

Except Peggy’s beans, anyway.

It’s as if good food solves all of your problems. After all, Dot and Gator manage to settle their differences, with Dot promising to bring him cookies. This is how Dot probably wanted the first reunion between the two to take place, instead of through Gator invading her home. Gator is remorseful for his actions and even gives up his own father. It doesn’t redeem his past actions, but it does set him on the right path.

Dot is such a caring person that of course she would forgive him. She has no malice for him because he just acted on his father’s orders. Now Gator has seen how little Roy cares for him. He’s left blind and alone. He’s headed to prison anyway, so he can at least make amends with one of the few people in his life who genuinely cared for him.

I’m sure people probably wanted some showdown between Dot and Roy, but I don’t think the finale needed it. I’ll get more into detail when I get to Roy and Lorraine, but Dot wanting the satisfaction of seeing Roy taken out is understandable. He’s caused her incredible harm and nothing would be better than to see him feel that same pain. But he’d already been defeated and would wind up captured anyway.

Perhaps Dot felt she had to be one to end Roy, but fate had other plans.

This gets into my one big problem of the episode: Witt Farr’s death. I don’t think it needed to happen, even if I get why Hawley made this decision. Farr is one of our cops with a good moral center. He’ll do whatever it takes to see justice done, even at the expense of his life. That just comes with being in law enforcement. He knew the risk when he put on the badge.

Having said that, I have a problem with the execution. Roy was already wounded and his militia was outmanned and outgunned by the feds. The battle was already lost. Even with the later knowledge that Gator gave him up, Roy was surrounded and had nowhere to go. I get Witt pursuing Roy to maybe apprehend him, but I don’t get why one of the tactical members didn’t accompany him. They’re more equipped for this, after all.

I won’t question why Witt didn’t just shoot Roy to disable him. Despite what you’d see on TV, there’s not a ‘shoot to wound’ option. So Witt hoping to do this by the books makes sense. But going back to the unstoppable force and immovable object, Witt represents what is good, while Roy is evil. And desperate. Again, desperate people will say or do anything when cornered. Good doesn’t always win in the end.

Thematically, Witt’s death makes sense. Dot saved his life and he’s been trying ever since then to thank her for her help, even if Dot continued to downplay what happened. He’s indebted to her and in the end, he paid with his life. He goes down in the line of duty, but he also dies without knowing whether his efforts did any good. For all Witt knows, Roy could have escaped to live another day and he’d never know.

So again, I don’t think this death needed to happen, but from a thematic sense, I get it. I’m also glad that Witt’s death isn’t brushed aside in the time jump and that the few people who crossed paths with him do pay tribute to him.

Though for Indira to explain what happened at the funeral implies that Dot herself didn’t attend, and I don’t know why she wouldn’t. She cares a great deal about Witt and is torn up when she finds out from Agent Meyer that he died in the line of duty. Wouldn’t she show up at his funeral to pay her respects?

But speaking of Indira, I’m fine with not having some big final moment with her in the finale because she’s already completed her arc with her new life decision. She’s shed herself of Lars and while sure, Indira might be indebted to Lorraine, she can do some good work working for her.

Speaking of, Lorraine is the immovable object that Roy just couldn’t crack. Jennifer Jason Leigh was on fire in that last scene. She’s got great power, but doesn’t make a show of it. She’s surgical and lethal with her approach, but still has enough of a heart to tell Dot that she did great in dealing with Roy.

I don’t think Lorraine is someone we’re supposed to root for. After all, she’s one of those ‘haves’ who would force people like Munch and Dot to swallow what they’re given. Still, as seen in the premiere, she puts family first, and the mama bear will not have someone like Roy fuck with family. Lorraine might lower her defenses when she embraces Dot, but the true lion comes alive in the penitentiary.

First off, I could watch Jon Hamm and Jennifer Jason Leigh talk for hours. But Roy’s empire has crumbled. He already needlessly killed his father-in-law, and his own son sold him out. Him dying would be the easy way out for some, including Lorraine. Much like Vivian Dugger, there’s something more satisfying in seeing someone’s world crumble.

That’s what happens with Roy in one of the few times he shows fear. Lorraine is a liberator who frees people from their debt. She’s done that with a large number of the inmates to ensure that Roy’s life will be a living hell. He’ll feel what his wives felt and while Roy says that the strongest survive, his influence inside of a penitentiary is limited. He can’t just call a militia at a moment’s notice anymore.

Now do I think Roy is completely helpless? Not at all. There’s a benefit to keeping Roy alive, but he also is still a now-former sheriff. Chances are he’ll have some level of influence in the prison to keep himself safe. He’ll still be in constant danger and won’t know who to trust, but he has resources just as Lorraine does. Limited, but he’s not helpless. Even still, his power is diminished.

For so long, Roy has been the free-roaming tiger brandishing his power and authority to all who opposed to him and living without consequence. Now he finds himself in his own cage. How poetic.

And Agents Joaquin and Meyer…were there. Well, at least they weren’t killed off like Budge and Pepper in the first season.

Even though I had my issue with the handling of Witt’s death, that doesn’t detract from a very wholesome ending to cap out a strong season of Fargo. The finale doesn’t completely stick the landing, but the season overall has been solid. I’ll need time to mull over where I rank it, but right now, I can say that Season 5 sits at a comfortable third place.

I’ve grappled for the longest time on whether Season 2 or 1 is my favorite, and my decision could easily change depending on the day. But, gun to my head, if I really had to pick, Season 2 might be my overall favorite, if just because on top of having a great story, I think it has the strongest cast.

Season 1 is great and for my money has easily the show’s best villain in Billy Bob Thornton’s performance as Lorne Malvo. It also feels more like classic Fargo and a spiritual successor to the film than other seasons.

And has time has passed, my feelings on Seasons 3 and 4 have improved. They were never bad seasons- it’s just that Seasons 2 and 1 set a very high bar, kind of like the first season of True Detective. What might be a lesser season compared to a prior stellar outing is still a very good season of television.

That’s how I feel about Seasons 3, 4, and now 5. Season Five has a lot of great themes and some standout performances from Juno Temple, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joe Keery, Jon Hamm, and Sam Spruell. It’s an enjoyable watch that was worth the wait.

Much like Season 4, I have no idea how long it may be until we get any word of a possible sixth season. More so since Noah Hawley has turned his eyes toward his Alien series. It could be a long time before we jump back into the Fargo world, but until then, this fifth season was an enjoyable watch.

So as always, thank you all for following along. We’ll hopefully meet again in Fargo’s potential sixth season, however long that may be from now. Until then, keep on watching plenty of television and take care.