The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Fargo’ Season 5, Episode 4 Recap

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Jo and Rob are back to break down the fourth episode of ‘Fargo’ Season 5. They discuss the contentious dichotomy between the haves and the have-nots, the action-packed home invasion sequence, and the ongoing parallels between Roy Tillman and Dot Lyon. Along the way, they talk about Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance and why her outsized presence works within the context of her character. Later, they theorize about some potentially hidden familial connections and parse through some listener emails. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if everyone said they heard your trailer a hundred times? You'd probably make a new one. I'm Justin Sales, the host of The Wedding Scammer, the ringer's first ever true crime pod. We've been hunting a con man for a few weeks now, and our hunt is coming to an end. Schemes, Heartbreak, How to Put On a Wire. We've covered all this and more, but there are still a few surprises left. Binge the Wedding Scammer wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed.

I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today, to talk about the Nightbear Before Christmas and Home Invasion. It is Rob Mahoney. Hi, Rob. How are you doing? Hi, Joe. Yeah, do you just want to get right into it

the Nightmare Before Christmas because we are going heavy on Jack Skellington this episode? I guess we're just, is this a Nightmare Before Christmas podcast now? Is that what we're doing? I didn't make it that way. Blame Noah Holly, frankly.

I'm happy to blame Noah Holly. We are here to talk about season five, episode four of Fargo in Solibilia is the title, which I pronounced perfectly, written by Noah Hawley and directed by Donald Murphy. Donald Murphy, by the way, is he doesn't have a ton of director credits, but he's a lot of assistant director credits, including work on Legion, stuff like that. So he has worked with Noah Holly before. And, and, you know, I always love it when someone who has, like, worked somewhere else on the credits list gets bumped up into, like, the director role and, you know, directing a home invasion sequence that takes, I don't know, it's like

10, 12 minutes of the episode, no small thing. And quite capably, I might add. Like, that's, again, the action sequences in the show are among the highlights so far. In Sully-Billia, the title of the episode, we were just discussing. And I like Google on my part, literally minutes ago. tells us that this word is often connected to the concept of the liar's paradox. The liar paradox is if a liar says they're lying,

then they're telling the truth, and if they're telling the truth, then are they lie? It's like a, do you have any better way to explain that than I just did, Rob? Not particularly. I mean, this is one where,

I think you could go a couple different directions with the title and its applications. I know that's a game that both of us love to play. We do. I took it more as kind of what is unsolvable. And in this case, I think a couple of our main actors making their situations unsolvable by controlling what they interpret to be reality or controlling the messaging around the actual truth. I love that. I think maybe we should take a little bit of an overview before we go beat by beat to talk about some of the bigger themes that are kind of coalescing now that we have four episodes to study. We were having on the idea of like debt in this episode, obviously, like we already knew that.

that the character of Indira was getting all these debt notices, but we have the sequence where she's getting a call from a debt collector as Lorraine is giving her just a great A terrible interview to Forbes about her company and her millions and billions that she has earned squeezing people who are in debt. This idea of Sin Eaters, which we already talked about last week with the flashback, And what I really love is that in this episode, we get several classic Fargo monologues about sparrows and potato eaters and whoever else we might want to be talking about.

We love a parable around here, Joe. We really do. But the character of Monk is how his last name, he pronounces his last name. When he's talking about his early years and the idea of freedom and all that sort of stuff, and he says kings and be cut directly to Roy Tillman sitting there. And last week we had Lorraine talking about the police as like gatekeepers. We have to think of these characters as kings and queens, lords at least, in in this story that they're telling and the idea of the of the sin eater, which is someone who doesn't have much money who is required to metaphorically at least take on the sin of the rich person who is putting put to rest.

So how the haves, exploit, squeeze, torment, pass their sins down to the have-nots is very much on the mind of this season of Fargo. What do you want to say about that? I mean, I love the parallel you just drew kind of between the sin-eaters and the debt collectors in a way, right? There's a straight line between those ideas. I think what's interesting about Tillman is,

although he is a lawman, and we get that credential challenged in this episode, he is a king, and he's operating like a king. He's not operating like a gatekeeper. He is not the guard at the door. He's operating with complete impunity. And this was a fascinating showcase in where his power lies and how it manifests, because it's not,

you know, he's a guy who, although he has some people kind of standing watch at his house and people take his orders, and clearly he's in a position of elected authority, I thought the scene we get to at the very end of this episode is the clearest articulation of his actual power. in these interpersonal dynamics, and maybe we can save that for the end.

But it really set up this idea of him as a king, even if it is the king of a small little hill. When the feds came to see him and he's sitting in his hot tub, he might as well have been on a throne. You know what I mean? Like, that's just how he carries himself. An update on that front, by the way. We have a crucial update on John Hamm nipple ring watch

in between our podcasts, in which John Hamm has helpfully articulated to the Hollywood Reporter that these are our latex, aesthetic nipples. They are not his actual nipple rings. Fake nipple situation arising here on Fargo. Wow. Nipplegate. And most importantly, Noah Hawley has clarified that it's a character choice. And in particular, he's kind of laid it out as being part of this, quote unquote, Tiger King America that we live in, this idea of like a hedonistic Christian right sheriff, who is more than just like a Bible thumper in Holly's words. The other update we have on John Hymn's

nipple rings is that we have a new email address for the show, which is John Ham's nipple rings at gmail.com. We got some emails to hobbits and dragons. Thank you so much for those. We'll be reading some of them. But in future, please direct your pronunciation corrections, your Minnesota nice anecdotes, all of that to John Ham's nipple rings at gmail.com. And if you do not know this off the top of your head, John Ham spells his name, J-O-N-H, so it's J-O-N. And then an H-A-M-M. So no H-N-John, 2-M's and Ham, John Hamper rings at gmail.com.

We have fun here on the Presti-D-P podcast. Yeah, I don't say this lightly for my co-host who is an accomplished podcaster, a New York Times best-selling writer. This is your finest work, securing this particular email address. So kudos to you, and I hope a raise is incoming. Can I tell you that in the interest of, like,

just full disclosure, transparency and the idea of, like, it's always good to like challenge your own ideas and revise them. My first, the first one that I grabbed was Roy Tillman's nipple rings at gmail.com. And I was like, that's not as funny. And so we also own that. So you can send it to that as well if you want.

