Over the course of “The Tender Trap,” which opens the second half of Fargo’s fifth season, Vivian Dugger (Andrew Wheeler) has a bad day that turns into a bad life. Having previously been put through the wringer in negotiating the sale of his bank to Lorraine, he begins the episode stumbling out of the titular club and into a tense encounter with Roy, who, after stripping off Vivian’s shirt, informs him he won’t be selling out to Lorraine after all. Roy’s got connections that could seriously diminish Vivian’s standing in the community, even if the dancer who took out a restraining order against him has moved to Sioux Falls to help her mother. Under those circumstances, Vivian can refrain from selling if he has to, disappointing as this may be.
A state away, Indira also knows a thing or two about disappointment. She wakes to a reminder that she’s deep in debt (and a request to give the call five stars), then receives a lecture from her husband, Lars (Lukas Gage), about what it means to be a wife: She needs to put him first and to cook (“Good, you know”). Then there are his needs, all kinds of needs, that aren’t being met to his satisfaction. Do Lars and Roy listen to the same awful podcasts? To this point, Lars has seemed like a deluded, handsome goober, but this episode reveals him as a world-class a-hole and confirms Indira as someone who’s put up with way too much nonsense for the even-keeled demeanor she maintains, if sometimes barely.
Both Vivan and Indira are going through rough stretches, though not as bad as Mr. Seymore (Steven McCarthy), the cancer patient held hostage by Gator and Roy’s henchmen in a case of seriously mistaken identity. The good news: They figure out he’s not their guy. The bad news: They don’t have any reason to keep him above ground upon learning this. Roy comes to this realization when he sees Wayne starring in an ad for his Kia dealership, a development so frustrating he moves while getting his hair cut then slaps his wife, Karen (Rebecca Liddiard), in frustration. Karen’s reaction suggests this isn’t the first time this has happened. Okay, it’s Roy who’s the first-class a-hole; Lars hasn’t gotten there yet.
In the wake of Dot’s escape and other incidents, the Mondale Center continues to be a locus of police activity. Indira figures out that Seymore’s been kidnapped (too late, alas) while Agents Joaquin and Meyer talk to Wayne and his father, Wink (Jan Bos). They don’t learn much. Wayne’s still out of it, and what he does remember doesn’t make a lot of sense to the FBI agents. “Did you ever see that movie The Nightmare Before Christmas?” he asks. “That’s a weird movie. I wanna say I dreamed it but in real life.” This is so close to being useful.
Wink is, if anything, less useful and more detached from reality, offering the agents a gimlet that he’s apparently mixed up in the lobby and generally seeming almost as loopy as his son as he informs them that, when it comes to ballet dancers, “The male of the species is called the ballerino.” Letting Wayne know about Dot’s past as “Nadine Bump” isn’t particularly useful, either. When (if?) he gets back to his old self, he’s going to have a lot to sort through.
With Seymore out of the way, Roy and his bunch need a new plan, one that will minimize any threat to Tillman Enterprises and Roy’s upcoming election. Roy’s plan: Take Ole off the board by paying him off. Ole’s a man of few words but has an explanation for this, telling Roy, “A man has only so many words in his lifetime. For us, there are very few left.” That doesn’t sound encouraging, nor does Ole’s other cryptic aphorism: “When a man digs a grave he has to feel it. Otherwise it’s just a hole.”
Nonetheless, the meeting seems to end to both Roy and Ole’s satisfaction. Gator, however, is another story. He attempts to intimidate Ole when Ole returns to his car, then activates a tracer after making a veiled threat. It doesn’t take Freud to figure out Gator’s motivation. “I’m just off my game is off. You know I’m a winner,” he tells Roy earlier in the episode. Joe Keery plays it with such vulnerability it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for him. As on Stranger Things, he’s playing a character who’s starting to realize he peaked in high school, though Gator’s acting in much more violent ways than Steve.
Though she’s still withholding that she’s seen Dot and let her loose, Indira trades information with Joaquin and Meyer, but she approaches this arrangement warily. Dot’s safety is her prime concern. She might be a tiger, but Dot is also a victim, and protecting victims is Indira’s top concern, as a later meeting with Lorraine will confirm.
Back at Indira’s house, we learn two more things that Lars isn’t particularly great at besides golf: babysitting and drumming. He leaves Scotty to fend for herself, and though Scotty’s not great at food prep, she is pretty good at entertaining herself by playing with Lars’s enormous drum set, maybe the biggest kit to show up in a TV series since Jason Segel’s on Freaks and Geeks. And, as with Nick Andopolis, Lars’s equipment takes up more space than his talent. Scotty, on the other hand, seems like she knows what she’s doing. “That was his last dream,” Indira later tells her. This woman has put up with a lot of nonsense.
Lorraine, too, has seen some nonsense in her time, and it just keeps coming. She quickly interprets that Vivian’s shirt and the accompanying “not on my watch” note come from Roy after her refusal to help him. (“This is tit for that.”) And if she has any tender feelings for her son, they’re only fleetingly evident when Wayne interrupts her at the office. She sends him off with a promise of stuffies and a hot meal, then tells Danish to “gas up the Porsche.” He’s got an election to steal.
Lorraine’s a funny character, isn’t she? She seemed like a cartoon villain in this season’s early episodes (but a well-played one, thanks to Jennifer Jason Leigh), but she keeps showing cracks in her icy facade. When Scotty arrives safely she smiles at her with relief and fondness, then drops the smile when Indira catches her. She also sees in Indira something of a kindred spirit, a tough, principled woman, even if she does apologize too much.
Their conversation turns into a weird tug of war. Rather than swatting Indira away, Lorraine wants to hire her. Indira’s tempted, but she has an agenda of her own: getting her to see Dot as a fellow kindred spirit but also as someone whose history is “written in punches and chokeholds.” A victim, in other words. Because some people really are victims. Indira leaves with 24 hours to make up her mind. Lorraine’s own mind seems to change when she takes a look at Dot’s file. Maybe.
Elsewhere, Vivian tries to forget his troubles with a private dancer, but it’s to no avail. Danish shows up with a cell phone and Lorraine on the other end, who informs him that he can’t pull out of the deal because she’s pulling it. Instead, she’s going to bring down the full weight of the law on him and his family. How about that? That’s a fate no lap dance can cure.
Wheels continue to turn this week, sometimes taking the season in unexpected directions. Is Lorraine kind of cool? Can Ole really be bought off? Will Trump be removed from office by impeachment, as Karen fears? Okay, one of those isn’t particularly suspenseful. But everything else about the episode neatly ratchets up the suspense as it further complicates some already complex characters.
Okay, Then!
• “We wanna watch cartoons!” This is the correct response, Tillman twins.
• No Dot or Witt this week. The latter is presumably continuing his investigation. As for Dot? Who knows, really?
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