Eye for an Eye: The Symbolic Power of of Television through “Fargo” Season Five
October 27, 2024
Our world is shaped by the two dimensional screen sitting in every American’s living room. Whether we like it or not, television has the ability to structure our social relations, values and even politics. While in the past, the popular genre of family sitcoms shaped our lives, today other genres continue this legacy of television as an ideological force. In this paper, I argue that the crime drama series Fargo uses its "symbolic power" as a "story that matters" to contribute to the "civic imagination,” according to Miller and Gray’s conception. This paper expands Miller and Gray’s hypothesis beyond the bounds of the traditional sitcom, exploring television’s capacity to engage with political and civic imagination and deconstruct notions of family and justice. By doing a close analysis of several scenes across Season 5, I will demonstrate how Fargo utilizes the overarching theme of debt to tell a “story that matters.”
In the chapter, “Family Sitcoms’ Political Front,” Taylor Cole Miller and Jonathan Gray assert that television families play a central role in the American civic and political imagination because of their power of representation (60). Whether addressing politics overtly, such as the show black-ish, or more metaphorically, as in the case of I Dream of Jeannie, sitcoms have long reflected our current climate on screen (62). Miller and Gray argue that television sitcoms can acquire a “symbolic power” by offering diverse perspectives to audiences and facilitating conversations. This paper applies Miller and Gray’s theory of television’s “symbolic power” to the drama series Fargo in order to extend their work beyond sitcoms, and explain how other genres can tell “stories that matter.”
The fifth season of anthology crime drama Fargo begins much like the previous four. The first episode starts like every other, the superimposed text reading “This is a true story” (It’s not). We open on a scene of happy midwestern domesticity; the easy rhythm and joy of family life. Yet, anyone who has seen the previous seasons (or the 1996 Coen Brothers film of the same name) knows that beneath this world of charming Minnesota accents, desolate and snowy landscapes, and the ease of small town life, lurks a deep violence, a malevolent force which will undoubtedly come to haunt the show’s protagonists.
Almost like a cautionary fairy tale, Noah Hawley’s Fargo features a new set of archetypal characters in each season. Season five follows Dot Lyon (Juno Temple), this season's unlikely hero. She lives in Scandia, Minnesota as a housewife with a mild-mannered husband and a charming daughter. Yet, her happy peppy attitude hides a dark past that she can’t seem to escape. Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) is season five’s central villain. A charismatic and twisted “constitutional sheriff,” Tillman rules his county like his own fiefdom, keeping citizens in line with his backwards views. We find out that Tillman was Dot’s abusive husband, who continues to search for her and attempt to bring her back under his power. Fargo always features law enforcement. In this season we have the virtuous North Dakota state trooper Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris) and Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani), an astute Scandia deputy who is massively in debt. Other important characters include Dot’s mother-in-law, Lorraine (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a billionaire who made her fortune off of debt collection, and Gator (Joe Keery), Roy Tillman’s son and deputy, desperate for his father’s approval and affection. Finally, we have Ole Munch (Sam Spruell), originally hired by Tillman to retrieve Dot Lyon. Munch plays the role of this season’s anagogic character, a figure in each iteration of Fargo who seems not quite human, often roaming the desolate midwestern snowdrifts sewing violence and chaos. This cast of characters collides throughout the season in an exploration of violence and debt, justice and forgiveness.
Local Sheriff Deputy Indira Olmstead has taken out too many loans because of her good-for-nothing husband. Yet rather than painting Indira’s debt as the result of poor financial decision making, the show instead points to a system which routinely traps individuals into a vicious cycle. Lorraine, Dot’s wealthy mother in law, begins the season as the face of this system. Cold and aloof, Lorraine traps those less fortunate than herself in this cycle of debt in order to stay on top. For her, debt is a tool which she can use to control others. Yet, we come to realize that Lorraine fears nothing more than being a victim, and in doing so ends up victimizing others. The initial interactions between Lorraine and Deputy Olmstead are anything but pleasant. Indira represents the law, and Lorraine represents those wealthy enough to rise above it. Yet, placing Lorraine face to face with a “victim” of the debt system does begin to shift her view. In episode six, “The Tender Trap,” Deputy Olmstead and Lorraine meet again. Olmstead says, “Your problem is that you think that you’re rich because you’re better than me, but we’re the same; up before dawn, making our mark on the world.” (36:44-36:51). Deputy Olmstead refuses to be simply a victim. While she may not be erasing the literal debt she is in, she is ending the more symbolic cycle of victimization.
