The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Fargo’ Season 5 Finale Recap With Noah Hawley

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Jo and Rob break down the ‘Fargo’ Season 5 finale. They discuss their personal feelings on the final episode, how the characters of Indira Olmstead and Witt Farr fall flat in the end, and the conclusion to Gator’s redemption arc. Along the way, they briefly talk about the intense prison scene between Lorraine and Roy. Later, they’re joined by the creator and showrunner of ‘Fargo,’ Noah Hawley, to talk about how this season grapples with the symptoms of a divided America, the final confrontation between Dot and Ole Munch, how he goes about creating likable family characters, Witt Farr’s demise, and much more. Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Guest: Noah Hawley Producer: Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did Don Draper really buy the world of Coke? Did Tony Soprano really die? Or just order more onion rings? Were those guys really in hell the whole time, or was that just the audience? The finales of our favorite shows can make us argue, make us cry, and make us crazy. From Spotify and the Ringer, I'm Andy Greenwald, and this is Stick the Landing, a new podcast where we'll be telling the story of modern TV backwards, one fade out at a time. Each episode, a guest and I will choose a celebrated series from history,

from the 70s to the streaming era and beyond and do a deep dive on its very last episode. Was it all a dream? Did it turn into a nightmare? And most importantly, what can we learn about tomorrow's new shows from the way yesterday's ended? TV is a journey.

I hope you'll enjoy this podcast about the destination. Starting January 17th, find Stick the Landing on Wednesdays on the Prestige TV feed, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Prestige TV, podcast, feed. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me today for, I guess, some Chile and some drop biscuits. It is Rob Mahoney. Hi, Rob. How are you doing?

Hi, Joe. I've never found biscuits to be the go-to accessory to chili. Is this something that is part of your life? No, I mean, chili in general is not part of my life. Oh, it's cornbread, right? You make cornbread with chili. Cornbread or as a native Texan, a lot of, like, Fritos and that kind of chips, tortilla chips, like more other starches.

But now that it's in my brain, I can't wobble it loose. I need to eat biscuits and chili. So that'll have to happen at some point. All right. We are here today to talk about the Fargo season five finale titled Biskwick, the ultimate product placement for Biscuit in this episode. This episode, like last week's episode, is written by Noah Hawley, directed by Thomas Buzuka. And I did get confirmation that that is correct pronunciation of that. Gentleman's last name, Bazooka, amazing.

last name, amazing episode, amazing season of television. We're so excited. Quick, little mini, tiny announcement at the top of the show here, which is that in addition to talking to Rob, about the finale. Rob and I also got to talk to Noah Hawley, ever heard of him, creator of Fargo, writer of this episode. So we're going to chat about the finale. Our takes on it for about half of this episode and the back half is going to be our conversation with Noah Hawley, which is also just talking about the finale, essentially. So did Rob ask Noel Holly about Jack Skellington?

Tune in to find out. Yeah, all of your questions will be answered. So if we don't cover something, or at least all of our questions were answered and hopefully by extension, yours. Correct. Also, we should say in the feed, going right now,

last week, Sean Fantasy and I recorded an episode about the curse finale, one of the most bonkers hours of television we've had in recent memory. So you might want to listen to a trying to make meaning of that. That was a fun hour of discussion with Sean Fennessee. And then Rob and I are launching our watch of True Detective,

the new season of True Detective, colon, night country, season four, also in this feed. So there's a lot going on. And then a little later, I think it's out of this week or next week. I'm actually not sure of the start date. Kai, our producer, listening, is like, Joanna, why don't you know the start date? Andy Greenwald's, like, mini-series,

stick the landing, which will be. airing in his feed. Wednesday, Kai just wrote it in our chat. Okay, so Wednesday, probably today when you're listening to this Fargo episode, Stick the Landing is going to launch. Andrew Inwald is going back through various notable series finale

and talking to some of his pals around the ringer about whether or not they stuck the landing. And it's going on the chat that I had with him about a show I don't know that I'm allowed to say what it was, but it's going to be... Charles in charge, that's what it was.

Of our days and our nights, wrong. It's going to... It's going to be something of like almost school of a kind that makes it sound dry. It's very fun. But it's going to be really educational,

I think, to dig into these finale. If you're someone who just loves TV or if you're someone who wants to write TV in the future, I think it's a really interesting discussion about how, how to tie up a story, which some of the greats can't do. But you know who can do it?

Noah Hawley. And that brings us to today's finale. Rob, big picture. How did you feel about this finale of Fargo season five? I was really charmed by it. I was really energized by it. I'm honestly really impressed by the audacity of it. And specifically some of the pacing decisions that I'm sure we'll get into in greater depth.

But more importantly, Wayne Meeting Monk is the crossover event that I didn't know that I needed, and boy did I need it, Joe. So good. You and I think had similar reactions where, and we talked about this last week, that we didn't want, like, the whole finale to be one big shootout. By the way, I don't usually do this, but someone wrote a Prestige TV, like, review of our last week's episode, and they were talking about

me, and they were like, Joanna just wants it to be a Wal-to-Wall shootout. We all know this about you. Maybe she should go back to talking about Marvel and superheroes punching each other. And I was like that's the opposite of what I want. Anyway. If anything, I remember talking a lot about wanting explosions and eye sockets and general carnage,

if only because of the way they were teased in that episode. So maybe that's on me. I think people get us confused all the time. It's an easy mistake to make, I think. We're both quite tall. Just kidding. Rob's like astronomically taller than I am. Okay, so we were both, I think, happy

that, you know, the conflict on the, on the ranch takes up just a little bit of the episode, really. And then there's the aftermath is the most significant portion. Let's talk about the, let's just do it somewhat chronologically. Let's talk about the conflict on the ranch. I think the biggest thing, the two big things to talk about here are what happens with Whitfar and what happens with Gator, which one do you want to do first? Let's do wit first. I feel like in some ways it's maybe a little more fleshed out than what happens with Gator,

which I think we can circle to as kind of maybe the weaker part of this episode. I think Gator's ultimate end. And Wits, I think, leaves some similar questions. But for me, the moment Witt far went after Roy, there was no doubt in my mind he was going to die. Similar to when, like, Danish Graves is like, I'll go. And you're like, oh, no. And rejecting the call on the way to going. Never reject a phone call, what we have learned from Fargo.