But Don Ham's nipple rings is the real email address for this run of Fargo. The last thing I want to say, I guess, about this idea of debt is we keep seeing it sort of crop up. Well, we, you know, we see Monk leave the message on, on the hench that he killed, which is like, you know, you owe me, right? I'm owed. And then that's the language, of course, that Roy has been using about dot or Nadine, however you prefer to call her. You know, she owes me, like she owes me something.

She's incurred a debt that cannot be repaid. No. With money, right? Um, is what he says. There's, uh, in, I think his last week's episode, yeah, they have a meeting outside of Hammorabi's pawn shop, the coat of Hammurabi's. Robbie is sort of like an eye for an eye sort of thing. And then we also have now two characters,

the guy at the gun show and Danish, who have only one eye. So I, you know, this is something to look, you know, my lovely co-host Rob Mahoney loves to look at a poster on a boy's wall.

I love to look at signs on shops. And this is trained into me from Westworld. So yeah, Hammurabi's pawn shop is here to drive the message home. So I think it'll be fun. to look for other moments like that elsewhere in the season. Well, especially for a show that's so conscious of exactly that kind of detail, right? We're being walked and primed into these themes as much as anything.

Absolutely. All right. So we're going to go beat by beat through this episode, starting with the Nightmare Before Christmas Home Invasion. And Noah Holly did give an interview to Entertainment Weekly where you talked about why there have been so many Nightmare Before Christmas allusions in the show. There's two reasons. Number one, he says, I like that movie.

It's a specific choice when I chose that movie Because the favorite of my house My kids will grow up and watch Fargo one day And it will feel meaningful to them We had to get a blessing from Tim Burton to do it Which is great So Tim Burton signed off Nighting Before Christmas

And he was also talking about how Nighter Before Christmas is both a Halloween movie And a Christmas movie And so like the idea of Christmas In Minnesota and North Dakota Being under several feet of snow You know It's sort of like it's kind of

There's also another reason that I'm going to say for later that I am like intrigued and surprised by it. It is something that I don't fully agree with yet, but I'm going to wait to see. But that was an interview he gave to Entertaut Weekly. But yeah, here we start with the masks on the four home invaders. And Dot is more than prepared for this eventuality. Dear Lord, is she prepared? And those bulletproof vests really came in handy, too. I'm glad she stocked up with the last minute return to the store.

I mean, great stuff. The whole zombie. She keeps the vest on and on Scotty, like as they're, I mean, you know, not much, not like they had a lot of time to do anything between the fire and the hospital, but I was wondering if it was intentional for her to be like, let's just keep ourselves continuously safe, as long as we can get away with wearing these bulletproof vests in the hospital. It was a tough break for the lion family.

to not do their witch-bair costumes. They pivoted from witch-bears into zombie and zombie killers, which I would have loved to see the witch-bear personally. I think next year, witch-bears. Yes. Right? A little safer. A little quieter neighborhood.

Maybe a new neighborhood. We'll see kind of where they end up at the end of this season. But I would love to see the witch-bears at some point. I would like to see them feel so safe that they can be wish bears for Halloween. That's exactly what it is. As you know, I care very much about protecting Wayne, and this was a very harrowing episode for me as Wayne gets fried in his own house. But before we get there, let's talk about, I would say, the main needle drop in this episode,

which is Tiny Tim, who I know mostly for Tiptoe through the Tulips, but this is like a novelty singer from the 70s, Tiny Tim's rendition of I Got You Babe, which was playing diogenetically in the house. Like she put it on like it's Guantanamo Bay to like sort of, Yeah, distract and dismay the home invaders. What do you think of all this? The camera's swirling and tilting. All this stuff is going on.

So we're getting overloaded in a sensory way as we walk into the house. I mean, I love this sequence. I love watching Dot go to work. You know, she's just a master we're finding at controlling her environment in these situations. She is, for real, a tiger, as we know. And so we saw that, I think, in some small ways in the service station. but even more so in these two occasions when the kidnappers have come to her home.

And she is manipulating the environment. She is creating as many distractions as possible. She sends Wayne and Scotty up to the attic immediately. She's popping something in the oven. I still can't quite tell what it is. Maybe it's just like a baking dish full of oil as far as I can tell. I don't know what would smoke that much in a hot oven

to create that level of distraction. But look, I haven't tried to put all manner of household chemicals in my oven before. It could be literally anything. And I would suggest you don't, Rob. I would say, go ahead. Let the mystery be. I think that's smart in this case.

But I do love the music cue here. And in particular, Joe, I have to ask you as a ukulele player yourself, do you think you could tab this thing out? Do you think you could pull off the I've got you, babe, ukulele cover? I'm really upset that I told you that in off pod at some point. No, absolutely not. My ukulele skills are extremely basic. And Tiny Tim was like one of our most accomplished.

ukulele players of all time. I don't think I can match him. It's an acclaimed group, I'm sure. In this sequence overall, I mean, I love seeing our kidnappers rolling up to the Lion House like four people who don't seem to know exactly what they're getting into.

The swagger and confidence of our kidnappers as they walk into something really interesting to watch. But also, as they're kind of stalking around the house and the menace they're projecting through the windows, I was getting whiffs not of other Cohen Brothers movies, which is something that happens often in the show. but in particular of two different Adam Wingard movies. I don't know if you have a relationship to either of these movies, Joe,

but your next, this felt like a very creepy mask, home invasion scenario rendition of your next. And also The Guest, which is a thriller about kind of unknowingly letting a dangerous element into your home. The guest is one of the best movies of all time. I fucking love that movie so much. I fucking love the guest. And there's sequences later in this episode, too,

when Tillman is kind of clearing his home with his shotgun, where the score to me very clearly evokes the guest. That's so interesting. I was thinking about like when, when dot decides or when the power gets cut and then it's just like this blaring alarm sound and then the strobing out of the jack-o-lantern pumpkin, that strobing light sort of home invasion

or stalking sequence happens at the end of the guest, again, one of the greatest movies all the time. And if you don't, like, if you're not bored with Dan Stevens being one of the best, like anything of all time that tells me you haven't seen the guest because he's just incredible in that movie. Anytime anyone asks me to do any kind of like wish casting or fan casting, I'm trying to smuggle Dan Stevens into literally every project imaginable at this point. 100%. Get this man some more work and some great work. I just want to see him in everything.

