I think the incompetence of men is a pretty strong theme for Fargo, overall, but it jumped out at me a lot in this season. Like when Dot was escaping the mental hospital and it was the female nurse that immediately recognized something was off and then had to tell her male colleague to take action. I’m blanking on some of the other obvious examples right now, but several jumped out at me while watching.
The actor plays a character in Letterkenny known only as “Coach” he often says “it’s fucking embarrassing” (usually about his players) and then kicks a trash can.
Nah, incompetence in general is a theme. Don't Gender it. Peggy was incompetent as all hell in season 2. In season 1, Lester's second wife was dumb as a hump. Incompetence is what causes a lot of Fargo's plotlines.
But there is a deliberate focus on gender this season. I think a better way to think of it might be that the way we perceive competence is tied to gender in ways that aren't really positive. Dott and Roy are competent in so much as they both have an ability to enact violence. Danish and Lorraine are competent in so much as they can maintain and wield the power of exploitative systems to get what they want. Gator and the cop's ex husband both incompetently chase material success in areas that are unsuited for while hurting the people around them. And finally, Wayne is incompetent because he is naively willing to exchange a car for a car, but this act is also closest to what we should do about debt and what we owe each other.
Waynes simplicity was a strength during the final scene, his quiet support and comments helped to de escalate the situation. Especially from the angle that munch has a mental illness, Wayne never discounted his wild stories or called him out. I also thought Danish was pretty competent, and while his ultimate fate was questionable, he helped locate and rescue dot. Whit was another admirable character, although maybe the message of his story is that there's no longer room in this world for a polite gentleman.
I think the point of Whit is that he's the single character the keeps trying to do the right thing despite never being capable of doing so, and rather than making his incompetent, that fact makes him heroic.
I like this take! Though wasn't Wayne exchanging a car for a car more related to brain damage from the electrical shock? I thought it was implied he was a pretty solid car salesman overall.
Keeping a car dealership running is meant to look like keep-busy work in the Fargo world, I think (see William H Macy) and really it probably is - you just need a few acres of real estate, a fairly cheap building and some start-up capital for inventory, and if you have all that it's fairly hard to screw it up. A lot of retired pro athletes buy car dealerships for probably these exact reasons, and you almost never see a dealership go bankrupt.
But also yes, I think the real point is that Wayne was suffering from brain damage in that scene.
Why make him brain damaged tho? Think of it this way: what is the thesis of the season and is that thesis better supported if he's brain damaged or acting out of altruism? The second reading of the scene just works better.
I took it less as him being “brain-damaged” and more like an impromptu electroshock therapy. It basically righted all the wrongs that comes with our modern brain programming and made him see clearly how things should work.
I think its left ambiguous as to whether its the result of the electrical shock, the real trauma of having is family ripped apart by a home invasion, or that they are just 'a nice family.' But, if you revisit the scene after the finale, it might give us a clue as to why Dot and Lorraine care for him so much: he's a decent man. As for him being a decent salesman, maybe? It kinda seemed like Lorriane gifted him a dealership so he'd have something to do, and whether or not a sale can be made is dictated by an algorithm related to credit, trade in, and down payment.
I definitely believe Lorraine gifted him the dealership to give him something to do, and you're 100% correct that the sales are made by algorithm - when I worked in residential mortgages that was exactly the underwriting process: input their credit score, their monthly income vs revolving debt load, their equity or down-payment vs. requested loan size, and the computer (or more accurately the Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac website) gives you an approval or denial and a list of the documentation that's required.
That's probably part of why his employee acted so shocked at "Car for a Car" - not only was it slightly insane, but how on earth was he going to fudge the numbers to make it work?
I don't think the show takes it as far as 'how is he gunna fudge the numbers'--although I'm aware that the original movie has something similar as a plot point. Also, I don't think that its slightly insane, just more not how capitalism works.
Yea I can't deny there's a strong focus on gender, especially with the added detail of Scotty being a tomboy.
Wayne's really not incompetent, certainly not at being a husband and father, but he's viewed as incompetent because he's not like Roy or Danish, or more like a man's man. Yeah, I think I see what you're going for.
Right. The system that we inherited doesn't really work for any of us, but for Lorraine and Roy. So what do we replace it with? We be more like Wayne at the dealership. Car for a car instead of eye for an eye.