But ultimately, I think what's interesting about Witt's story and the way it concludes, he is a good man, but in the world of this show, his reverence for systems and for authority feels pretty outdated, or at least outgunned in a situation like this. Like, Witt is, he's diligent enough to go after Roy and to know that Roy is creeping up behind him. But when faced with Roy holding a knife, he still doesn't seem to understand what he's up against. And when he tells Roy to drop it and Roy says, make me,

it's like Witt's entire worldview shatters. And he doesn't really know what to do. Yeah, I guess I was not fully all in on Witt's definitely going to die just because he's going after Roy, though I probably should have been. And because I was still trying to grapple with like Witt's role in the story, which is still a bit of a question mark to me. We talked to Noah a bit about this because I was actually going to mad about Witt far.

About Witt's fate, yeah. And like, I was like, this is the one, you know, Gator doesn't make it out with his eyeballs. And by the way, we'll talk about Socket Watch in a bit. But like, the one person doesn't make it as Witt and why is Witt the sacrifice? Well, Danish as well. And so then Noah talked about this a little bit.

I don't want to step on his answer, but I will say that, like, his answer, help me, help me figure it out a little bit better. And I would say what we essentially have is, like, a law of Danish graves and order of, of, of, of what far, bumping up against the chaotic energy of someone like Roy, even though he's supposed to be also law and order. But like... But someone who believes the law doesn't apply to him. That these systems, that, that, and, you know, again, if we're, we're put...

looking at this all through a Trumpy lens, which the show is inviting us to do, this idea that like, well, surely this won't happen because we live in a civilized society or whatever is sort of something we came up, like, you know, surely January 6th won't happen. We live in a civilization. And then I was like, oh, no, it did. So real, what are you going to do stab me, quote attributed to guy who just got stabbed energy. If you're so smart, why are you so dead? Like I just, I'm still a little mad about Witt Farr, but I can kind of make sense it in the larger picture of everything.

Can we just like hop ahead, let's tie a bow and wait and say the memorial that we have later. How did you feel about that? Convenient, you know, I don't really, I didn't get a lot out of it. It seemed like more a place that Dot and Scotty might run into Indira, plausibly speaking. And Indira is another character who gets pretty sure. short shrift, not just in this episode where she barely appears, but toward the end of the season. It kind of left me thinking of wit and Endear in particular, almost more as like ideas than characters. They represent things. They tie into our themes. But at the end of the day, there's no

question where the camera is centered. And it's on Dot and her family. It's on Roy and the people in his orbit. They're kind of pushed to the wayside in ways that I didn't love, especially, you know, being like considering their place on this show and as kind of the central law enforcement agents who are trying to do good on this show, it didn't sit great with me. What I have in my notes is Indira sort of vanishes as a character,

which I think is fair. And I think that the, I think we're used to on Fargo having the law enforcement character be our central character. Sure. Right. And I mean, I can accept that supporting character, like, you know, it takes all tiers of characters

and maybe my expectations were, you know, calibrated a little bit differently because I was like, this is Fargo. But this is like a Fargo through the lens, like, you know, through the dark mirror sort of thing. It's, it was interesting thinking about no country for old men, something we talked about a lot this season and thinking about how this is like a uno reverse on the rolls in no country where we've got like the sheriff is evil. And the one track mine machine like guy actually has the like moral center. is redeemed. And speaking of redemption, let's talk about Gator. So, like, I would say the true redemption or true, like, satisfying arc out of a character is what happens with Monk, and we'll talk about that later. But the Gator question, this question of redemption that has worried us all season

based on interviews, we got a really good email about this is a little long, but will you indulge me in reading it? Please. As from a listener, John, who says, I suppose my first thought is that not all redemption arcs need to be, quote, deserved. I would say a real one, a real one starts early. Okay, pause, Joanna speaking. Spoilers for, gentle spoilers for Lost, and Avatar the Last Air Bend are coming. And then also major spoilers for the original Star Wars trilogy and also for Oedipus Rex.

Okay. I don't think you need to do a spoiler warning for Oedipus Rex. I think we're past the statute of limitations on that. You never know. Okay. It's true. Okay. So John says, suppose my first thought is that not all redemption arcs need to be, quote, deserved.