There's nothing he can't do. That's what I'm saying. Home Loan vibes off the chart. We get a payoff of the the sledgehammer gets a payoff. Yeah, quick one. Right away. It's six minutes thereabouts before anyone says anything in this episode. And it's, you know, Nadine Dot talking to Gator, someone she knows. And someone who, like, if she's been gone, sorry, what is it, nine years thereabouts?

I forget the timeline. Sounds right. You know, Joe Curie is like, I think supposed to be in his 20. Like, I think she knew him as a teenager and knew him as a kid. like so when she says not his mom and we'll talk about that a little later because there's another missing wife of Sheriff Freud Tillman

but when she says shame on you gator you know what I mean like this is someone who was a mother figure to him at some point and he calls her mama in the pursuit but again not in a biological sense so much as I suspect just like the context you're describing being a young

a young kid or a tween or a teen for whom this was his mother figure I also, I really loved when they're breaking into the house. You know, Nadine is, Nadine slash dot, has set up all these traps, including a light bulb on the sliding back door, which as Gator slides it open, he sees it and catches it. Rare moment of competency for Gator, you know? Definitely of competency. And certainly, you know, this ain't his first rodeo.

He's been breaking an intern for years at this point, I imagine. But also it felt like something where he's, he's kind of seeing Nadine, right? He knows her in a little. way that maybe other people in the story don't just yet. As you mentioned, Wayne has got to go up into the attic, and they're safe there until someone pulls down the, one of the, I don't know, what do you call that? We don't have those in California. The hatch.

I mean, I just called a ladder. I'm sure there's a specific name for it. The attic catch. Let's go with Atticatch. Maybe we do have those in California. I just never, it's like the concept of the underground basement doesn't really exist in California. And I think like some other things.

don't. Anyway, the out of catch. And Scotty's reaction is go mom, which is great. And Wayne, however, is like, you know, you got me in the dark here. Like, what's going on? Who's Nadine? What's happening? And he makes the fatal error of not taking her instruction on where to go and how and improvises his own escape plan, which is out the, out the master bedroom window, down the trellis. And it does not work out well for my guy Wayne. I was really worried that this was curtains for Wayne. He looked absolutely ghastly after getting electrocuted. Shouts to the makeup person who was responsible for that

because a great little punctuation mark on our little developing haunted house ghost story we have going on at the Lion residence. But look, after you macalisterize your home like this, you can't just be walking around all willy-nilly. And I think we get another moment of great contrast between Dot who's like going in the basement climbing up rope ladders through the laundry chino's exactly how to navigate this crazy environment

and then we have our big old softy Wayne with the very first opportunity goes hands first into some electrical wire. You hate to see it. I love that word ghastly and he does like he looks like the zombie that he's supposed to be playing for Halloween like it's really funny. Anyway, Scotty and Dot get Wayne out the window with a out-jew. go, hun, like really, you know, a cutesy, like, whatever.

And then we have this really cool moment, and we've seen it a couple times with Nadine. And Dot, it is her, like, I'm calculating all routes of escape or whatever, where the audio gets muffled. And we're just sort of inside her head. And Juno Temple takes on this, like, wide-eyed staring around, almost disassociating in a way. And, like, I think it's playing. It's figuring out a route of escape, but it also might just be like, I don't know, a panic response. I can't tell quite if it's like trauma dissociating or like planning the escape, but it's not until we hear like a large crash that snaps her out of it and she then she goes back into motion again.

But I think this idea of this woman as highly capable, yes, but also deeply traumatized by whatever it is that made her be this capable is something at the show is constantly. constantly reminding us of, which I really like. And then she has to watch the home that she built, like the life that she built go up in flames. And it's devastating. And that's another kind of quiet, reflective moment for her where she's retreating into herself, which to me is just a smart way to anchor this show in that character. Obviously, she's kind of our primary point of view in this world for a lot of the scenes so far. But it's a way to make it an internal moment without revealing too much.

much about who she is. We don't get some cutaway to a flashback that would explain how she knows all this, all this stuff. We just get her calculating. And it's so clear what she's doing and we're brought inside her head. But without giving away the game at this stage in the story. And I think also, I mean, Juno Temple just has these, like, giant sort of, like, limpid eyes.

Like, she can just, like, do a lot with, you know, a sort of teary-eyed gaze at something. One of the other things in this home invasion sequence that thinks worth calling out is as Dot is maneuvering around the kidnappers, going upstairs, downstairs, back up the shoot, all of that. One of the henchmen gets this slow, dramatic walk up to pull back the shower curtain, which is another very overt Fargo 96 reference. And in the movie, you know, Gene Lundegarde is hiding in the shower. Here, the henchman looking in the shower is what allows Dot to climb up the rope behind him. him, right? It's the exact, him playing the beats of Fargo 96 is what's allowing her to be evasive. And in particular, later, she uses that same shower curtain to wrap up a different henchman, pushing that henchman down the stairs, like literally weaponizing the plot of Fargo 96 against the kidnappers,

which, again, I'm here for all of this shit. It's just an amazing way to riff and kind of remix on those ideas. I was also reading in it, I think it was that same entertainment weekly interview with Noah Hawley, where he was talking about the wallpaper choices in the lion household and how there's like a room that the wallpaper is like a jungle to denote like her as the tiger in the jungle sort of thing. And then when she gets down into the kitchen, he was talking about the first home invasion, but like tiger in the jungle up in the bedroom sort of thing. And then down in the kitchen when she was surrounded and backing up against the wallpaper are like bars. And he was like, you know, it's like from the jungle.

to jail or the cage for the tiger sort of thing. So like, I love that. Yeah, this idea of like Noah Holly's thinking down to the bones of the production design on sort of like how we can, you know, really rewards. You're Rob Mahoney's. You're, you know, analyzers of posters. So yeah. But the next couple sequences, which is Roy and Church and then the line family at the hospital

and then Witt and Indira watching the surveillance video. We get three different sort of manifestations or meditations on kind of faith and belief systems and superstitions. Roy is in church talking about talking to God, talking about this time that he saw the devil, what he says, the midnight man with his serpent tongue when he went on, you know, encountered a crime scene where a man had hung his wife, cut his kids up, blah, blah, was sitting there. He says he saw the devil. Bielzebub crouched low whispering in that poor man's ear. He says, you protected me then, old friend. Be there with us again in our hour of need. So here is, you know, King Roy means King.

