Fargo season 2 episode 4 review: Fear and Trembling

Oh what a lovely war!

Gangster mother Floyd declares war (MGM)

So it’s war. But hasn’t it always been?

The family from Fargo and the corporation from Kansas are no longer exchanging pleasantries, no longer content just zapping eachother with tasers or shooting insignificant subordinates.

There’s some serious bloodshed round the corner.

They’re not the only ones at war either. Betsy Solverson is at war with cancer, as her doctor says.

In both cases, it’s hard to see how they can win.

As gangster mother Floyd cries clutching her near comatose husband, and Betsy stares blankly at the mystery pills prescribed, the soldiers are already out and about — mostly just gathering intelligence at this point.

Hanzee the Gerhardt henchman is doing deep recon, and pretty much has the whole Rye mystery murder sussed out by the episode's end.

So has Detective Lou, who visits Ed and Peggy and pleads with them to confess so he can help.

In both cases, their traumatic experiences in Vietnam are made explicit.

Hanzee, who because he is Native American was essentially treated as a canary in a coalmine, says how he can’t cope with quiet of the midwest anymore.

For Lou, he sees in Ed and Peggy the stunned look of soldiers who have been struck by a bomb but haven’t yet realised they’re going to die.

Neither of them ever left the war, not really. It’s there with them. It’s why they do what they do.

Tell me lies

The other key theme of the episode is deception; it’s something that colours nearly every relationship in the show.

In a tragic visit to the cancer doctor, Lou and Betsy discover the meaning of the phrase ‘clinical trial’.

She may be dying, but there’s no way of knowing whether she’s taking experimental med Xanadu or just some sugar pills.

Later, in a scene older Lou described last season as a ‘calm before the storm’ moment, they talk about the the difference between hope and trust.

Meanwhile it’s revealed that the marriage of Ed and Peggy is based on a bunch of lies. He talks about kids as she secretly takes birth control, he tells her not to take her self help course as she sends off the cheque.

And then of course there’s the lie they tell together: that they crashed into a tree, not into a person. That they didn’t kill anyone.

In that superb scene with Detective Lou, you get the sense simple that Ed was ready to crack. But practised liar Peggy would not concede.

This is not a lie they can keep up much longer.

Okay, let’s talk about the UFO

So much happened this episode I don’t even have time to talk about how fantastic Jeffrey Donovan was this week as Dodd — definititely his standout show so far.

It’s worth flagging because there’s no way he’s making it out of the season alive.

In fact now that the war has officially started, it’s time we realise some of our leads are not long for this world.

And when they die they’ll go up to that big spaceship in the sky… or something.

I don’t quite understand what's happening with the UFO — that supernatural thing seen or sensed above The Waffle Hut in previous eps.

This time Hanzee, while tracing Rye’s steps, walks over to right where Peggy hit him. The same spot where he saw the spacecraft.

Hanzee kneels and feels the glass of her windshield. He closes his eyes, as though he were in a trance, and the extraterrestrial sound builds.

What is happening here? I don't know, but it sure feels significant.