I would say a real one starts early and it's a lot of runway ahead of it like Sawyer on Lost or Zucco on Avatar. You front load the dickishness or monstrosity, but make the bulk of the story itself, the character on a journey, taking in the new information that corrects their path. Then there's the other kind, which I call the quote, one good thing, arc. This is usually for the antagonist of a story. Darth Vader is the best example. Bader is the monster of the story, but Luke's journey of avoiding the trap of the dark side as seeing humanity where even his Jedi mentors could not. He kept believing, quote, they're still good, even in the darkest soul. In the end, Darth Vader's redemption is

not a reflection on Vader slash Anakin himself, quote, deserving redemption, but rather reflection on Luke's light and the power it has to reach the human soul and even the darkest places. Luke awakened in Anakin, his deepest primal humanity and allowed him to do, quote, one good thing before he died. Anyway, this brings me back to Gator. I don't see any conflict between believing Gator possesses the humanity Holly talks about in him and the fact that for nine out of ten episodes, we've watched something of an unrepented shit heel. I believe Gator is meant to represent, quote, sad young men and the way that they're ripe targets for radicalization via their loneliness, rejection, and the malice of authoritarian strong men who purport to give them

purpose. I look at this from something of a quote there before the grace of God go eye position, as I recall, the loneliness and entitled feelings of being young and unpopular and all the specific influences on me, et cetera. We live in a world being harmed so much by men like Gator, and as we know, hurt people, hurt people, but do these people deserve redemption? Not really, but it's worth meditating on what the power of light we possess that could actually reach through to these dark souls. And then John goes on to talk about Oedipus Rex, a clear illusion that's being made. Edipus Rex. Oedipus, if you don't know,

let me tell you. Recap, edit in this frame. Bad shit happens that. I mean, when Noah Holly compared Gator to Oedipus in interviews, and we were trying to make it sort of this Oedipal relationship with the mother kind of thing, which you could kind of

extrapolate onto this idea that like Dot was both maternal figure to him and then perhaps like a contemporary kind of crushed for him or whatever his feelings with his mother are, I think we're largely unexplored overall. But what Noel Hawley and Joe Curia probably really talking about is the fact that Gator ends up blind wandering around in the mist, which is what, you know, edipus, you know, stabs out his own eyes with a brooch. It's not great.

It's very chill, really casual. And then just like wanders off on the wilderness. So this idea of like the punishment for Gator, anyway, at the end of the day, great email from John. I think that one good thing is interesting thing. I think if we were meant to, if the story were to end with Gator gets like a happy ever after living with Dot, it's a different proposition than like he's going to jail and he's going to be blind for the rest of his life because even though you didn't get to see the sockets, like you believe that he's blind, right, Rob? I do. I do now. I'm delighted to be so wrong about the fake out even though we didn't get to see the sockets. Okay. And Dot and Scotty might visit him. That's the best he can have for.

So to me, I don't feel like I was being asked to bend too much. You know, similarly, like, Vader gets to get his mask off and see, talk to his son face-to-face where he dies. That's what he gets, you know? So what do you think, Rob Mona? I'm glad we didn't get a happily ever after, certainly. And I wouldn't have expected that. That's just not really what the show does for almost anybody.

Although there's some kind of inversions on that idea in the monk storyline. and we can talk about that. Where I get caught on this one good thing format of redemption for Gator is, did he even do one good thing? We're told that he turned Roy in. We don't see it. We don't really know what that means. Based on the way the show is staged and shot and kind of schemed out,

it seems like he just kind of told the cops where the manhole cover was that Roy would be coming out of and so they could ambush him when he came out. That's something. But that place was swarming with. law enforcement. Like, if Gator had never told them that, would it have changed literally anything? Well, they were, when he, when Gator comes out, they're so far away. That's true.

You know, I do think, I'm going to give the show this, benefit of the doubt and say, I think that weren't not for Gator, Roy might have escaped out of that manhole. And it's also possible that Gator also told them like, I mean, stuff the doc had told them their like bodies under here. This is how we did this. This is what, like, this is a whole. full operation. And I'll tell you, I'll squeal on everything, whatever it takes.

And that was seated earlier in the season, right? The idea that one of either him or the foreman were going to have to flip because they would have all the information that could ultimately get Roy convicted. It's pretty clear now that Gator's story is its own kind of mini tragedy within this, right? It's the story of this little boy who wanted to be like his dad so much that he wound up basically destroying himself in the process and hurting countless other people in the process. all of that is fair. I just find myself still waiting for the next beat with Gator.

And maybe that's intentional. Maybe it's very clear that this is the start of a different kind of arc for him rather than the conclusion of one. I just kind of was waiting for something more than a pretty straightforward comeuppance of like a jerk got his eyes poked out. I think I would have liked to have seen the moment when he flips and the internal conflict there. Let us see him wrestle with that.

Exactly. I did enjoy his little interaction with Dot at the end there when he asked about his mom and stuff like that. Like I thought that was really effective. But I agree. I think like one more. Maybe we just, we wanted like a two-hour finale essentially. It sounds like. Ultimately so.

More shootouts and tanks for me, obviously, because that's what I like in his story. And more eye sockets and crying. I guess he can't really. Can you cry without eyes? I don't really know the biology of that. Don't the tear ducts go probably with the ball? It depends on Monk's technique, probably. But I will say this about Joe Keir.

I thought his performance was great. And the kind of snot-nosed kid affect that he's giving at the end of this episode, just like waiting for his oatmeal raisin cookie and for the one person he knows in the world to come visit him. It is, it is sad. Like, it is deeply tragic. Yeah. And it did make me feel something for that character that I didn't know I would be able to feel for the end of the season. So well played by Fargo on all accounts in that way.

Let's talk about Lorraine. Yeah. And sort of the Princess Bride to the pain, you know, ending that she gives Roy here, right? Roy. Oh, sorry, you mentioned Munk's technique. Let me just go back and say, barring fruit of the poison tree email numbers that we got two weeks ago. This week, I would say the number of people who wanted to make sure that we knew that when Munk took Gator's eyes, he was in an ice shed. That wasn't really a shed.

It was like one of those shacks that you fish through the ice. Yeah, an ice fishing shack. Yeah. We kind of knew that. We didn't say it, but I think we both kind of knew that. I don't know why it matters, but thank you. It's noted. Absolutely noted. And hey, it may come in handy for us in True Detective, like we may be due for some ice fishing coming up.