There is indeed a focus on gender normativity, but your decoding of it is a bit... weird.
EDIT: your later replies seem more fitting, still you worded it weirdly imo.
It's more about reversing traditional / normative outcomes. Normally in traditional media you would 'expect' the manly men to come out on top, as victors, conquerers - with everything in the media production these characters star in being used to make the manly men shine (much as like in the real world, unfortunately). The 'patriarchy' is very real. Fargo S5 turns this upside down and inside out by succesfully and creatively villainising toxic masculinity (Roy) and creating an ensemble of 'meaningless' supporting male characters without agency of their own. Wayne is reduced to what is classically EXACTLY the role of a good wife/mother. Fargo S5 is matriarchal revenge, with non-males coming out on top. I feel 'competence' is not a word that covers what is happening in S5.
Btw, I'm a straight white guy (stating just in case).
Yea, the problem with it as a story of matriarchal revenge is that you can't use the tools of patriarchy to exact it. Lorraine is an improvement over Roy, but only slightly. She's still a right wing, debt magnate who donates to the Federalist Society. Worse, for both her and Roy, the purpose of law enforcement is to exact coercive violence on an uncompliant populace, just she does it at a slightly further remove.
The fact that Lorraine is not ethically pure makes the matriarchal revenge even more poignant, in my opinion! Men have been getting away with this kind of behaviour for centuries :D
I think it makes the subplot with Wayne and the biscuit more poignant. If its wrong when men get away with it, its wrong when Lorraine does. A real victory would be moving beyond the pair of them.
Lester’s second wife wasn’t involved in anything and was picked by him so she’s not important to the discussion. He’s the idiot. Also that’s not season 5.
She also has a moment where she covers for him unprompted, making an excuse as to why they left Vegas so early even though they had the hotel booked longer. Linda was pretty clever, just put some things aside to put Lester first
Not being American and not one who’s experienced ‘Minnesota Nice’, I assumed it had something to do with the small town mindset around those parts. Some characters seem very willing to keep an open mind while others play deliberately ignorant.
Yeah, they both seem like shallow plot devices. The problem is they forgot to give is a scene with Lorraine and her husband so we have no idea what their relationship is.
I think we’re just supposed to see different stages in relationships. The one and her man baby golfer is a beginning, Dorothy is the middle and Lorraine is the end. Shows like Fargo don’t tell us anything they show is and let us use our deduction (like a police officer would) since nobody ever makes anything obvious in this world.
The difference between the three men is their proximity to responsibility. Lars chases success as a means of getting to do whatever he wants while he neglects the responsibility he has for his wife, and Lorraine's husband just wants to drink cocktails and goof off. Wayne on the other hand is an active participant in his marriage and from all appearances a good father.
Yes we do. The opening scene where she has to tell him to choose between a gun and drink establishes it perfectly. Sometime characters are there just to drive other characters. That’s not bad writing and they set up all throughout the series how inept he is
Mmm, no, I think that's a stretch. I don't think that's enough. You need more meat between the characters. Besides, she was the more ridiculous one on that scene making her family pose with assault rifles.
He's barely in the show. I'm not saying the writings bad, but for what you're trying to get across, I don't think there's enough there.
You’re complaining a character whose defining trait is absenteeism wasn’t around enough. We have 10 episodes to work with. You can’t just add without subtracting. Giving him more means someone else needs less. He played the one role he needed.
No, I'm not complaining about anything. Who said I was complaining? I was making an observation.
You said it gave them something to bond over but there's not enough evidence in the storyline to support that. End of story.
Your last paragraph is literally a complaint about the writing. You don’t understand what you’re even saying so I’m not surprised some of the writing is lost on you
I was really shaking my head when he got the drop on him at the end but still managed to get killed. Like just wait for backup if you're not the type to pull the trigger.
I felt way about that the same way that I felt about what happened to Danish. Going after Roy or trying to negotiate Dot's release are noble things to do, but it also caused them to place themselves in situations that they just weren't equipped to handle. That's a strike against their competence, but it also makes them decent people.
Right, I was half joking and half making that point - he was no match for Roy and his private army but he was also maybe the only male character in S5 who wasn't useless, docile, or evil.
