Minnesota Not Nice

 “Fargo,”Season 5

“Fargo,” the streaming series, is consistently one of the best things on TV. This season is openly political. It skewers a violent chauvinist county Sheriff in North Dakota who believes his under-age second wife cannot leave him due to some verbiage from the Bible - passages of which he quotes continually. Somehow the serial beatings he administers to his young wife also play a role in his Bible.  

The Sheriff is connected to a rag-tag rightist militia of 'patriots' that he gives weapons to, buying them using public funds. He also buys a tank for his small rural 'Stark' county. The Sheriff only believes in sovereign law – meaning himself and a 'strict' and warped reading of the Constitution. These loons claim that no jurisdiction except one of their sovereign kangaroo courts could possibly arrest them, indict them, garnish them or file a claim against them. State and federal law have no application, so to speak. The Sheriff is played by John Hamm – breaking his Mad Man persona. His mission is to recapture his second wife no matter what. You see, it's Biblical.

Look familiar?

There actually is a 'Constitutional Sheriffs' organization, so this is no fantasy.  It's 'rebellion,' yes, but from the far Right.

The central character, his second wife played by Juno Temple, has escaped and found a doofus Kia car dealer to marry in Scandia, Minnesota. She has a child and tries to live a normal life, volunteering, cooking and hiding out. This 'housewife' actually has the survival skills of a big cat and in tough situations, thinks fast and acts faster. Her abilities are a highlight of the show. She marries into a family dominated by a nasty capitalist matron who runs the biggest debt-collection agency in the U.S. and has all kinds of pull in Minnesota. The matron has a one-eyed lawyer working for her who does her dirty-work.

The Sheriff's son is a moronic tough-guy who fails at everything he does except being vile. The Sheriff's first wife, who also ran away, 'might have' become a hippie feminist, founding a sanctuary for beaten women in the woods. But its possible he killed her too. The Sheriff's 3^rd wife is a nasty Liberty-Mom, Bible-spouting doormat. There is one intelligent black Nor-Dak State trooper who knows something is up, along with two somewhat clueless FBI agents. Add to the mix - a perhaps magical beast from the 1500s in Wales, a Frankensteinian lummox with a bad haircut who is out for revenge. He's no 'welsher!' His name is Ole Munch, so that should tell you something.

The series is set in the snow-swept precincts of North Dakota ranch land, on lonely highways and in snow-piled Minnesota streets – the usual visual atmosphere of the whole Fargo series. The stereotyped 'Minnee-soota' accent still abides, even though in the real world it is disappearing. The Sheriff at one point cites Mormon Ammon Bundy as a hero, so we know where the screenwriters got part of this plot. Ammon led a destructive 2016 armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon with a group of militia because the wealthy Bundy family didn't want to pay grazing fees for their herd of cattle on public land. One of their militia, Robert Finicum, was killed by Federal agents as he reached for a gun. To this day, as far as I know, the Bundys have not paid grazing fees and their cows still literally eat at the public trough.

The theme of debt courses through the series.  There is the debt collection corporation; a debt owed by the Sheriff to Munch; two blood debts, prisoners with debts, debts of gratitude and the 'debt' of marriage.  It's a primitive theme that still resonates.

Yes, it's holy sh*t! This dark, violent and funny story circles around Halloween, some magic and the hope that reactionaries everywhere will get stopped – though this unlikely task seems relegated to the compromised FBI and law enforcement. The locals are cowed by the Sheriff as the police are in his pocket, though they begin to make fun of him for buying a tank. The story-writers don't want to show any significant rebellion by the civilians against the Sheriff and his posse. The story also rests on the idea that women everywhere can stay married to the nice fool of their dreams in spite of their pasts. Or as a beautiful blonde in a short red dress once said in a southern blues bar: “Ahm sick o' rednecks.” Because this housewife certainly is.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms: “Fargo, HBO, Season One” and "Who is Lester Nygaard?" Other television long-form streaming series reviewed – “Deadwood,” “Game of Thrones,” “Lincoln Lawyer,” “Stateless,” “Hannah,” “The Playlist,” “Line of Duty,” “Inventing Anna,” “Better Call Saul,” “Ozark,” “The Peaky Blinders,” “3%,” “We Own This City,” “Maid,” “City On A Hill,” “Goliath,” “Watchmen,” “The Good Lord Bird,” “The Wire,” “Hunger Games” or the word 'streaming.'   

The Cultural Marxist

January 14, 2024