I don't know about ya'll. But I loved the final scene of Ole Munch, or Oola Moonk, as we now know showing up at the family house.
Dot is gentle parenting the eldritch nightmare and navigates the situation so eloquently, while Wayne and Scotty are just so adorably domestic. Everytime the music builds up and he's going to be all like "a man has to..." Wayne just puts something to drink into his hands and Ole Munch is like ???
I'm gagging on that dialogue.
Munch: "A man has freed a tiger, so she can finish her fight. That doesn't mean a man is finished with her."
Wayne: "We saw a tiger once, at the Minneapolis zoo! :)
Munch: A man has a code and the code and-"
Scotty: You're in the way.
Munch: *steps back for Scotty*... a man has a code-"
One of the things I loved about Fargo this season so far, is the incorporation of Folklore, suberstition and God.
We meet Ole Munch (Sam Spurrell) in the first episode. He seems to be a regular hitman of sorts at first, who is set to kidnap the main character Dorothy (Juno Temple) He comes across a bit excentric and the way he talks and dresses seem very anachronistic.
We also quickly learn, that Dot is not the regular homemaker and loving mum, she seems to be. Munch and his handyman set out to kidnap Dot, but fail miserably, because Dot is setting up traps and generally fights back, like a tiger. Munch's handyman gets killed in the process.
We also get to know Roy Tillman (John Hamm) who was the one who sent Munch on his mission. We're not sure yet why the right wing cowboy goes through so much trouble just to kidnap the young mother. Because Munch failed the task, Roy is refusing to pay him, which sets off a rather bleak storyline in which Roy and his son Gator (Joe Keery, my love) try to put an end to Munch and vice versa.
The most intriguing thing about Ole Munch is the ritual he performs at the Tillman Farm. He kills a goat, covers himself in it's blood and leaves a message for Roy over his Daughter's beds. The whole shebang is very occult and seems heathen.
And then there is also the flashback to Wales in 1522.
See now, this is where it gets really weird. And where I had to start googling some stuff.
In the flashback scene, we see a character, dressed in what seems to be clothes of the lower class, entering a house full of upper class people who are in mourning, dressed in black and weaping. We have a funeral on our hands here. The poor person looks like Ole Munch. Is it him? Is it an ancestor of his? We dont know!
On the belly of the deseaced man, which is laid out in the house, a plate with food is situated.
When Munch enters the house, there is a tense energy in the room.
Munch walks up to the dead body and consumes the food offered on the plate in an almos animalistic fashion. The people in the room gasp, some of them disgusted, some of them afraid. Or both.
Before Munch leaves, he gets two silver coins. Which must have been a lot of money back in the day, I did not research that.
But we clearly witnessed some sort of ritual happening.
It turns out, sin eating was a practice rich people took part of in Wales, Ireland and England in the 1600s. A willing poor person was invited to literally eat the sins of the deseaced person, so they could be welcomed at the pearly gates, with a clean record.
All the sins are transferred, to the person who ate the food. A grewsome fate for people at the time, but hey, a mans gotta eat.
The world is bleak, so I don't go with the rational reason in fiction, ever. I like to think that Ole Munch ate so many sins, that he became a spirit, that can not die, who is forced to wander around the earth forever, and for some reason chose america. His very beautifully written monologues would suggest that. They almost sound shakespearian.
But how does this play into the bigger theme of Fargo S5?
Well, if you think about it, the whole season is about unpaid depts and consequences. Dot ran away from Roy and the farm, because of the ongoing domestic violence Roy inflicts on her.
In Roy's book, she owes him, because she made a pledge to him, when they got married. Even though it's very clear, that Dot wasn't so much older than his own son Gator, when the vows were exchanged.
Ole Munch sees a debt not paid, because he didn't receive paymant for "eating the sin" of kidnapping Dot.
Dot's mother in law, who is a very rich lady played by the brilliant Jennifer Jason Leigh points out "What is the point of being a billionaire, if you can't get someone killed.", while on the phone with an ex-president, apparently Bill Clinton, if I remember right.
The show tries to say, we never got over the sin eating, because with money and power, you can pay your way out of any circumstance, be it kidnapping or murder. There is always going to be someone who needs the money more than their soul. And there is always going to be someone who takes advantage of that.
Roy Tillman, quotes the bible a lot. He thinks of himself as a right and just man, as a leader, even though he likes to bend the law to fit his own agenda. He does not give a flying fuck about the law of the land as it is "dictated by washington" and funds a right wing militia with taxpayer money, to actually kill democracy from within. He is the law of the land. These scenes sent shivers down my spine and reminded me vividly of January 8th.
Anyway. All of the storylines in this show are so amazing and worth writing about. Go watch it, you won't regret a second.
Yo, so I watched the new episode of Fargo and can finally enjoy the gifs in peace lol
But holy crap. Gator really fucked around and found out. In the theme of debts and paying debts, he really had to pay with all he's got, all he was worth in his father's eyes.
I wonder why Roy hates his son so much. If it was the way he couldn't live up to his toxic masculine expectations or if he projected his disdain for Gators mom Linda, cause she left him and the farm.
But then again, he didn't wage holy war on everyone when Linda left. And if Dot was honest about the scene in the hospital, Roy had a problem with Gator since the day he was born. Hence baptising him Gator and not Roy.
This is all a very heartbreaking depiction of how this shit hurts men too.