Debt can also take on a much more abstract form. The final episode of the season, titled “Bisquik,” opens with Gator Tillman lying in agony against a tree in the middle of a fog drenched field (0:00-1:51). His eyes have been gouged out (off-screen) by Ole Munch as retribution for his various crimes. Ole Munch operates under the ideals of a very literal form of “eye for an eye” justice. Because of Gator’s acts of violence, he himself must be subjected to violence in order for his debt to society to be repaid. Yet, the audience balks at this notion of justice. First of all, this act of violence is so atrocious that the modern viewer can do nothing but recoil in visceral horror. Furthermore, throughout the season, we are made to see that Gator himself is as much a victim of Roy Tillman’s cruelty as Dot is. While this doesn’t absolve him of his own crimes, it certainly points to the cyclical nature of violence.
In fact, Ole Munch himself owes a sort of spiritual debt. In episode three, “The Paradox of Immediate Transactions,” the show makes a startling flashback of 500 years to Wales in the year 1522, where Ole Munch is a starving peasant (16:04-16:08). A priest asks, “In forgiveness of your debts to man, will you consume his lordship's sins to God?” to which Ole Munch agrees (16:43-16:47). Munch then begins to feast on a plate of food placed above the corpse of the deceased lord (17:01-17:06). Fargo draws on the ancient folktale of the “sin eater;” a peasant paid to symbolically consume the sins of the wealthy, allowing them to go to heaven. This backstory explains the cursed life Ole Munch leads. Yet, despite the horrific acts of violence he commits against Gator and others, we don’t feel that someone should seek retribution against him.
This culminates in the final scene of “Bisquik.” After triumphing over Roy Tillman, Dot is finally returned to her family. Just when we thought she had escaped, Ole Munch appears, sitting on her couch across from her hapless husband (28:20-28:33). “We will finish our engagement now,” says Munch, “...The debt must be paid” (30:30-31:15). Rather than fighting him, Dot and her family continue on with their happy domestic life. As he attempts to draw her back into the world of debt and retribution, she instead stays in her world, where it’s just an ordinary school night. “Why must debt be paid?,” asks Dot (33:00-33:02), “Isn’t the more humane thing to say the debt should be forgiven?” (33:35-33:99). Dot makes an intentional choice to end the cycle of violence by choosing forgiveness. For this reason, she chooses to offer Ole Munch her homemade biscuits. The biscuits are the physical manifestation of her love and forgiveness, and serving them to Ole Munch turns out to be the antidote to the sin he was forced to consume 500 years previously. Like Lorraine, Munch learns that there is more to our relationships than debts and retribution.
While it is unlikely that a 500 year old “sin eater” will haunt our family to make us pay our literal or metaphorical debts, the “symbolic power” of this season fits well into Miller and Gray’s conception of television as a symbolic resource that shapes our consciousness through representation. Miller and Gray write that, “the domesticom attempts to reimagine the genre and its families as key resources for a similar reimagination of American politics…” (9). I argue that Fargo, though differing in genre, also attempts to reimagine American politics. Fargo Season 5 contributes to the “civic imagination” by exploring the theme of debt. The series shows a vast array of representations of characters suffering from, or imposing, debt. The values it promotes and the divisions it reveals serve as parables for modern America. This season takes on the American struggle with financial debt (be that student loan debt, medical bills, etc.) as well as more ephemeral forms of debt. Whether one reads the series as an indictment of capitalism, a warning about demagogues, or simply an interesting portrayal of family dynamics, it is evident that this fictional representation invites conversation. In our current divisive and polarized political climate, Fargo Season 5 asks its audience to reconsider retribution against the “other side,” instead asking us to examine our own position. Are we victims? Do we victimize others? Like the characters in Fargo, we have agency. Ultimately, it is up to us to end cycles of debt and violence.
In conclusion, this paper has established Fargo as a compelling examination of justice in America. By doing an in depth analysis of the theme of debt, I have demonstrated why Season 5 represents a “story that matters.” This analysis of Fargo extends Miller and Gray’s writings beyond the family sitcom by demonstrating how a crime drama series can also portray family and contribute to the “civic imagination.” Ultimately, across genres, television has the ability to deconstruct and reshape powerful beliefs, shaping and structuring our social and political world.
Works Cited
Breznica, Anthony. “Fargo Season Five Finale: Noah Hawley Explains That Peculiar Ending” Vanity Fair, 17 Jan 2024, https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/fargo-season-5-ending-explained. Accessed 23 Oct 2024.
Fargo, created by Noah Hawley. Season 5. MGM Television/ FX Productions/ 26 Keys Productions, 21 Nov. 2024. Hulu. https://www.hulu.com/hub/home.
Miller, Taylor and Gray, Jonathan. "Family Sitcoms’ Political Front." Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination, edited by Henry Jenkins, Gabriel Peters-Lazaro, Sangita Shresthova, NYU Press, 2020, pp 60-67.
