‘Fargo’ Showrunner Unpacks Danish & Roy’s Deadly Debate Debacle
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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Fargo Year 5, Episode 8, “Blanket.”]
Fargo‘s fifth year is approaching its conclusion and not slowing anything down while raising the stakes in the eighth episode, “Blanket,” which saw Roy (Jon Hamm) imprison his runaway second bride Dot (Juno Temple) after signing her out of the hospital following her rest-stop parking lot accident.
But hope remains for Dot, whose location is known to others thanks in part to North Dakota Deputy Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris), who runs into her and Roy while exiting the hospital. While Dot maintains that she’s okay and not in danger, Roy and son Gator (Joe Keery) threaten the Deputy, forcing him to let the party exit the premises without acting.
On the road, Witt crosses paths with Danish Graves (Dave Foley), who is doing boss Lorraine Lyon’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) bidding by infiltrating Roy’s Sheriff debate by having debtors legally change their names to Roy Tillman, creating a messy onstage farce for the real Roy. Cluing the lawyer into the unfolding situation with Dot, Witt’s words push Danish to drive out to Tillman Ranch, where he informs Roy’s men he’s there to get his client.
(Credit: Michelle Faye/FX)
Sadly, smarts don’t get the lawyer out of the situation he’s stepped into by being there as he tries talking to Roy about a potential solution for all involved. While Danish tells the rogue lawman that he can help repair the recent damage to his public image in exchange for Dot, Roy decides to pull out a gun during a chat in his office.
His good intentions lead to a losing fight against Roy, who shoots him down in front of the American flag, which ends up splattered in blood. Ultimately, showrunner Noah Hawley says Danish “Has a guilt about [helping commit Dot to the hospital]. He said he was her lawyer, and then he acted against her interests, and he has carried this debt around. And so when he’s given the opportunity to make it right, he goes to Roy’s to try to get her back.”
“He thinks as most rich, smart people think that he can solve the problem by being rich and smart,” Hawley continues. “And then, of course, [Roy] says, ‘If you’re so smart, why are you so dead?’ Which is the other side of the coin, which is the physical dominance versus brain dominance.”
(Credit: Michelle Faye/FX)
A lot was working against Danish in this episode, and his demise is what Hawley categorizes as a “tragedy.” Unable to reach Lorraine initially, Danish goes into Roy’s ranch blind and without backup, unaware that Witt makes a call to Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) about Dot’s potential imprisonment. Now working with Lorraine herself, Indira passes along the message Danish is unable to.
“The tragedy is that he couldn’t reach [Lorriane], and then when she calls, he doesn’t take the call, and he walks into that room, and he thinks that he can alpha male this thing, and he can’t,” Hawley says. “And you feel tragedy more than drama on some level because it’s so preventable. Right? As I said many times before, Fargo‘s the story of decent people who are in over their heads, and sometimes they win, and sometimes you’re so far in over your head, you have no idea what you’re walking into. And unfortunately, Danish doesn’t walk out of that room.”
Despite his demise, Danish’s death might not be in vain as Dot watches Roy’s men bury the lawyer in a hidden grave under the ranch’s windmill. The structure was seen in Episode 7 as the spot where Dot uncovers Linda’s (Kari Matchett) postcard from Camp Utopia, serving as a little breadcrumb as to where Roy’s first wife, Gator’s mom, really ended up.
(Credit: FX)
As viewers saw in the episode, Hawley notes, “[Dot] goes into the eighth hour still really believing that she saw Linda.” Roy ultimately squashes that belief by promising to put Dot where he put Linda, which was in the ground. Her lack of understanding leads to a sad conversation with Gator, whom Dot pleads to free her in exchange for bringing him to Linda.
“He wants to live up to his dad’s example. But I think that the moment in the puppet show, where we see the little boy that he was and what the dynamic must have been [with Dot as] the big sister that became his stepmother… she left, and he was just there with dad. It’s a tragedy in its own right,” Hawley points out. “And all he is looking for is his father to say, I love you, but it doesn’t seem to happen.”
Ultimately, Gator walks away and finds himself in a potentially deadly predicament as audiences are shown Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) hiding in the backseat of the young man’s car. Angry after accidentally killing his “mama,” Munch undoubtedly seeks vengeance. What form will he deliver it in? Only time will tell.
For now, the bigger question is, will Dot make good on the promise she makes to Roy in this episode? Which is that she’ll kill him. After the hell he’s put her through, it’s not an altogether unsatisfying prospect. “She desperate, she’s going to do what it takes,” Hawley notes of the season’s heroine and her quest for freedom.
“We very rarely in Fargo give you white hat versus black hat at high noon. But if we do this year, it’s because the stakes are so high, people have to heal, and they have to really confront their abusers in order to do it, unfortunately,” Hawley adds. If you think Year 5 has delivered unexpected twists, Hawley says, “I think that’s the mark of us at our best. So I don’t know if you’ll be surprised or not,” he adds of the impending outcome of Dot’s story. “It’s a ‘true story,’ and so people’s lives collide in unexpected ways, and we have wild cards. And I think that’s what makes it exciting, is that you don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”
While Danish may not have been able to keep on standing, Hawley is certainly keeping viewers on their toes. Stay tuned to see how the final episodes unfold as Fargo Year 5 continues on FX.
Fargo, Year 5, New Episodes, Tuesdays, 10/9c, FX