What a great tease that was, Rob. Okay, so let's go back to Lorraine. How did you feel about this prison scene and Dier gets sent out of the room because she's not really a character anymore? and Lorraine talking to Roy about his future. Well, I liked it particularly in the sense that there wasn't a lot left to resolve between Roy and Dot at this point in the story, right? Roy is gutshot within seven minutes of the episode. We are off the ranch within 12 or 13 minutes of the episode.

And really from the time Dot first showed up on the ranch, Roy didn't know what to do with her. It was like he had spent so much time trying to catch her. He didn't think about what catching her would actually mean. And he was almost exposed in that way. And I think in a lot of ways it was his downfall in the story was putting so much of his life priority on finding this person that he let everything else kind of fall apart in the process. And maybe he would still have his little kingdom if he hadn't.

So the idea that he has just kind of moved to prison and establish his new sad little hill to rule over, I think is apt for that character and certainly serves the idea that we've been talking about all season of these constructed realities that we have around us. Like Roy is constructing his new reality and we find out that really the only person who can punish him is Lorraine because you can put Roy in prison,

but he will write the brochure on how great prison is. You know, you fuck the week, you kill your rivals, you sleep with one eye open, this guy is in heaven, he's loving it. Oh, God. You put him behind bars, but Lorraine's version of justice is more purely vindictive. She wants Roy to feel exactly what his wives and his victims felt, you know, fear and pain and humiliation,

to pay his debts. Another one of my favorite lines in this episode, her referring to an older text, written on the stone tablets and the age of the skull fuckers. That's maybe my favorite line of the whole season, honestly. I thought it was such a good line.

Outstanding. Well delivered, yeah. Outstanding. And, you know, this whole episode, we're kind of priming the gears and the works of Fargo with the payment of debts. Whatever you may think about

the way Whitfar went out, he repaid his debt to Dot by coming after her when she saved him. Here we say, or, you know, Gator has kind of paid his debt in a way for the crimes that he committed. And we're seeing Roy get a version of that through Lorraine. Speaking of Descade, that brings us, I think, to the lion household.

And, you know, this is something that Noah mentioned in our chat with him is that, and surely folks who may have either memorized No Country for Old Men or rewatched it right around Rob and I rewatched it, the ending in that movie, when you think all is said and done, Javier Bardem's character shows up, you know, and there is another wife character, as we mentioned, as in Fargo. The great Kelly McDonald is there and what happens in that house. You don't see it, but the implication is that he kills her at the end of no country fold. And so the question is, what if an Anton Chaguer-like character, a monk, shows up to the line? The Lion House, how can things go differently?

And the answer is the power of home, of Biskwick, of Minnesota Nice, all this stuff that we've been talking about. Okay, by the way, please stay tuned for, we asked Noah Hawley about Wissor Foss. I really want you guys to hear what he said about that. I'm not going to go into it. This idea of no place like home. So the home of the lion household, something that we've been talking about all season is like, something just like really warm and sweet and innocent and worth protecting. We love Wayne,

we love Scott, and we want them to be safe. And this is what Dot is just like scrambling to get back to is this sense of home. And then what that idea of like a warm place, a warm meal versus the disgusting eat this sin and get cast off into the cold opener that we got with Monk, what that can do to an elemental, unstoppable, an ancient creature. An ancient creature.

A timeless creature. I loved this. I loved this finale mostly because of this whole thing. My guy Wayne coming through, by the way, on the hospitality front,

Rob, yes. Have you ever offered someone a pop and then within like five minutes also a beer? Because that might be that might be like host of the year.

Wayne's like, oh, I see you're not drinking that pop. Oh, yeah, you haven't even touched your pop. You haven't even touched your pop. How about a beer? He's on top of it. All right, tell me, take me through your reaction to this whole sequence. I think we laid it out of top that like not everything on the ranch necessarily worked for me, but by the time you get to the lion house, how ambitious this is and what it holds back

and what it pulls from our expectations of what, how a show should end, what monk represents as a character, what far. usually does in these big moments, I think it's pretty magical. And I really wonder, you know, this is so earnest what happens in the lionhouse, so earnest in ways I never would have imagined. And because of that,

I'm guessing there's a portion of the fan base that will just read that as being too schmaltzy for them. For me, personally, I felt a little bit like Monk, where instinctively I could feel myself kind of waiting for the darkness, right? the unexpected, violent turn that Fargo has conditioned us to expect. And the miracle of this finale is that it just wears you down.

Like, Wayne just keeps coming and coming and coming. And he's so likable and he's so nice and he's so affable. He's just ready to swoop in and clink your orange soda from off screen. And he's totally unfazed. He and Scotty both. I think Scotty is just like so sweetly listening to every word that Monk says. And you could interchange all of Monk's weird. monologues with pleasant dinner party conversation.

And Scotty and Wayne would be exactly the same. They would be interacting with him in exactly the same way. And there's something to the way they just kind of gradually bring down his defenses that's pretty magical. Wayne is not like an idiot. So like there are like slight pauses before he launches into like whatever his responses where he's like, oh, we went and saw that. But he's just like he needs a moment.

And like I do think that when they walk in, he's a bit unnerved to be like it's almost like as soon as doc gets there he's like oh i'll be safe dots here my protector is here you mentioned the pop coming in from off screen i think lorraine's line about the skull fuckers is my favorite line and that that pop coming in from out off screen is my favorite shot i just love it that it's just sort of like he hands on the pop you think he's gone but then his pop comes in to cheers it from off screen it's so funny um also this is the most i've ever said pop i never call it pop No, I'm usually a soda guy. What are you?