I just realized that. Okay, anyway, Roy Tillman. King Tillman. And also we find out that like his father and his father before him were all sheriffs, right? So like king like this has been passed down from father to son. And Gator is the, you know, fucked up prince. but there's always one, you know? Yeah, that he believes that God is his old friend.

God is on his side. God is looking out for him. They are old friends together. And as someone who has gotten away with as much as Roy appears to have gotten away within his life and who has just enjoyed a life of comfort and ease, I can understand how you might think of God as your old friend. That's going to be a dot has a different perspective. We'll talk about that in a second.

But we get that cut together with Roy walking to his house and finding this invasion in his home that monk has been there, left a bloody ruin question mark on the wall above his twins beds. So how did all of this, the church and the discovery of the blood in the wall work for you? Yeah, I think the idea that he's not so much in prayer, but in conversation with God jumped out to me. And maybe this is, you know, I was raised a God-fearing Catholic, so maybe this is my upbringing speaking, but there's something so perfectly presumptuous about him having this kind of casual exchange with God who's supposed to be his protector and be in his corner and always be in, you know, signaling that he is always in the right in his pursuits. And that's something he spoke to in episode too, right? The idea of being a righteous man who can basically do no wrong in these situations. So I love getting to see this side of Tillman, too. We've seen him as sheriff.

We've seen him as man of the world. This is our first kind of like detailed glimpse of him as a preacher, which he also is in this town apparently, just positions of power all over the place. And certainly has a uniquely privileged relationship with God, it seems. Yeah, I love that. Perfectly presumptuous. Just like sort of old friend means like we're on even grounds.

Yeah. There's nothing. I'm an atheist, but still like even I, if I were to go, if I were a person trying to make a bargain with a deity, there's an idea of like supplication there. There's no ask here in Tillman's whole monologue. It's be with us, right? It's, if anything, closer to an order than an ask.

I love that. All right. Meanwhile, Scotty and Dot are at the hospital. Poor Wayne has been fried. And Scotty asks that the home invaders are demons, right? And Dot says, they're not demons, they're just men. And so at first I was like, oh, are we getting a contrast between the belief, we're not going to call it piety, like the belief that Roy would believe in a God that has protected him. A dot would not believe in a God because nothing has been given to her and she has to have to fight.

Like, no one has protected her. So why would she believe in a God if she's not been protected? But she does have this idea of a code of faith of some kind, right? She says, and it's almost like she's trying to convince herself. She says, bad things don't happen to good people. The wicked stick to the darkness while we get to stay in the light. If you follow the rules and you think only good thoughts, the kingdom of heaven will be the reward. These are things that she says to Scotty.

And on one hand, you could think of it as like are these comforting words she's giving her daughter. But it sounds more like this is the bargain she made with herself. If I leave Roy, if I make it out of her. out of here. And I am the good mom. I am getting the Biskwick ready. I am going to the PTA events. I am raising my daughter with love. I am treating my husband with love. Like, I am a good person. Do I not then get to have a good life? You know, because we don't know who she was when she married Roy. She might have been an innocent from the jump. Her familiarity with firearms might have been something she developed while she was married to him. We don't know.

but if she felt like if there's a version where she wasn't walking the straight and arrow when she met Roy and then she saw that as her punishment for something and she's like if I am good now and obviously like to be very clear with my own messaging

domestic violence has nothing to do with like whether a good person or not I don't believe that but like if that is the idea that she is crafted for herself and she's like I did all that I was supposed to do I am the good mom I am the good wife and hell has found me anyway. The demons have come to my door. My house is on fire.

I don't know. It just seemed like a really delicious and interesting contrast between Roy ordering God about and her not really bringing God into it, though Kingdom of Heaven obviously does in its own way, but she's really talking about these aren't demons. These are just humans. We are walking the right path. We get to stay in the light. It's almost like she's, she's reassuring herself more than she's reassuring Scotty. What do you think? I completely agree. And it's such a nice answer to that Tillman section we got in episode two, where if a man is pure, his actions are only ever good, which in retrospect, reads more and more like the president can never do anything illegal kind of vibes to me. Yeah, yeah. But so I like the, I like the mirror of those ideas of how they think about goodness and what

it's for and what its purposes and who gets to judge it. But you also get this very touching moment of dot teaching Scotty how to lie to her family, how to lie to the police. Maybe our first example of insolubilia. Now Scotty is an accomplice in the cover-up. Scotty's a good study, though. She's a quick study. She's ready with the alibi.

She tries to rat out Jack Skellington, though. First opportunity. That was tough. The third piece of this is really quick, but it's Witt and Indira watching the surveillance video and clearly identifying dot on the video. But they can't see Monk, the lights go out before Monk shows up, right? And Witt says, they say ghosts don't photograph anyway. And Indira says, ghost, and he says something else. Like, this is not a human that we're dealing with.

A timeless creature does not read on a video. I thought that was notable, too, in light of Dot talking about how there's no such thing as demons, because she had a pretty okay time dealing with Monk. Like, knocked him out Colts, was able to hold her own in that confrontation in a way that Tillman seems pretty shook up by his encounter with Monk coming into his home. You know, the creature of the Black Lagoon, as he's later called in this episode. So the fact that Dot is seeing everyone as human and Tillman is seeing mystical creatures and Beezelubub on their shoulders and Beezelubb on their shoulders. they're whispering in their ear. Like there's a, there's a,

not just a different level of spirituality, but of mysticism happening for some other people in the story. I really like that. Then we get this debt collector speech. I already alluded to it a bit, but like, I want to pause here and ask you,

so I, I kind of love what Jennifer Jason Lee is doing in this show. It definitely does feel like she's vibrating on a different performance level than everyone else is, that like she might be in a different, show than other people are. And usually that annoys me. Here it doesn't, for a couple of reasons.