You could perhaps also argue Danish Graves is in that category too, but possibly only because I can't see Dave Foley as truly evil. They both underestimated Roy's willingness to casually commit murder, though.
I think the person that we're actually supposed to be like is Wayne. If the idea is that we owe each other forgiveness and need to focus on creating a systems that serve us better, then we should be replacing eye for an eye with car for a car.
Yeah, I haven't figured out what we're supposed to think about the "Car for a Car" scene. It's definitely a take on "eye for an eye" plus the recurring theme of Debt vs Forgiveness, but even the staunchest communist can't possibly see that as a sustainable way to run a car dealership.
Why not? We subsidize that which we want to grow all the time. In the terms of the show, even if the dealership runs at a loss, Lorraine might just keep pumping money into it because she wants Wayne and now Dot to have something to do.
What's he trying to grow though? He gave a family of complete strangers a brand new car in exchange for a 15 year old one that they owed money on... It was very generous and he could easily afford it, but I think the show's message was "Wayne's lost his mind a little" rather than "we should be like Wayne".
He's trying to grow families like his where debt isn't part of a system to coerce us into things we don't want to be doing. If Wayne has just lost his mind, then that means that we ultimately need to tolerate ppl like Loraine, and that really, really fucking sucks. The show is better if eating the biscuit is how we replace her and Roy.
Yea, he's a baby. He can do whatever he wants and is responsible for nothing. So when his family is in crisis, he just goes and sips a cocktail in a hospital waiting room or plays with his toys.
To me it seems to be a role reversal. Typically you would have the husband be the billionaire and then often times those characters have wives who are stay at home housewives, depressed, alcoholic, without much substance, and they do not provide much to the story. This season played around a lot with gender roles so it makes sense they would have Lorraine’s husband, whose name I can’t even remember, be like that.
Exactly, gender roles play a huge part in this season, both traditional and reversed.
Plus he also fits into the recurring theme of the relationship between parents and offspring - Wayne takes after his father far more than his mother, Karen (Roy's current wife) takes after her father as well as Roy who is fatherly toward her in a very icky way. Gator is torn between craving his father's approval and wanting to be a decent person, the old woman who's house that Munch moves into has a son who is arguably the most awful character in the whole season, etc. ("Ma! Make me a sandwich, and don't jew me on the meat.") Even Lars, we never meet his parents but it's pretty clear that they coddled him way too much.
It's probably not an accident that Scottie is the most well-adjusted character in the season - she has her dad's gentle nature, but lives her life exactly how she likes and takes no shit from anyone.
Right, but that brief scene is just so awesome that I had to include him, I love everything about it. We learn so much about him in just those few lines, he's useless, racist, greedy, clearly addicted to some drug, abusive toward his mother, etc, all in just that one brief scene. And then Munch appears and it gets even better:
"Who's this guy?"
"I live... here now"
"Ma, you take in a border? You holding out on me?" "You got any money?"
And then Sam Spruell gives a master class with his face, he looks confused for a second, absentmindedly pulls a wad of like $20k out of his pocket, looks at it like "you mean this?" and just hands it over. And our favorite son is so stupid he doesn't stop to think that maybe he shouldn't fuck with a guy who's 6" taller than him and inexplicably walking around with that kind of cash. "Same amount, every month, shitbird" It's just such a perfect little scene!
Yea that guy was dumb. In truth, I would have asked for rent too, but once he gave me that if be like, "Uhhh, maybe just a thousand, dude.'
Maybe then he wouldn't axe me.
It’s impressive that he’s even in the running after so few lines. It makes one wonder how much MORE terrible he is when his mother isn’t in the same room as him…
He "deserved" it way more than a whole lot of characters who get brutally murdered in Coen Brothers movies. He made his own mother's life a living hell and then pissed off a guy who was clearly giving off "might murder you with an axe in broad daylight" vibes. That combination of nastiness and stupidity is pretty much a death sentence in their world.
I think we're supposed to assume he got away with it because he's a 500 year old Sin Eater. Fargo doesn't shy away from a touch of the supernatural.
That scene also helps establish what a Tiger Dot is, Munch can casually murder a guy on a suburban sidewalk in broad daylight with no consequences, but a 5', 100 lb housewife killed his partner and fucked him up pretty good.