Yeah, soda. Coke, maybe. Well, that's a southern thing to call all soda. Is that a Southern thing? Is that a Southern thing? I mean, we definitely do. But it's an odd idea in Dr. Pepper country. Oh, is Texas Dr. Pepper Country?

Very much so. Or some parts may be big red country, depending on your mileage. This finale is called Bisquick, so I feel like we can drop some brands. But I think that, yeah, I think that, yeah. it's a southern thing to call all sodas cook. I think that's very strange, but I know we do strange things here in California as well. So there you go. Yeah, I just, I loved this finale. Despite all my qualms and quibbles, I think that the stroke of genius of setting so much of it in the house, the line house, to have that aggressive, us trying to grapple with defining Minnesota nice this whole time and having Minnesota nice be this thing where it's not,

it's not passive aggressive. No. It's niceness no matter what you're confronted with. You could tell me a story about the people on the longboat drowning in their seats from rain, and I'm going to say, oh, geez. Oh, geez. You know, by the way, we did one less Minnesota nice email. We did get, I can't really read it out.

It's impossible to capture. I'll send you the flyer. Someone attached a flyer that someone left because our listener had not shoveled their walk in the amount of time that was deemed necessary. Do they need a helicopter rescue? Are they safe? No, it was like, the neighborhood was like, excuse me. You need to shovel your walk.

And so it's got like cheery little clip art on it, but it's like, if you don't, the municipality is going to come and you're going to be charged. And like, also it's really funny. Anyway, all hail Minnesota nice It wins the day at the end of everything Chili and drop biscuits and orange pop And I just I don't think it's a saccharine ending though Like I think I think there's just something like really

Authentically beautiful about it and like and Dot Again I don't want to step on some of the things that Noah says about it So like I encourage you guys to listen to his interpretation of that But I think the way that like it's not just the whole family is like Pretending like he's everything's fine Because Dodd is like interrogating him as well, like his worldview. Why does it have to be that way?

Why do you feel that this is necessary? And so, yeah, it works perfectly for me. I love it. In the way she interrogates him too, it allows us to interrogate, I think, the idea of debt in a different way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, not to go full, like, good place with this, but like in terms of what we owe to each other, of kind of welcoming a stranger into your home and sitting with them and

breaking bread with them. And to do it with Biskwick and make Biscuit, like, it's not Biscuits, all season long. It's not biscuits, it's Biscuit. And maybe that is straight up just like they got the bag from Biscquick and that helped made Carfago. And I would respect that, even if that was the case. But there's something to the idea of it being Biscuit specifically where it is, it's something accessible.

It's something that is inherently unfussy. It's something that isn't really about what's in the pre-made mix. But, like, as Dott says, it's about what you put into it. And that is sentimental, but it's powerful too. There's also just something really homie about the, when she says, when she says the thing about like, we like these better. We like the drop biscuits better. There was just something so like homey and so like, this is what our family likes.

We like, oh, we just do like the drop biscuits. Wayne's making his chili. It's a school night. He went over the deep end with the spices, by the way. Just over the top. And how else could be in this season but where? as we've been talking about all season long, with the wife, right? Like, with that character and with that idea of, like,

showing Monk how to make the drop biscuit, showing him how we do it here, and not just that, but, like, telling him that it's okay to eat it. And the final image being Monk's, like the smile, the kind of, like, haunted smile of monk, kind of knowing the comforts of home and of forgiveness for the first time is, again, it's a really powerful thing. Like, that's a very memorable image,

even in a show that produces them with shocking regularity. I tweeted this, but I'm not going to say that everyone listens to this, even looks at Twitter these days. And I will just say that, like, one of my favorite people in the world, Kristen Rousseau, who's also a podcaster, started watching Fargo, like, just a few days ago and is already all caught up. And she referred to Monk as the ogre and the skirt who cut his own bangs. And I just, it's just like sort of top tier character description.

And then that she loves him. She's like, he's my favorite. I was like, yeah, I agree. The ogre in skirt who cut his own bangs. It's just so good. We've been saying it all season. Protect Monk. Yeah, and here we are.

And, no, I'm not going to make another monk detective joke. Again, that last one didn't go very well. You're welcome. I will stop. All right, so that, let's instead listen to our conversation with Noah Hawley. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help.

Zepbound is a prescription medicine. used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide-containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and if feldon is safe and for use in children. Don't share needles or pens 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 your not, if you're nursing pregnant plan to be or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbounds.lily.com. I wanted to start by asking you, I think some folks were expecting some long-term Fargo

watchers were expecting some sort of massive connective tissue at the end. as we've often seen in other seasons. Yeah. What was your thought behind keeping this a little bit less connected to the other seasons of Fargo? I never go looking for it. And so if it's organic, you know, if it's the Molly Solverson origin story, you know,

in season two or, you know, connecting, you know, in season three, Mary Winstead's character to Mr. Wrench from the first season, you know, you know, if it's there and it's fun, then then we'll do it. This one, I just didn't it just didn't naturally feel like part of this story, so