One, because it is such a clear, like, allusion to her head sucker proxy character. But also just because these sort of like kings and queens, lords and ladies, like, it makes sense to me that they would act like they're on a different planet from the rest of us. So I've heard from some people that Jennifer Jason Lee's performance is like sort of taking them out of the show and I can't disagree that it is like oversized outside over the top all this sort of stuff

but in context it works for me so yeah I'm wondering how it's sitting with you it's sitting perfectly well for me I think in part because I interpret it as in-world performance right it's not just Jennifer Jason Lee's performance it's Lorraine's performance and you could

listen to the way Wayne talks that is her son And this is the way that she has chosen to talk, right? I agree. In the same way that she gets her family to pose with multicolored machine guns for the Christmas card for the projection of values, she is projecting a kind of wealth and value and importance in just the way she talks. So I wouldn't be surprised if we get a similar veil dropped, we see the real Lorraine moment at some point in the series in the same way we have with Dot already. I also can't recall if we've learned anything about like how she made, like we hear her.

from her talking in this interview about you know making money through the company but like I wonder if she is a self-made woman versus Roy being part of like a dynasty you know what I mean power handed down

through the generations it was given to him by his father yeah whereas like perhaps a Lorraine is a person who and I don't I don't think the show has told us this and I don't know this but like if she's someone who's had to build this empire for herself that idea of performance

makes even more sense to me of like, oh, is this how to use a phrase I don't love because I think it's snobby inherently, but the idea of like Nouveau-Riche and the idea that you have to like put on the performance of money in order to feel like you,

like, oh, exaggerately, in order to feel like you belong in this world and the strata. I don't know the answer to it, but she's definitely projecting a lot. Yeah, I'd be curious to learn more about her backstory too, in particular because like debt collection

as an industry obviously requires a lot of capital to participate in in the first place. You can't just walk in cold and build something from the ground up. You have to have a lot of money to buy the debt, to operate in that space, and then profit off of it. And so the idea that if she is walking into that world already wealthy and already privileged,

and as you say, like the beneficiary of some kind of dynasty, I think that makes the idea that she is both rich and a sin-eater for other people, that they have kind of taken on that responsibility and taking on all the value and profit in it. Kind of an interesting riff on that idea, too. I love what she's saying in this interview, right? Where she's like, we're intended to give people their dignity back.

Good Lord. She would get crushed for this interview in the real world. This is an awful, awful interview, even for Forbes magazine. I love when he's like, aren't you the one calling breakfast and lunch at dinner or whatever? And she's like, sure, we call them, but it's not like you say. Like, it's just like, I just, I, I, I love this. I love this playing over Indira, sort of, when she says, stress takes a toll on your body, like, all this sort of stuff.

So then you can see it like in Adira's entire body in the performance of, of just that weight hanging over her that she is assumed from her husband, right? Like, what starts this is a medical debt of her husband, de-gloving his ring finger. Oh, nope. Maybe the most grisly thing we have seen or heard on this show as of yet.

I feel really bad. So, on the house of our episode last week that you were on where we were recommending things for people, and I recommended this for fans of Barbie. I forgot to include the caveat

because I guess I just assumed people knew that this is an incredibly violent and disgusting show. So someone of my Twitter feeds, like, I watched this because you recommended it off of Barbie. And I needed a break after the first episode is everything this

violent. And I was like, oh, yeah, pretty violet. Oh, yeah. Fargo's pretty violent. Somebody's walking into this with their eight-year-old expecting a romp, a nice little time and some neon rollerblades. My apologies. This is not, it's not that. Not that.

All right. Let's talk about Lorraine, swaning into the hospital, demanding the Saudi package for her darling son. How can this woman take you out of this show? I love her. I love her. And then she says to Dot, she says, your last boondoggle? Like, this is just like, I'm sorry.

It was amazing. I love how this nurse is like, basically like, ma'am, this is a Wendy's to her. And she's like, she's fired. She's fired, yeah. Like, it's just, it's just wonderful. So we get like a big gathering of folks here, right? Like, Whitney and Deer are here. Graves is here.

Graves is here. Scotty's just trying to get some snickers for breakfast out of the vending machine. For breakfast? Are we on welfare? Also, spoken like somebody who's never had Reese's puff cereal before. Candy for breakfast is what we do around here in this country. I was actually talking to someone about this just this last week. We were not allowed to have...

Okay, so I have a friend. We grew up with similar granola moms, and we weren't allowed to have anything with sugar in our cereal. So, like, we were like a grape nuts, kashi. Wow. So like honeynut Cheerios is too much sugar. No, plain cheery is okay. Honey nut, no. Okay. But her granola mom, every year for Christmas,

wrapped up a box of their favorite sugary cereal and they got like one box of sugary cereal a year and they got it for Christmas. I was like, that's kind of cute. It's like... That's ingenious. Yeah. Meanwhile, we were just like over at my house, we were just chomping on grape nuts. It's fine. This is fine. My parents,

there was always like one thing we couldn't do in every category. And for cereal, it was like there was a rice crispy treats cereal. Oh. And it was like, you're not allowed to eat. That's too sugary in the same way that we could watch almost anything on TV, but The Simpsons can't watch it. Too far.

Could play any video game, but Mortal Kombat, you can't play it. I guess it was like whatever was on the local news as like the scare item of the month was the thing we were not allowed to do. No, listening to Marilyn Manson, Rob. No, oh, definitely not. Absolutely not. Okay, amazing. So to the day, I can't eat sugary cereals just because I wasn't brought up on it.

so it tastes wrong to me. I think you're mostly fine. Your cereal should be like, you know, actively improving your colon according to my standards. So, you know. I think you should indulge in some cinnamon toast crunch at some point. That's the only entry in the genre I would support. I also did love, you know, Danish Graves,

gives Scotty, I think what appears to be a $100 bill to go to the vending machine, which was very arrested development, what is a gallon of milk cost kind of moment for me. But what's so great about that is like, that's hilarious. Here you go, kid, right? Like, that's hilarious.

But what's hilarious to me is that Lorraine doesn't even carry folding money. Why would you? She's like, graves her personal ATM. Excuse me, give some cash to my granddaughter.

She can go eat a candy bar or a vending machine. All right. We've been asking this question. So, like, I think this is actually, this is a great place

to bring this question in. We got an email from listener who was asking from Squally who says, Curious if you think it will turn out that Scotty is actually Roy's child. Seems like the timing is right based on when Dot left him as well as Lorraine's offhand remark about Wayne knocking her up, which is what led to the marriage.

Perhaps she was already pregnant when they met. What do you think? I was actually, I was doing that math as well. I think the math didn't like quite add up for me in terms of Scotty's age, but I could be wrong. And it's certainly within the realm of possibility. And I like this idea that like if the thing that made. push dot to really finally escape

is this idea of like, I'm pregnant and I don't want to bring another person into this terrible situation I found myself in. So then she finds herself, let's say, like the most cynical interpretation of this, she finds herself a sucker in Wayne, right? And she's already pregnant. She meets Wayne.

