BWW Recap: Fates are Faced on the Season Finale of FARGO

Surprisingly, the Season 2 finale of FARGO didn't blow me away like the Season 1 finale did. However, this scene was more about life and consequences, so given the difference to last season--which was more about chaos and disruption--the ending is much more fitting.

The consequences for the Gerhardt family is obvious: death. Not only did they lose their empire and control of everything that was theirs, they all lost their lives, one by one (except for Charlie, who is rotting away in a jail cell.) The opening shot of this episode was a tracking through all of the Gerhardt deaths, from first to last. We see all of them, alone, from Rye to Floyd, the Gerhardt family is finished. And it was just that--family-- that ultimately was their undoing. Floyd's undying love and need to protect her family blinded her to the truth and was her ruining.

Just like Kansas City predicted, the Gerhardts did themselves in, and as much as Mike Milligan would like to (and does) take credit for getting the Gerhardts out of the way, it was all their own pride and stubbornness that led to their demise. Kansas City represents the future, and the Gerhardts represent the past. That does not become more evident until the finale. Throughout the series, the Gerhardts battled like a true crime family: their days were full of shoot outs, takedowns, and everything was personal. However, as Milligan finds out, Kansas City is all about money. Nothing is personal to them, everything is business. Milligan has spent the entirety of the season killing for a chance to be more than a drone for Kansas City, but once he returns there as a "king," he realizes that the other side isn't as glamorous as he expected it to be. Like he's told, it's not the 70s anymore. The job isn't like it used to be, no longer do people fight passionately and become the leaders of men, now it's all about making as much profit as efficiently as possible. As Milligan sits in his tiny, plain office in Kansas City, he finally sees that all of his struggles was not for the reward he hoped.

The Blumquists also found their ending to be bittersweet. They escape Hanzee, but not before Ed gets shot in the shoulder. Ed and Peggy hide out in the back of a supermarket (in the meat refrigerator, ironically) and they wait until it's safe. However, Ed doesn't make it in time for the cops to show up. While Ed is dying, Peggy is too busy hallucinating about a movie she had just watched to realize the reality of her situation: her husband is about to die and she is trapped. All Peggy ever wanted was to be her own "me" and to make the decisions in her life, but she never gets that chance. Her life is defined by Ed or by the people she's gotten herself involved with. Lou calls Rye the victim, but it really is Peggy who is the victim. She's a victim of her time. As she points out, it's impossible to "have it all," and when you try and fail, you're looked on as the failure, and not society's unrealistic expectations. Peggy is unfortunately a woman with dreams in a time where women don't have a lot of the options we do now. She was trapped, and she just wanted a way out. In a sick way, Rye was that way out, he was the excitement and the adventure she had always dreamed of. However, like her hallucinations, it wouldn't last, and reality caught up with her. She made it to the end, but at what cost?

Peggy and Betsy are stark contrasts: Peggy wants to rise above her station and be more than what society expects, and Betsy is a housewife and mother, who even with cancer, is positive and pretty kick-ass. However, I don't think Peggy is less of a person because of her dreams. She makes some bad decisions, but none of them are of malicious intent. She just wants to be a hero, and to be more, and she fights all the way to the end, even when her husband essentially tells her they can't stay together before dying. Betsy on the other hand, she fights to keep things normal. She doesn't want her cancer to change her life, because she's happy and content with things as they are. She doesn't want Lou or Hank treating her differently because she's dying, and she never let's the cancer--or the pills that are killing her--win. Both women are strong and fight for what they believe in, but they are just two very different things.

Betsy's medicine treating her cancer is actually killing her. She suspected she had the sugar pills, and now I wonder if she wishes she did. We don't see Betsy die, but we know it's coming. She tells of one of her dreams: she sees Lou and Molly in the future, happy and content, but she also sees disruption and chaos in the face of Hanzee. She worries that the future she sees will not happen because of this chaos, since she won't be there to protect it. I found this to be very interesting, because everything she dreams about happens after Season 1, so is her dream foreshadowing for Season 3 (which is set to take place a few years after the events of Season 1), or is this all just a weird coincidence? I guess we'll have to wait until the next season to see what happens--and if Hanzee returns.

Hanzee had one of the more successful endings: he escapes and a strange man--probably one of Kansas City's guys--helps him get a new identity. Hanzee is now Moses Tripoli, and he will have facial reconstruction surgery so he can be free. Before Hanzee gets up to stop bullies from picking on two boys, he utters the phrase "kill and be killed." Not only does this callback to the Fargo mob boss in Season 1, if you look up that character from Season 1, you find out his name is Tripoli. Does this mean Hanzee becomes the head of a crime syndicate after he changes his appearance and takes his revenge on Kansas City? Or is this Noah Hawley's way of messing with fans heads? Either way, it's much more than a coincidence. Also, one of the two boys he saves is deaf, and the other is his friend, which is very similar to Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers from Season 1, so are these boys the younger versions of them, or just another coincidence? I'd like to think it's all connected, but we'll never know for sure. At least right now.

Lou, our protagonist, ends the season in a calm. He's home with his family, and his wife is ok, for now. After all of the chaos and the bloodshed he witnessed in the past week, he can finally be content. His ending, like everyone else's, wasn't shocking or gut-wrenching, but fitting. Everyone ended up in a position that they deserved. From Peggy in jail, to Milligan in a boring workplace environment, to Hanzee getting that new life, everyone's fate was handed to them. I think this finale works well for this season, because it was more about the people and the real life consequences of each person's actions. Like Hank says, pictures are easier to understand than words, and words can be seen as the root of all conflict. The conflict of these season was primarily due to miscommunication, which led to a lot of consequences, consequences that had to be met.

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Tell me what you thought of the FARGO Season 2 finale below, or tweet me at @kaitmilligan! That's it for me for now, but you betcha I'll be back for Season 3!

Photo Credit: Chris Large