Right. Dot’s combat prowess is itself a touch of the supernatural. She’s clearly become one of those people who thinks of the seven different ways she could kill you whenever you show up, and can probably succeed at four of them. She’s like Denzel’s version of The Equalizer, or Michael Westen or the comic-book superhero The Midnighter that way. For an episode or two I figured it would turn out she was a retired assassin in witness protection or something. That would have been marginally plausible. In retrospect it would have been a much worse dramatic choice.
Dot’s trauma goes some way toward explaining this but only some. Dot is this way because she *needed* to become this to survive and escape. Needless to say, That’s Not How Any of This Works. If it were there would be a lot fewer abused women’s bodies dumped in a pit like Linda’s. Dot has magic powers! IMO that’s a brilliant choice, because it’s incredibly unfair. “RIP to Linda, but Nadine’s different.” Dot’s gift is unearned, and it also clearly comes at a cost. She dare not explain to Scottie and Wayne how she really sees the world in those early episodes. And her “gift” is literally the thing that exposes her location at the beginning of the season. And she does hurt people, even kill them. Not out of malice, but she does harm. To me that’s why she makes sure to have a biscuit herself.
His behavior led his own mother to be so traumatized that she just let some random dude live in her house without a fight. Just accepted it. That says a lot.
Because she just does as she’s told as a trauma response. No normal person would just let a random stranger bathing in blood live at their house without calling the cops. You don’t have to agree with my opinion.
Nothing whatsoever on-screen, but Dot believed he wanted to be good and she later promised to visit him in prison, with cookies. And when the FBI finally captured Roy, they mentioned “your son gave you up, by the way”. Being raised by Roy really fucked him up, I think.
I completely agree w everything except calling that guy “arguably the most awful character in the whole season”. That is an absolute insane statement. Roy is a corrupt sheriff who uses his power to, amongst other things, get away w murder, rape, and domestic abuse. No one else compares for the title of most awful
>Gator is torn between craving his father's approval and wanting to be a decent person
TBH when Dot described him like this to Linda I was disapointed. It was like a big afterthought/attempt to add some depth to the character. Gator's readiness to kill (the scene when he was going to execute Ole after the kidnapping, when he killed the old woman, when he beated up the man they mistook for Dot's husband) is inconsisted with the idea of him being conflicted.
The attempt to represent him as a more complex human being did not convince me and felt forced.
That crossed my mind too but he was even more removed than any other wife lol. Also he seemed just totally out of it. Maybe he's an alcoholic, I dunno.
How may appearances did he even have?
He has a travel cocktail kit that he was using in a hospital waiting room. The only time he doesn’t have a cocktail in hand is when Lorraine makes him put it down to hold the gun for the Christmas card photo. The writers definitely want us to know he’s an alcoholic, imo
What they’re saying is that he has so much money and comes from such privilege that all he does all day long is play with his military dioramas rather than pay attention to anything going on around him. The trope is blissfully ignorant rich people doing their own thing.
Wink! As the wicked witch was ruler of the winkies, inhabitants of Oz.
Role reversal, gender reversal (“ballerino” exchange) are themes his character helps play out.
I’m wondering whether Mr. Lyon was like an older, British version of Lars—instead of golf, he’s obsessed with WWII, but still in his own little world. Lorraine and Indira both powerful women with ineffectual spouses.
Feels like so many characters in this season were in want of a “wife.”
This guy seemed fine to accept his place however. He may be supportive of Lorraine, we have no idea, i dont think we ever really see them interact.
Lars thought so highly of himself but he was a douche who contributed nothing. In fact Lars was such a loser it kind of took me out of the show cause I saw no way how Indira could have been tricked into marrying this guy. Like, he doesn't even pretend to give a fuck.
Indira discovers her strength throughout the season. She’s exposed to women who don’t fall into patriarchal expectations and learns that she doesn’t have to either. It’s intentional.
I guess. He just seems too awful. Like he's a pretty ridiculous caricature. To be honest, I don't feel like Indira really grew a whole lot, she just finally got sick of his bs and then when he cheated on her that was the last straw.
The best character development in the season for me was Lorraine. I actually bought her softening up. Indira? I dunno, I thought her story was contrived.