She's like, this guy's a soft touch. You won't do the math, which is probably true of Wayne. They'll be like, oh gosh, three months early. Like, what's going on, you know? I worry about the book. at the car dealership. Our guy, Wayne, not gifted with the numbers.

If all of that's true, let's say, and I can see that happening. And in which case, Roy would feel even more, owed even more, right? Ode Scotty. Then the question becomes, how much is Dot using Wayne and how much does you genuinely care about him? And I think in this bedside scene in the hospital, my interpretation is she genuinely cares about him. Like she might feel like he is not her intellectual equal necessarily, but like I think she is so protective of him

and genuinely cares that he's okay, and I think she does love him. What's your read on the situation? I think more a little more mixed. I do think she cares about him and loves him. But there's little things, like the things she's asking about are not so much, are you okay, but like, what do you remember? Yeah, yeah.

What do I need to cover up? What do I need to explain away? What do I need to tell you to get us aligned on what the truth really is? And even when she climbs into bed with him, look, Wayne was just electrocuted. I think he is entitled to be the little spoon in this moment. He is entitled for some support and affection. But I feel like Dot wants to be comforted in that moment. She wants to be wrapped up with Wayne.

But I think circling back to Scotty's role in this and whether Dotman, have been pregnant when she first escaped Tillman, we do get kind of a conspicuous age drop on Scotty when she's having a conversation with Gator, when Dot and Gator are talking during the home invasion. What Dot says is like, there's a baby in this house, if anything, kind of underplaying the age of how old Scotty is. And Gator knows how old Scotty is and refers to it specifically,

which makes me think that's a bit of important information that maybe we should circle. And he was sort of looking at the family photo in a... It hit him a certain way, that's for sure. And I could... I mean, like, if anyone looks like anyone, I could...

I could be convinced that the actress who plays Scotty is related to Joe Curie. Like, they kind of look similar in the face. Okay. Interesting information. I hear you. Dot is definitely, like, gas-like gatekeep girl bossing when she's talking to Wayne. Yeah.

But she's also crying. Like, they're both kind of crying. She does care about him. And yeah, poor Wayne has got his noodle. Like, she's like, did they give you something? Right? Like, his noodle is entirely cooked and I'm very worried about him. Big wife guy, though, Wayne.

My wife. Very borat. Like, do you think he loves for it? Very borat. But yeah, I keep coming back to the conversation Dot and Lorraine had in, you know, in the previous episodes about the nature of the marriage and the nature of the relationship. And what Dot's explanation was was he loves me. Right?

He loves me. that's why this marriage works. That's why our agreement is still intact, regardless of boondoggles and whatnot. Let me go to the feds, and I would say, I love this show, I love the season, it's really working for me. This is the one storyline that is not, like,

sort of leaping off the page for me, is our two federal agents. You know, this is where we get the story of the sparrow and the sort of like the nuisances you need on the food chain to make sure it all runs smoothly according to their boss. He has suggested, that they make Roy their hobby.

They're like, you're in cahoots is sort of seems to be, but two, here's the kicker. Two of Roy's wives have disappeared. Yes. What happened to Gator's mom? She's got it going on. Excellent Fountains of Wayne reference,

but here's something I'm curious about. If Gator's mom was disappeared in a way that, like, Roy can make a body disappear if he needs to, versus the way that dot disappeared herself from the situation? Does Gator know that? What does Gator know about what happened to his mom?

This brings me, I was going to say this, but I'll just say it now. This is the wild thing that Noah Hawley said about Jack Skellington. He said, as Jack Sellington as he relates to Gator, he says, Jack is someone who, much like Joe Curie's character, who's trying to be something he's not. Okay. Which is an evil scary dude when really he's a softie. Okay. quote, there's too much pressure on Gator and he's always trying to live up to those expectations.

While at the same time, deep down with a different father, he would have been a kind soul. It's a sins of the father, right? And whether Joe's character is going to be able to get out from under the burden of and reject what's toxic about his lineage. So I did not see any traces of the softie in Gator unless we're talking about the very end of this episode when his dad puts, one in Joshua's neck and Gator walks in and is like, what's going on? Like, what are we doing here?

Yeah. Essentially. And to me, I thought that was more reaction of like, this is reckless even for us, not like him grasping his pearls at the morality of the situation. So softy feels like too much of a charge.

But like what is true is that Gator is being pressed and pressed and pressed by his father. Gator is definitely performing something much the way Lorraine is, like, you pointed this out last week. There's just so much performance in the literal hype up. The way his room is decorated really feels like performance and the vape and all of that. And will that break him in some way? Like, will that make him swing one way or another?

Is there a line that he has that if his father crosses is too much for him? Like that, you know, the way that he's acting in the home invasion in this episode, again, has no connection to the word softy for me. There seems to be no pause around Scotty or anything like that. Like there's no softness there. But yeah, this idea of like he's not cut out for this. I think that we can agree on. He's not made of the same stuff as his father that we agree upon.

He's not about this life and maybe just very bad at it. I find myself, if anything, I really want to have a conversation with Noah Hawley about Nightmare Before Christmas after this, because I don't know what movie he watched. Is Jack Skellington not a softy to you? Jack Skellington is a softie, but his problem in that movie is that the thing he's best at

is something he doesn't like doing anymore. And so his story is about finding purpose in that. And if anything, he's still scary, and that's why he terrifies all the kids of Christmas town. That's why he ruins Christmas is because he is scary. Now I really want you to have an entire long conversation with Noah Holly about night before Christmas. Perhaps it can be arranged.

We did get a... Here we go to Munk in the bath, covered in mud and blood. Very upsetting. Seeing a grown man covered in mud in a muddy bath. This is where we... How is he ever going to get that out of his hair? I have a lot of questions.

Here's where we get the ultimate pronunciation guide, which is the character himself saying his own name, right? He says, when Munk was a boy, right? Love a third person. Come on. Thank you. Thank you, Mung. Thank you, Munk.

And Gator continues to refer to him as Munch in this episode, right? So if you want to be uncouth, you say Munch. If you want to be elite and respectful, you say Munk. We did get a very nice pronunciation email from someone who also suggested that his first name is like, is like Ula. Yeah. So we're going to stick with Munk because I think we can get there because of Edvard Munk. But I'm going to leave Ula. to the experts.

