Typically considered either the noblest or lamest collectors’ item — depending on one’s tolerance for abstract hobbies — a postage stamp offers enthusiasts the otherwise rare chance to assign a sticky piece of paper its own worth, always in opposition to its “true” value in government-assigned postage.
The Sisyphus stamp that brothers Emmit and Ray Stussy feuded over will remain coveted, but now as evidence, its market price shattered by Emmit’s fitful and fatal desire to force it into his brother’s arms.
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Without doubt, Fargo is a fiction that digs into our most dramatic and violent interpersonal conflicts. It can’t be considered a shock when the book on Ray’s life closes in such undistinguished fashion because a mythical “hero’s journey” stands directly opposed to Fargo itself.
Since we’re here to tell the truth about Ray: Apart from Nikki Swango, it’s unclear who’ll miss him at all. The critical slip that gives the four remaining hours their slide after “The Lord of No Mercy” is Emmit’s dialing V.M. Varga in the immediate aftermath.
V.M. is prepared with the appropriate soundtrack, introduced in his own eloquent fashion — Beethoven’s 23rd Piano Sonata, the famed favorite of Russian history’s most noted revolutionary.
If there’s a single thing for all parties today to agree on, it’s that Vladimir Lenin may have known too much for his own good. But his Apassionata fixation exhibits universal wisdom about the power stemming from a pleasure as consistent as enjoying one’s own favorite music daily.
The way V.M. Varga expresses his own passion each day makes him unforgettable even within the well-colored history of Fargo wolves, as he casts such strong contrast t0 the Minnesota-winter-bred parking lot business he could now usurp entirely.
That’s why the tensest confrontation of the hour, even over the Stussy stamp throwdown, is the long-awaited first meeting of V.M. Varga and Gloria Burgle.
Though Varga lurks behind his unwitting partner and Burgle sits beside hers, the screen increasingly lingers on the two competing figures alone to underscore Gloria’s first glimpse of the invading party she previously knew nothing about.
The meeting illustrates how the Stussys have been merely ancillary to their own dispute — with the sole exception of Ray electing to “hire” Maurice to steal the stamp weeks earlier.
The Stussys’ marginalization covertly demonstrates the rationale V.M. espoused to Emmit (and the disbelieving Sy) favoring the company’s expansion, citing German philosopher and art critic Gotthold Lessing: “Let each man say what he deems truth, and let truth itself be commended unto God!”
V.M. offers to “illuminate” truth for his partners in business and conversation (or interrogation, in Gloria’s case) but his particular brand of brightness stems from this same philosophy that Fargo calls upon strongest in the latest edition.
The proper light illuminates a truth that lies beneath it, but it only takes a few shades brighter to wash out what would’ve been seen easily in the plain day.
The dearly departed of “The Lord of No Mercy” — Ray Stussy — began his day under his door’s faintly shaded window but ended it prematurely with his decision to return home solo at night, forced by having forgotten the stolen money.
Emmit, conversely, entered with conceding as the goal but forgot that he’d still be greeted as an intruder. Peace treaties are customarily ratified at an agreed-upon time precisely so such a surprise occurrence doesn’t prompt things to go wrong.
The last straw of the Stussy brotherhood is broken by their simultaneous and matching changes of heart — the inverted attraction to the stamp literally causes the final push, instigated by the Parking Lot King whose time for a safe exit is dwindling rapidly.
Both of FX‘s previous Fargo iterations turned the heat up dramatically in their back halves, and Ray’s fall will have certain repercussions when Nikki Swango learns of it.
But in its concluding notes, “The Lord of No Mercy” sends Chief Burgle accelerating towards the breakdown that the Law has so far been kept outside of, teasing a hair-raising spiral to take place over the chapter’s remaining four hours.
- V.M. Varga alarms Sy by bringing up fake account books, but Meemo’s formal chat with the IRS’s Larue Dollard proves the merit of the technique. The Russian army choir sings “Cossack’s Song” as Nikki and Ray tail the crew and note their exit strategy.
- Though Nikki correctly identifies V.M. and his associates, then puts together most of the pieces connecting him to Emmit while resting in her ice bath, she ironically never catches that Meemo himself tracked them to the motel.
“The Lord of No Mercy,” like last week’s “The House of Special Purpose,” is directed by Fargo newcomer Dearbhla Walsh. It also marks series creator Noah Hawley’s first writing credit since “The Principle of Restricted Choice” and “The Law of Vacant Places” which opened this year’s installment.
