The Fargo Frozen Five is Uproxx’s weekly collection of thoughts, observations, and goofball screencaps from each new episode the FX limited series’ fourth season. We do not guarantee that there will be five items every week. There could be four, or six, or a dozen. Who knows? This show doesn’t follow the rules. We shouldn’t have to either.
EPISODE 6 — “Camp Elegance” (or, “Kidnapping and Monologues”)
5b. Not a great week for my large ornery prince, Gaetano Fadda, chaos agent and, apparently, stabber of mannequins. You saw that, yes? You saw Gaetano at the beginning of the episode, wearing a tank top and a look of determination, just getting in some stabbing practice on a mannequin like he was Rachel McAdams in True Detective season two? God, I love this guy. I wish there had been a full episode that just followed him around as he ran errands. Like, the dry cleaner quotes him a higher price than he paid in Italy and his eyes go flying halfway out of his face and he burns the place down. The Gaetano Show. I would watch that. Although, considering that he now been kidnapped by the Cannons and is getting tuned up by a wannabe boxing champ, and that his brother does not appear to be in any big rush to get him back (no matter what New York says), it might have to be a prequel. I was so scared when it looked like he died. I was not ready to lose him. Not yet. Not like that, at least. Thankfully, not even a point-blank bullet to the melon can take down my beautiful Italian rhinoceros. A true champion.
5a. You would think, given all those words I just typed, that I would be upset at the team of Swanee and Zelmare for causing harm to Gaetano. And yet, I am not. Quite the opposite. I am happy for them. Yes, it does go against the outlaw spirit to perform kidnappings that were ordered by your boss, and yes, dragging him out of there on the rug did not seem like a lot of fun. But they did get to play dress-up and ambush some goons and crawl through windows, which all seems like stuff they’d enjoy. If you can’t be your own boss, find a job doing the things you like. Good for them.
4b. Well, Loy Cannon has been pushed far enough. His places of business were raided, there was an attempt on his oldest son’s life, and then, last week, worst of all, Doctor Senator was killed in the street by Gaetano and Calamita. It is officially a war now, and, as he said right before he went into his doll analogy with Odis, he’s not just at war with the Italians. He’s at war with the entire mindset that ranks people in America by skin color and background. The first step was yoinking Odis out of his own bathroom. The next step was supposed to be getting his youngest son back, although that went sideways a few different ways, which will itself lead to new twists of violence and misadventure. This was a slower episode as a whole, especially after the slaughterhouse robberies and assassinations and secret murder closet of the last few, but sometimes you need to step back and move some pieces around before you strike. War is coming. Most of these people won’t make it out alive. It’s very exciting.
4a. You know what I like about Loy Cannon? I’ll tell you. The man always has a monologue ready. The good kind, too, the kind where you have a hostage or a person in for a meeting and you start a speech on some topic that doesn’t seem connected at all to the subject at hand (dolls, Sugar Ray Robinson, etc.), but by the end, you tie it all back together. I love these. They fascinate me. I like to picture bad guys in front of the mirror the night before, running through their speeches and tweaking lines and anecdotes. I wonder if they lean on the same story too much and their henchmen get sick of hearing it. I need to know more about all of this. Take me to Villain University.
3b. The business with the youngest Cannon, Satchel (who was still under the care of the Faddas when the episode started, and was at the center of the “one side wants him back, the other side wanted to kill him” business), really makes our “Satchel Cannon grows up to be Mike Milligan from Fargo season two” theory look better than ever. He’s fleeing with Rabbi Milligan, who killed the hitman Josto sent to kill the boy. He doesn’t appear to have anyone else in his life he can trust. We’ve also seen one child-swapping double-cross this season, in which a young Rabbi Milligan killed his own father to help the Italians. The working theory here is that we see another, with young Satchel setting up his father and zero Faddas and zero Cannons making it out of this season alive. Do I have anything to back this theory up? Not really! It felt good when I typed it, though.
3a. Actually, wait. I lied. I do have something to back this theory up: Joe Bulo! Did you catch that? Right here…
Joe Bulo was also a character from Fargo season two. He was a bigwig in the Kansas City mob, played by Brad Garrett, who sent Mike Milligan to Fargo to mess up the Gerhardt family. Do you see it now? The Fadda’s getting wiped out and Joe Bulo — “out of New York” taking Kansas City with the estranged Cannon son becoming his ace buttonman? Doesn’t this line up perfectly? And why hasn’t there been a Fargo character named Ace Buttonman? All fair questions.
2. Another tough week for Odis Weff, a character who basically exists to get bullied by various crime bosses into doing their bidding. And bullied by visiting U.S. Marshals. He’s such a tremendous Charlie Brown figure, just getting walloped by life from every angle, that he can use this as an excuse for a bruise on his face…
… and no one digs too deep into it, like “Yeah, getting kicked in the face by a donkey does seem like something that would happen to Odis. Moving on.” This poor chump. I half expect him to die next week by falling into an open manhole.
1. If I could give you one piece of advice in these trying times, I suppose it would be to find one single thing in your entire life that brings you as much joy as murdering hospital patients brings Oraetta Mayflower. Preferably not, like, murdering hospital patients, though. Do not do that. Not even once. Not even just to see if you like it. Maybe you can get way into house plants. Or making paella. Think about it for a while this week. You deserve this kind of pure, concentrated happiness in your life. We all do.