I just didn't, I didn't try to force anything on it, except that it was its own complete tale. I mean, that tale certainly left us with more than enough to unpack, more than enough to talk through all season long, and one of the things this season has been framed by is this idea of a divided America. You know, neighbor against neighbor, as you put

in the premiere. The big militia firefight might be the most literal version of that idea. But how are you looking to kind of round out that concept and that theme in this final episode? I think I struggled, as we're all struggling, with this idea of what comes next and how do we get out of this? How do we get out of a situation in which, let's say, for simplicity's sake, you have 10,000, sides. Each feels aggrieved. Each feels like the other side has abused them and abused its power. And are we just stuck in this loop of, you hurt me, so now I'm going to hurt you, right? And what can get us out of that? And, you know, I think the last 20 minutes of the show are

my way of kind of grappling with that. You know, he, old man shows up at the house to get, you know the final retribution for what she did to him and you know she just refuses to be in his scene she forces him to be in her scene her scene is well it's a school

night and we're halfway to dinner so you basically either kill us or wash your hands and help and you know he keeps trying to make it his scene you know and she keeps saying it's not that scene this is you know this is we're making

biscuits and then, you know, we're going to help the homework and we're going to do all the, all the stuff. And, you know, and finally she's able to really say to him, look, you're hurt, I've been hurt. We've all suffered. And, you know, and part of what the people who abuse us do is they tell us it's our fault and it's not your fault, right? And, you know, I've been asked, like with Gator, do I really think that she's going to go visit him in prison. And I said, yeah, I think that she and her daughter once a month, they'll bake some cookies, and they'll both go to the prison. And that will explain that for a time, this was her stepbrother. And I know that he scared you. But, you know, these are the circumstances

under which we were raised. And he's being punished for the things that he did. And now we have to figure out how to forgive each other for that. And so that's my hope. I don't know that it's the solution for the world, but certainly for the story. I felt like it was an elegant way to end the story and an emotional way, and hopefully something that, you know,

if you can see an unexpected act of forgiveness, maybe it can inspire that. Well, of all the ways you could have structured this episode, to spend nearly half of it on that message with Dodd, with Monk. I'm curious what about those characters and that dynamic made it fitting for that kind of final statement? Well, you know, there's an echo in that scene of the scene from no country for old men when Kelly MacDonald comes home from the funeral.

And then Anton Chaguer is sitting in her house. And she said, I knew this wasn't over. And, you know, he does his crazy Anton Chiguer thing and tells her to, pick a side of the coin and she says i'm not going to do it it's not it's not about the coin it's about you know and and and you know and he says i i promised your husband i'd kill you basically and she's like that doesn't make any sense you know but in his mind it makes total sense and and i think that that that's something we're also struggling with right which is that you know you have two sides where where the things that we're saying to each other don't actually make sense where

you know, what I say when I mean freedom, right? And what you say when you mean freedom, these are different words now. So how do we talk? Totally. If the language that we're using doesn't mean the same thing to both parties, you know, but that's the thing about a meal, right? Is that a meal, a family around a table, you know, there's something what's simplistic or not, there's something about coming together that is, that is our.

honestly biblical. It's, you know, and under those circumstances of feeding someone, that act of hospitality of saying, well, you know, you're in our home and we're going to be good hosts, you know, it's a small way in which we say, no, the rules are there for a reason. The norms, the social norms do matter. The politeness, the kindness, the looking out for each other. you know, it's, we went at some point from turn the other cheek Jesus to warrior Jesus, right? You know, but not every midi made that jump. Some people are still saying, you know, my home is open to you, even though we don't agree on everything. I love that you mentioned No Country.

Rob and I actually rewatched No Country and like in the middle of our coverage of this season because we're like, we need to have a refresher on this film. It's like, we had to go back. It's in here. But I wanted to ask you about that. another illusion, which is the monk flashback, which you've talked about, but this is, feels like an allusion to a serious man. And that time jump in that film that has always kind of confounded me and feels like a little bit of a, I know it's not a plot loose thread, but it's sort of me trying to make sense

of it loose thread. And I love the way that this ends with a meal with Monk not being cast out, but brought in, not asked to eat sin, but asked to eat some biscuit biscuits that he's going. made. You know, how important for you was it to close that loop to create that parallel? Yeah, I mean, I think it was critical. And, you know, in the script, the whole season opened with the sin-eating originally. And the whole first, whatever, six minutes of the show, which we filmed and cut that way,

was, you know, you turn on a show called Fargo and suddenly it's 1522 and you're watching this sort of grotesque. scene of these filthy people eating off of corpses. And ultimately it felt like asking the audience to work too hard right at the moment where we really wanted to pull them in. And I think the way we started with the yes song and just right into it was, of course, the most elegant way into it. But then we had this roving missile of a piece of story that was, so critical, but where to put it, you know, because it's such a weird thing. And so, of course,

I thought it was funny to do this 500 years earlier flashback in the middle of a scene and then come back from it like that was normal. But it is. I mean, that that was on some level the whole the whole point of the story, right, which is very much about trauma. And what happens to us if we don't confront the trauma and face it and admit to ourselves, you know, it's the reason I did a puppet show, you know, in the seventh hour is, you know, when you're a kid and you and you're abused, they say, show me on the doll where he hurt you. You know, it's, it's, there's something that's just so basic about,

um, saying, admitting to yourself and to others what, you know, the harm that you've suffered. that's a part of the healing process. But in Fargo, so often, those characters, Legaards, the Kirsten Dunst's character, they go through life in complete denial, and that denial destroys everything around them. You know, Jerry Lundegarde can't admit that he's done something stupid,

and so everybody dies. Kirsten Dunst, you know, she just won't say, look, it was an accident, I ran this guy over, she just keeps running from reality, and soon everybody around her she cares about is dead. And, you know, what I saw with this season is that Dot is in the same predicament. You know, her house burns down. She doesn't, she won't admit the truth.

And so armed men come to her house and threaten her family, and she could have stopped that by saying what happened. And so the only way that she is going to not end up a tragic figure surrounded by death, is if she admits to herself what happened and what the truth is. And so that's what that journey is for her. And on some level, I think that's what she offers munch at the end, right, is a mirror.