Freedom from hunger from the rusty blade. To free himself, he ate first so others could not killed so he would not be killed. So this is his code. We keep getting codes from these various characters. And he says, only kings we get the cut to Roy Tillman, had the freedom to want. And then I just like, I kind of love this critique

of like everywhere you look, you see kings. Anything they want, they call their own. And if they cannot have it, they say they are not free. they even think their freedom should be free you know and it's like there's always a cost death life for life etc but this idea that like

our concept of being to bring it back to like here in America we eat sugar for breakfast here in America we do think we are entitled to our freedom and I like this idea of this character who is not American who is a timeless creature

but no matter like how old he is he's not from here is like what is this concept you have of you're entitled to your freedom. Like, that's not the world that I came up in. And it's so interesting to me because, like, on the one hand, that critique of, like, the Roy Tillman's of the world believing they are owed everything and anything they see or anything they want should be theirs. But it also just gets to the fundamental of, like, every American believes fundamentally

in, I don't know, certain inalienable rights, if you will. is that an inherent entitlement of America? Or as our corrupt ass founding fathers would argue, that should be inherent of the human condition. Anyway, I don't know. And all Monk wants his pancakes, which is great. Maybe Dot can make him so this quick. But like what do you make of this freedom speech?

This muddy, bloody bath freedom speech from Monk. I loved it. And I love the delivery of it. I love, I mean, frankly, everything we know about this character so far and the way Sam Spruill is playing it works, is jumping off the screen for me. This is kind of, in some ways, the payoff to the FBI conversation we had earlier, which I agree is the weakest part of the episode.

The humor in that scene doesn't really work. The parable in that scene is a little obvious. And like the agents telling like the FBI, a director or whoever that is that they're talking to captain, whatever authority figure they're talking to, like, oh, so you're on his side as like on the nose as on the nose gets. But Monk is clearly kind of the locused for Tillman. Tillman was not thinking two or three or four moves ahead when he tried to betray this timeless creature, who he thought was just like an average hitman.

And it's coming back to haunt him and his family. And now it's intruding into his home in a way that I think he found impossible to predict. So I love that idea in terms of setting up, again, monk as a force of nature, something Tillman does not quite know how to grapple with or understand, something that's beyond the kingdom that he's used to, where he can show up and push around abusive husbands and has complete control over every situation. If you are an expert in Rooms, and I hope you are if you're listening to this podcast,

please do email us at John Hampstimplewings at gmail.com. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor, doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection.

Zetbound contains a very low. terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience

vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit zepbound.lily.com. So the last sequence we get is Roy is back with the couple that he was talking to a couple episodes ago, Lenore and Joshua, and, you know, checking in as he promised he would about to see if Joshua was still, like, you know, the inherent complete hypocrisy of Roy Tillman and abuser passing judgment on an abuser is its own layer of what have you. he's checking in as he said he would. There's this terrible bruise on Lenore's wrist that looks a little fresh to me.

So, like, you know, he asked Lenore if she's been doing what she was supposed to do, which is take care of her man. And she says yes. And then, but Joshua himself is not holding up his side of this bargain, which is to not physically abuse his wife. And so I don't know if Roy was going to do this no matter what. It seemed like he might have done this no matter what because he has a plan for Joshua because he's just going to say that Joshua

is the one who killed the trooper and did X, Y, and Z to get the feds and the state and everyone off his back. But he does wait until Joshua draws on him, and then he shoots him in the neck, and it's disgusting, and Lenore is absolutely traumatized. With the enticing Joshua to shoot first, this kind of played like a justified scene

from a slightly different point of view. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we've certainly seen Raylan Givens in that show have very similar encounters with very similar scumbags, getting them to draw first, like antagonizing them to draw first. Like, is Tillman like a darkest timeline, Rayling Givens? Oh, no. You're going to make me question my allegiance to railing Givens. Yeah, he calls Joshua a waste of skin, which is something I could maybe hear Raylan say.

Defective. Speaking of the, like, sort of light sheen of Trumpism, I guess. running through this season. There are phrases that pop in here that I think are so to inspire things for me that I actually almost wish we're in here. When the Fed's boss says, you don't have to play four-dimensional chess.

I hate that four-dimensional chess is associated with like the conversations around Trump, but for some reason it is for me. And then lipstick on a pig is Sarah Palinism that we get in this scene and stuff like that. And it's just like those little buzz phrases, I'm just sort of like, if that's intentionally in there to invoke

something for me, or maybe I'm overthinking it, I don't know, but I'm just sort of like I just wish they weren't there or I wish my brain didn't work that way, one or the other. But as you say, he calls monks some kind of spirit, right? So we're in the like, who is this

creature? And then yeah, and then we get Gator sort of being a little queasy about what's going on here. The arterial spray alone is enough to freak him out here. He seems pretty shook up from his confrontation with Dot slash Nadine, too, to be fair.

Also calls her a tiger. And look, if you can't hang with the tigers, get out of the jungle. That's all I have to say. Maybe gator, again, is not about this world. It's not about this criminal life the way he thinks he is. He's a swamp guy. He's a swamp guy.

He's a gator. It's just a gator. All right. I'm going to run through some emails we got real quick. First is from Mark who says, and I love this. Dot strategy of switching the street signs recalled the Czech citizens defense

during the 1968 Prague Spring. They removed, didn't switch, the street signs to confuse the invading Warsaw Pact slash Russian soldiers who were new to town. I love that, didn't know that. Thanks for that world history from Mark. You can direct future erudite historical facts to John Ham's nipple rings at chmall.com.

Thank you so much. Randy wrote in to say, number one, during the abduction, did I see Dot dissolve into the wallpaper? Did you see that? I forgot to go back and look. I'm trying to think of when that would have happened. We definitely see her in the closet kind of peering out through some of the wooden slats, I believe. But I'm trying to think if we see her fall back into, I mean, look, she's regardless of whether she's fading into the wallpaper,

moving around with special ops level stealth through that house. He says, if so, do you think she disassociated in some way? I know that sort of playful imagery is on brand for Noah Hawley, but do you think we'll go back to that moment later on. Do you have another theory? Could we be seeing some altered version of reality on screen? Number two, did you enjoy the imagery of dots spinning a yarn just after she was instructed to write her own Pulp Fiction as much as I did? And number three, is there a better symbol of Gator Tillman's petulant immaturity than is Mountain Dew Green Vapen? So, all great points. I'm going to have to go back and look for the wallpaper thing. But if the wallpaper dissolved

did happen. I think it's on of a piece with like last week as you put it out Roy's cigar smoke curling up behind dot in her home this sort of like blending of reality sort of thing so I don't I don't think it means I think it's just

everything is operating on a slight just like a drop of legion in your Fargo this season more than other seasons maybe which is healthy all things in moderation I would say especially legionism A little drop really does go a long way. It really, it really does.

