Fargo season 5: a very short review

[Only!] six months late, we watched Fargo season 5, the Juno Temple/Jon Hamm season. I think that Noah Hawley and team actually pulled off the "horror comedy" genre successfully, which is no easy feat. And Juno Temple is just astonishingly good, certainly she's one of the greatest actresses working right now.

As was probably the case for many viewers, my favorite episode by far was the Linda episode, in which Dorothy has a dream visit with a mystical imaginary battered women's shelter where everyone is named Linda. The allegorical treatment of issues of domestic abuse was extraordinarily powerful.

But I also completely loved the Ole Munch character, the strange medieval assassin character, the one who tells Dorothy at the end that when he was a sin eater in Wales in 1522 he became immortal, and traveled to North America on a boat, and lived with the Cree.

I originally thought Munch said he came on a Viking longboat, but the timeline for traveling on a Viking longboat in 1522 doesn't really work. In fact, he says:

Across the sea. But here a long time. From the age of the carrier pigeon and the 600 tribes. The Arapaho, the Cree and the Tonkawa.

...

By long boat we came. Three dozen men pulling at the oars. The rain so heavy, some drown in their seats.

The passenger pigeon became extinct in the 1870's, and the 600 tribes could be anytime from the 1500's to the 1800's, so I guess the writers just wanted to be deliberately vague ("here a long time")...

But a Viking longboat is certainly the sort of image they wanted to give...

Meanwhile, I love the symbolism of choosing the name Munch, particularly since last winter I made a point of checking out a bunch of Edvard Munch's work in all the places we visited.

Munch was best known in Norway, but also is extremely well known throughout Sweden and Denmark.

And of course the Minnesota town in Fargo 5 is named Scandia.

Munch (the painter), did much, much more than The Scream, and many of his themes are certainly echoed throughout Season 5. So I think that symbolism works for me.

Anyway, here's a nice interview with director Thomas Bezucha, touching on some of my favorite parts, including the use of Village People's YMCA when Roy Tillman calls the faithful to "come heavy" (great Jan 6th riff!)

Fargo's not for everyone, and I definitely haven't watched every Fargo season (we skipped seasons 3 and 4), but season 5 was amazing.