BWW Recap: See How Everyone Acts 'Before the Law' on FARGO

In "Before the Law," everyone's lives revolved around one person, whether they know it yet or not. The death of Rye has caused a ripple effect in the lives of all of our characters: Dodd wants to find his brother before Floyd, so that he can convince him to back him for head of the Gerhardt family; Floyd just wants to know where her youngest son is; Ed and Peggy deal with the aftermath and mainly clean-up of killing Rye; the Kansas City men, led by Mike Milligan, are trying to find Rye in order to use him to gain control of the Gerhardt operation; and Lou and Hank are on the case trying to solve the Waffle Hut murders.

It is very clear that Rye's murder will cause an avalanche of conflict in the coming episodes. The minute Floyd and Dodd find out about his death, they'll want retribution and odds are they'll suspect the Kansas City crew for his death. The timing of their arrival make it all the more easy to pin his death on them.

It's also evident that Ed and Peggy will not be able to hold up this act for a while. Ed spends all day cleaning up the mess, while Peggy worries that they need to "keep up appearances." In an almost Breaking Bad-esque scene, Ed meticulously cleans the garage and then burns his and Rye's clothing in the fireplace. Peggy and Ed remind me of the Macbeth's, but with a lot less cunning. They have no motive for killing Rye, but their subsequent actions prove them to be very similiar to their Shakespearean conterparts. Peggy screams Lady Macbeth with her subsconsious hair touching and her control over Ed. Poor Ed, not only does he spend the whole day cleaning up a mess that Peggy started, he also almost gets caught by Lou, in an exchange so tense that I could barely breathe. The moment Ed hears the knock on the Butcher Shop's door is the moment he realizes that things aren't going to get easier, and the fingers sprawling across the floor depict that well. Like Lester, Ed and Peggy are in way over their heads, and it's only a matter of time before what they've done catches up to them.

Peggy is also going to have trouble from her boss at the salon, who is currently nameless. After giving Peggy a ride home and stopping inside to use the restroom, the boss sees that Peggy stole toliet paper from the salon, and instead of being angry, she's intrigued by Peggy. The boss finds her rule-breaking spirit exciting, and she is able to see past Peggy's attempts at lying, which will pose as a threat for Peggy in subsequent episodes.

A new character was introducted tonight, and he stole the show. Mike Milligan is one of Joe Bulo's guys tasked with finding Rye so that they can use him to gain control of the Gerhardt business. Milligan is right of the bat an interesting character, as his conversation in the car with Bulo captures your attention (and makes you wonder which Gerhardt brother is the pincher and the crusher). Milligan is the physical embodiment of the chaos and hellish ways of the world, and he constantly mentions the decline of the world and society in his speeches, further intertwining him with that decline. He comes across as very calculating and careful, and although he has yet to do anything more than talk, it's evident that the first move he makes will be big and attention-drawing. Milligan is this season's Malvo, and the trouble he'll cause has yet to begin.

Betsy is the strongest character in the show, which makes sense since she is the mother of Molly, our Season 1 protagonist. She's going through chemotherapy, but she is still able to be the one making progress in the case for Lou by finding the murder weapon at the Waffle Hut. It's obvious that she's the strong one of the relationship, and Lou is the quiet and dependent one. The only time we can really see how Lou is feeling is when he talks with Hank, since they are both dealing with Betsy's sickness in their own ways. The years between Hank and Lou is obvious when they talk, Lou more focused on his own actions, and Hank on the actions of others and the impact war has had on society. However, the Lou we know from Season 1 of the show is much more talkative and bright than Season 2 Lou, so I'm interested to see what happens to create that shift.

The last scene of the episode continued with the interesting, but confusing, theme of aliens. Whereas in the first episode Rye sees a UFO, in this one we see green light on the roof of the butcher shop while we hear these words:

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that human affairs were being watched from the timeless whirls of space. No one could have dreamed we were being scrutanized as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even consider the possibility of life on other planets, and yet across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely they drew their plans against us

These words are from War of the Worlds, and they make it very clear that the alien motif of the show is not going away. To be honest, I'm not quite sure where the show is going in this respect, but what I'm assuming it means at the very least is that there is a much bigger power at play here that we have yet to be introduced to. I look forward to finding out what all of this means.

Leftovers from "Before the Law:

-It was so cruel (and foreshadowing) that the balloon Molly found and handed to Betsy said "Get Well Soon"

-Floyd: "That's what an EMPIRE is, its bigger than any son or daughter"

-Salon boss: "Don't be a prisioner of 'we.'"

-Typewriter guy: "Did you need a character reference?"

Milligan: "Now I'm going to guess the boys are an 11 and not a 2, which would make them toddlers."

-The use of split screen really adds to the narrative, and makes the 70s feel of the show more authentic.

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Let me know your thoughts on this episode of FARGO in the comments below, or tweet me at @kaitmilligan! Make sure to come back next Monday as I recap another epsiode!

Photos Courtesy of the Fargo FX Twitter and FX