It's going, I see that you've been hurt and other people have hurt you and I'm offering you kindness, right? And even though you've done horrible things and horrible things to me, I'm offering you kindness. And in that way, you know, he's finally released from the sin that he ate. One of the other things she offers him is the warmth of her home and the warmth of her family. And, you know, in other shows, the family of the main character can sometimes be kind of a narrative drag.

But Joe and I, as we were watching Fargo this season, we loved spending time with Wayne and with Scott. And, I mean, that feels like such an important part of a story about Dot trying to get back home. And I'm curious how you and your staff thought about creating the warmth and the appearance. of those characters? I mean, I have so much fun with my family. I mean, you know, it's what I have freed myself of that a lot of TV and film is burdened by is this is this maxim that conflict equals drama and that everywhere you go there has to be conflict in order to create drama. And it's created some of the most hateful teenage characters on earth, right? Like, there's nothing worse in a story than a petulant teenager, right? And, you know, you always have the detective

who goes home and their kid is rebelling and the wife is, you know, I'm going to divorce you. And it's awful. Like it's, it's, there's no place in the story that you can go to feel like you want to be there. And for me, that's Patrick Wilson and Crystal Miliani, right? It's, it's, it's you and McGregor and Mary Winstead, you know, it's like, it's these places in the show where you're like, I love it here. You know, I'm so happy. These people are funny. They love each other. You know, it feels safe. And that way when the bad men come, you're like, don't you fuck with this family, you know? Whereas if they were all at each other's throats, it would be a different thing. And so, you know, one of the things that made me happiest about that final sequence is, you know, is, you know, this villainous man who has come into this, into the chaos of a family at dinner time where it's like, he's in the kitchen, he can't stand in the right place. He's always in the way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's trying to mount this threatening argument. Wayne's putting a beer in his hand. Scotty's telling him, you know, it's, it has this, this organic, fun, family chaos to it, that what you realize is, you know, if you let yourself be in it, it's a joyful place to be. I'm so delighted that Dot's core family made it out in one piece. I was going to have such a crisis,

if anything happened to Wainer's God. Not everyone makes it out, and I want to talk to you about Wittfar, and I guess I'm trying to grapple with what the show wants to say with Witt's death here and I don't know, how that interacts with the morality of the universe, right? Not every good guy makes it out.

Not every villain necessarily gets a comeuppance. But what is it about wit specifically that told you he doesn't make it out of this story in one piece? Well, you know, he wasn't, it wasn't the finger of God pointing down at him and saying, you must die for this story to work. You know, on some level, you know, he's a cop running into a firefight and a dangerous situation. and at the front of the show it says this is a true story and there is some requirement that in order to fulfill the laws of reality, you know, random things happen, bad things happen to good people,

good things happen to bad people, you know, all of that. You know, he is a man who, in the spirit of the show's main theme, wrestling with debt, you know, who Dot saved his life and he has felt this debt to her ever since. and you know starting in the eighth hour when he's when he runs into her again he is he's going to save her he's you know and and and so he you know he runs into that into that situation and roy escapes and he goes after him and you know one of the themes that we're wrestling with in this season is is the system of justice versus the idea that that one person is is unto themselves

the law, right? That's Roy, right? He is the law, what he decides goes, people live or die based on what he thinks, versus the way that justice works, right? Which is it's a system of justice. You have cops, you have prosecutors, you have judges, different law enforcement agencies, et cetera. And, you know, part of what I think we're all struggling with is the system of justice has a lot of rules, it has a lot of norms to it. And then if you have a person or a group of people who refuse to recognize those rules and norms, you know, who are fighting a different fight,

do you fight at their level, right? There's this scene in season four where Chris Rock is, you know, he's talking about they call us animals. And when we refuse to act like animals, what do they do? they act like animals you know and they try to force us down into the mud and if we go down there then they say see they were always animals right

and and you know for Witt going in he goes into that situation you know he's alone with Roy he turns around Roy has a knife a different person would have just shot him but Witt believes in the system of justice he believes in the handcuffs he believes in the court he believes in

you know and I unfortunately he's killed because of it because Roy doesn't believe in those things. You know, he's the, he's the guy who says, if you're so smart, why are you so dead? Right. Yeah. It's a hard loss and a hard loss for me as a storyteller who wants good things to happen to good people. But it does feel like one of the things that we're seeing is, you know, when the person who plays by the rules fights the person who doesn't play by the rules, you know, it can end badly, you know.

So, I mean, so that's sort of unpacking it for me. And, you know, there were a lot of ways editorially that I played with the sequence starting on the porch, right? There's a moment, you know, where Dot shoots Roy and John Hamm's on the ground, and she raises the rifle, and you're like, do it, do it, finish him. And the moment that the FBI stops her, we have a very smart audience. they know something terrible is going to happen. And so I tried playing it as a thriller with a shootout, etc.

But what I realized was the audience knows it's a tragedy. The moment she turns around, it fades to black. And the music starts and it's tragic. You know, and we have these vignettes. And, you know, you just see it. You can't stop it. It's happening, right? It's say, you know.