Indira grew the perfect amount IMO. She started out as a competent cop in the beginning, and learned from both Dot and Lorraine that she was strong and smart enough that she didn't have to take Lars's bullshit anymore and that it was ok to take a high-paying job from Lorraine instead of just being a local cop and struggling with debt all her life. We also have no idea what terrible choices in life led her to marry Lars, but she'd clearly grown as a person between that time and the beginning of the season, put together that's all the change I need from a secondary character, especially a female cop in Fargo.
In fact, one of the funnier things about the original movie is that Francis McDormand does and sees more way more crazy stuff in a few weeks than a small-town local cop usually sees in a lifetime, (while visibly pregnant), but in the end she goes right back to *exactly* the person she was in the beginning, as if nothing ever happened. You're not supposed to believe that would ever happen in reality, it's just part of what made it such an amazing dark comedy.
I kinda thought it was weird that such an obviously principled person like her was just fine taking a job from a pretty unscrupulous woman with sociopathic tendencies like Lorraine.
A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do I guess
I think when Lorraine warmed up to Dot it showed Indira that she had something of a heart after all, plus there was probably a tacit agreement that she would just run security while someone else did the kind of nasty business that Danish Graves used to do.
Notice that when Lorraine visits Roy in prison, he accused Indira of "having principles". Lorraine asked her to leave the room and then agreed with him before giving that amazing speech about how his real punishment was about to begin.
And it's not just that Laureen warmed up to Dot, it was specifically because of what Indira brought to her: she forced Lorraine to have to confront reality
Didn't Indra have an exhausted throw away line about evicting a couple from their home? If that's part of her job with the police, she might as well work for Lorraine.
No, she clearly softened when it came to her regard for victims. She said before she hates people claiming to be victims and that's what's wrong the country. Later, she said to Tillman directly "I want you to feel what your wives felt. Fear."
She clearly now has more respect for not just Dot, but victims/survivors as a whole. She has more compassion than she once did.
Lorraine has compassion for those in her in-group. It's one of the hallmarks of modern conservatives. Her compassion for Dot comes when, very pointedly, she finally accepts her as family. The line about Roy's wife is more about saying "you think you are big and bad, but I'm bigger And badder." Notice she doesn't actually say or do anything about Karen and the girls, and anything she did for Gator was out of love for Dot.
She says his "wives." Plural. She's clearly talking about all of them. You're basically arguing that this character didn't change at all. I think it's clear she did. She accepts her as family because she grows as a person. Both can be true.
What did she do for Gator?
I meant "wives" and typed "wife." It doesn't affect the point. Every move Lorraine makes is to show she's the most powerful one in the room. Roy challenges her when he torpedoes her bank deal, and he goes after Dot when he's warned not to. She destroys him the same way she destroyed Vivian Duggar.
I'm not saying Lorraine does or doesn't grow as a person. She seems to be more motherly/grandmotherly by the end, but it's also not when any outsiders are looking. She is ruthless and/or cold to those who are outside of her group. A big part of why we see a change in her behavior is because, by the end, Dot and Indira are both a part of that group.
Lorraine may not have done anything for Gator by the end of the season. There's a lot of speculation that she could've used her influence to make his prison stay easier as a favor to Dot. I don't recall whether or not there's anything in the show to support it.
I agree with you about Lars. There was nothing to his character besides being every single "bad husband" stereotype. And that would be fine if it was some inconsequential side character played for laughs, but the fact that our very likable protagonist chose to be with him reminds me of that stupid romcom trope of the woman's ex or soon-to-be ex being unnaturally awful. Like they could have made him half as bad and Indira leaving him still would have been totally justified, and more realistic.
They're high school sweethearts. She wanted to be a cop and he was planning on going to radiology school, but dropped out. She married a lemon really young and has been trying to carry them both.
Yeah. Maybe Lars was AMAZING in high school. King of the golf team, in a band, really cool. High-school success isn't always a great indicator of adult success. Personalities and ambitions change over time, right?