Last of at least, we get this email from Lisa about the concept of Minnesota Nice, which I requested. And again, please send your future Minnesota Nice emails to John Ham's Noble Rings at Gmail.com. Lisa says, I grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and I've lived in Minnesota for the past one year, so I have lifelong experience with Minnesota Nice. My experience is that it's a friendly politeness that can cover judgment and passive aggressiveness rather than violence. Minnesotans will may kill you with kindness, dripping with judgment, but they're likely to tell you they're angry. The little item I thought you'd enjoy most is that

Minnesotans have the equivalent to bless your heart in the South. It's just the word interesting. So if a friend tells a Minnesotan that they've invested all their money in oceanfront property in North Dakota, the correct response would be, well, that's interesting. So I love that, and I'm going to try to use that in future Lisa. Thanks so much. And then Lisa also is the one who sort of helped us with a pronunciation guide for a monk. Well, I love your voice work there, Joanna. I did have a question about Tillman's in this last scene in particular, it seemed like John Ham was maybe

more Midwestern than he had ever been in this show. I felt like I've heard the accent coming out more and more. Yeah, it's interesting because he hasn't been laying it on that thick. I want to think more about the accent work from John Ham and the accent work from Trevor Jason Lee. And if we should be thinking about these kings and queens or lords and ladies is like, what are they performing for? because, like, I could see a version of if Sheriff Roy Tillman ever wanted to expand his, you know, kingdom beyond his current turf and, like, run for governor or something like that.

I can, I feel like those, well, maybe George W. Bush is not a good example of that. But, like, I feel like sometimes those people, like, try to ditch the regional accent to make themselves more, like, sort of nationally palatable or something like that. but we did get an elect. The election keeps coming up, we should say, and in this episode, in that in that scene with the feds, their boss says, like, let's see how the election shakes out essentially. And they're like, oh, yeah, if he loses the election, we can just arrest him as a private citizen. So, like, that's just a thing that's been lurking around the corners of several episodes now. And then also we should say, and I really enjoyed it, the episode ends with Sheriff Roy Tillman, I guess, our darkest timeline, railing givens. Having killed a man and framed him and intimidated his abused wife and all this sort of stuff like that.

Yes. Slowly ride, literally rides off into the sunset. And just leaving a body bleeding out on the couch. It's not his problem to clean up. I mean, but aren't you going to file a report? Aren't you going to do anything? He's got guys for that. You know what I mean?

Like, that's Gator's job, I guess. Like, it's just, yeah. Just like a long slow ride off into the sunset for our not hero. Tillman. Yeah, that showdown between Tillman and Joshua. Yeah. I certainly took note of, you know, Joshua draws a gun on Tillman. And I think this is where we really see Tillman's power, which is the hesitation before

shooting someone like him. Right. If he was any other kind of private citizen, Joshua probably shoots him, kills him in cold blood after the way he's been rightly disrespected, but disrespected over the last couple episodes. And Tillman's badge makes him a little bit bulletproof. in this moment and forces you to hesitate and puts him in a position of power in terms of navigating this scene in this situation

where he gets to agitate you until you pull the gun and then he gets to shoot you. And so I think now we're seeing kind of, I had the question as we're talking about Tillman as a king and we highlight that idea in this episode. Like how powerful is this person really? And the FBI certainly seems to think

he's incredibly powerful so much that they fear really doing anything at all to curtail his actions and his, his, like, governance of this area. And now I think we're seeing why, we're seeing kind of the how and the practical effects of, this is what he is in this community.

He's someone that you can't really check, that you can't really curb, that you can't really control, and he's going to be able to frame whoever he wants for murders and close up cases as he wills and as he likes in order to get to the bottom of what he really wants to get to the bottom of,

which is, you know, his scavenger hunt to find dot. And I think it's very clever to connect that power and entitlement and come into your home and antagonize you to the legacy of his own family that he talks about and he talks about his ancestor being called Indian killer

given four medals of honor for you know and saying with pride with pride my ancestor are the Indian killer you know known as it's uh you know Noah Hawley as ever is using Fargo to say big things about our

country. I think the debt collector stuff is really interesting. Like something I want to continue to watch unfold because that is something that I think, you know, if we think about Fargo as something that has existed, the TV show is something that has existed

for nearly a decade, a decade now. Don't say that. Don't put that timeline on us. Sorry, buddy. That our understanding of the act of debt collection has, you know, thanks to John Oliver, et cetera, et cetera, whoever your preferred news sources has certainly like expanded and changed.

And so it's, I think, interesting for Holly to be like, let's tackle this extremely problematic aspect of our systems in my examination of America. What's at the heart of the rot at the center of it, et cetera? So interesting. Great episode television. Always in a light to talk to you. Rob Mahoney, anything else you want to say while I get on the phone to try to get Noah Hawley

to talk to you about Nightmare Before Christmas. It's very important. We need to get that done. I do have a nomination for maybe a recurring bit for us, which is in the spirit of the division in our great country that Fargo is highlighting on a weekly basis. Angry Guy of the Week.

There's someone in all these episodes who's just angry for seemingly no reason. And in this episode, it's a dude at the hospital who's been waiting four hours for an enema. And according to Dot, doesn't know how to wait his turn. Just yelling at nurses,

at orderlies, at anyone who comes by about wanting to get this enema done. So I look forward to further angry guys. Yeah, he needs that cancer out of him. Yes, post-haste. I understand. And also, apparently,

he was like sitting there with his ass in the air waiting for his enema or whatever, which I understand. This made him feel vulnerable. Yes. But I don't know that her, ringing the nurses is going to get him anywhere at the end of the day.

But yeah, it turns out our medical care system is also garbage. Welcome to America. All right. That does it for us this week. Thanks, as always, the great Kai Grady for a pretty simple episode. Robert, I'll be back next week. And I'm just going to say it

for the 50th time, John Hamm's nipple rings at gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. Bye.