And as a result, I think that that's what makes it so. powerful is, you know, we're not playing it as suspense. We're playing it as tragedy. Well, it's also powerful that the person to ultimately deliver a kind of justice to Roy is his own son, the blind justice of Gator, in this case. And, you know, I think we need to unpack Gator's story a little bit. And by that, what I really mean, Noah, is I want to unpack Jack Skellington with you. Because I know you've talked about the parallels between them all season. And specifically this idea of, you know, people who are outwardly trying to be scary, but deep down have a softness to them are a little bit more made of different stuff, perhaps. And I've always thought of Jack

as something a little different, of someone who was kind of accepting the fact that he's scary. And I wonder if there's some of that in Gator's story, too, here in the end, where, after everything that's happened to him, do you think Gator is someone who's actually kind of come to terms with the evil parts of himself? I don't think he's come to terms of it yet. I think that's the journey. now, right? Which is, you know, he's a child who has the unconditional love for his father that children have. His father's just a very bad person. And so in order to be able to rationalize the unconditional love for a very bad man, he has to make him not a very bad man. You know what I mean? And so his father is a great man, you know, he has to strengthen the courage to do the

things and to make the hard choices and, you know, and heavy lies the head that wears a crown. And so, of course, he wants to be like his dad because he too wants to be a great man, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, it's only in his complete abandonment by his father who says, if ever there was a point to you, it's gone now, you know, to realize that that was all a lie and that his father's actually a terrible man. And he, in, in, doing his bidding and trying to be him has become a terrible man himself. You know, I think that that is his journey. And, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people who really hate that character from the very

beginning. And he was always a tragic character in my mind. And I think, you know, if, I think there's a moment in the puppet show, which is my favorite thing to say about premium television. There's a moment in the puppet show we did, the 10-minute puppet show, where he puts his head in his sister's lap and see that he was a scared little boy. And when he invaded the house, she's like, shame on you. She's not seeing the scary Jack Skellington. She's seeing this little boy who's, you know,

whose butt she had to wipe at some point, you know, who's acting like this big man, but she knows that he's not that way. In addition to Nightmare Before Christmas, that sort of thread that's running through the show, viewers of the season have also identified, and of course you did a whole episode, Wizard of Od-centric episode last season, but have identified this sort of hints, teases, connections to Wizard of Oz. How much is that in the mind of the viewer? How much is that intentional in the storyteller?

And if it's intentional, sort of what are you wanting to say about that connection? Well, certainly season four, Wizard of Oz was very literal. was set in the town in Kansas in which in you know in which it was purported that the Wizard of Oz was set you know it was filmed in black and white until you know until after Ben Wish I until the tornado goes through with a young satchel opens the door and we move into color you know there's a lot of those elements that are the same you know the fact that I named her Dorothy this year was actually unconnected in my mind I just like the name dot for her And so it's only later that I was like, oh, right, Dorothy, I can see how that would connect.

You know, but far be it from me to rob a viewer of a connective tissue that they see, right? That's, you know, I just paint the pictures. You look at them and see what you want to see in them. But yeah, that kind of stuff is always deliberate. You know, Munch comes up onto the porch the way that Peter Stromar did. And, you know, I changed elements and the knitting became the yarn up the stairs. and then of course everything kind of changed and nobody said unguent.

But, you know, there's a lot of similarities there. And, you know, later she comes running out with the shower curtain and, you know, in the siege episode and episode four. And but instead of her falling down the stairs with it, she, you know, so there's those, all those echoes are in there. And, you know, they're all auditioned on some level

by me to go, well, that's too clever or that's too much. You know, I don't want to overwhelm the story with how clever we can be about the Cohen brothers. Yeah, what are the origins of those sorts of references in the show, kind of from a nuts and bolts perspective? Like, where do those ideas come from you? Are you watching the films with a journal and hands saying, oh, this sounds appropriately Fargo-ish?

What is the process of taking that idea of a reference to the script or the screen? I have writers, and we spend a couple of weeks just sort of working through a story. and in the broadest sense and then starting to dial in, okay, well, so this, so the house burns down, feels like episode four, you know, so they can, you know, and then, you know, so you start to tie that stuff in

and then put a sort of loose sense together of what's in each hour. But I'm reluctant to go farther than that. I've moved on from the outline. I'm not required to turn them in anymore, and I really hate them. because the outlining part of your brain is a different part of your brain than the storytelling part of your brain.

It's a list-making part. It's your brain going, okay, well, this happens, and then it could connect to this. But it's very different than getting to that place on the page. And so that's for me, you know, those moments, those Coen Brothers, homagees. You know, sometimes they're quite literal. And, you know, I knew when I had in season two, when I had Bear walk, you know, Rachel Keller's character out into the woods that we were doing

Miller's Crossing. You know, this year, obviously, the literal connections to the movie. I mean, you see, you see old munch come out of the house from an axe in a shot that echoes the shot of Steve Bouchemy dying in the movie. You know, those things are very literal. And then, you know, sometimes just language will come out that's from the movie or, you know, we were going crazy up at the lake. You know, those sorts of things.

You're just like, oh, right, there's a place for that. That's good. But there isn't like, you know, hours-long debates. And, you know, it's not a belabored process. It's an instinctual one. Well, thank you so much for the chat. We really appreciate it for this incredible season of television. We're so excited to see what you have on the horizon with aliens.

We're really excited about that. So we will be staying tuned. But thanks so much, No Holly. All right, thanks so much, everyone for listening with us all season long. We really appreciate it. We hope you'll stay with us for our journey through Night Country with True Detective. Thanks to everyone who has emailed John Ham's nipple rings at gmail.com. You guys are the real heroes.

And thanks to Noah Holly, of course, for having a chat with us. And Rob, I'll see you in Night Country, I guess. I'm worried, you know. We've been in the daylight hours on Fargo. It's getting a little dark and spooky out here, Joe. Thankfully, we have our producer Kai Grady, who worked on Fargo with us. We'll be with us on True Detective.

So we'll see you then. Bye!