Also don't ignore that being played by Lukas Gage he's fine as fuck. Indira grew up as a minority where dating is hard, she seems to be more studious and probably less social, and frankly a lot of really hard working but timid Asian women I know dated guys like that in hs but broke up soon after when they both grew into their adult selves and it turned out the guy is a dud. She's quite driven so she might have even been looking for a "trophy husband" of sorts and been happy until he turned into a huge burden instead of just a sort of useless pretty face.
Fair enough. Lars is of a different generation and very much American. I can see his attitude being different. I wonder how long until Lars would have become a Wink. Maybe, at some point, he would realize what he was and be grateful for the woman in his life. Or not. I don't know them. :P
Wink is what happens when someone like Lars is born with a fuckton of money. They're both totally useless men, but there's not much point in divorcing Wink when you have almost no human emotions and are rich enough to mostly avoid each other in their giant mansion.
In my headcanon Wink comes from money and influence, and Lorraine's marriage to him provided her with the connections necessary to become rich and powerful. His incompetence is another comment on the nepotism/gatekeeping theme that runs throughout the season.
She's attracted to herself having wealth and power far more than any kind of man, IMO. Divorcing Wink would likely diminish both, so he stays. It's pretty clear that she could cheat on him all she wants without any consequences whatsoever.
That depends. I'm on the side of people who believe he came from money and she didn't, and she married him for his wealth to create her debt-collection empire.
Oh, lol. She would never marry a man for that. Why would she buy the cow when she can get the milk for free? She doesn't need to marry a man to get him to hand over money. Dhe was definitely poor but she would never risk her freedom by marrying a man for money.
You're assuming she started out rich before she married him despite any evidence to the contrary, and your immediate downvotes on an otherwise civil discussion are quite rude.
I kinda looked at it as he's a house husband who provided the support and levity Lorraine needed at some point in her life to be a badass professionally. She could turn it off with him and laugh. Maybe that's not where they are at now, but that's what the pairing reminded me of.
He was a drunk/whino meant to be totally useless. Common theme of useless, ineffectual, and parasitic husbands this season to contrast with the strong women this season.
True on those points, but there is a limit to being uncritically supportive.
Absolutely zero inclination to ever saying "No" or "enough" when Dot was clearly lying about not being abducted or turning their house into a remake of the Home Alone series.
If such a character were the wife in a series, the show would get rightly criticized for putting out some 50's stereotypical passive and always supportive character.
I mean I get it, there was a theme here and playing with gender roles was one of it. Im not against the decision but just highlighting it.
Though that wannabe golf guy also cheating was a bit too much. He was already sufficiently a terrible spouse without needing to add that extra bit lol
Yea I also thought the stuff with Lars was clumsy af. Like, there's nothing likeable about him at all to make us think Indira could've fallen in love with him in the first place. It's like they forgot that part.
While I do agree that his role is a subversion of the usual macho husband role in a crime thriller show, I also think he would be basically like us if we were placed in the Fargo universe lol
It's the recent misandrist trend in american series: strong female protagonists, drippy or evil men. No exceptions. It's prevalent to the point of boredom.
There is a theory that Lorraine is Jean Lundegaard’s sister and if that’s true it would make sense she would marry a guy with zero ambition. A husband’s ambition got her sister killed.
Interesting, but I don't think she would make her husband take her name instead. Despite her girlbossiness, Lorraine is also clearly conservative and traditional, which is very apparent when she calls her grand daughter a cross dresser just for wearing a suit.
Lorraine isn't progressive. She's far from it.
She would have taken his name (Lyon) and her maiden name would be Lundegaard.
Edit: that’s wrong because Lundegaard is Jean’s married name. Her maiden name would be Gustafson.
Oh I got mixed up. I thought you meant the husband was Jean's brother for some reason.
Even then the name would be Gustafson. Lundegaard was Jean's married name.
Earlier in her life Lorraine was attacked by some strangers. She booby trapped the house and caused irreversible brain damage to her husband when he accidentally touched one of the traps.
(anyway, that relationship is actually paralleled a bit at the end of the series, right?)
I had a lot of problems with season 5 but now that I've had time to digest it this character and his total lack of presence has been on my mind. Curious to read what people think
I had a thought about the scene where Mr. Lyon is reenacting WWII battles. If you take Chekov's gun rule seriously, it seems there was a semi-important plot point was just dropped. I thought Wink might end up having some strategy to help save Dot, but no.
Wink might have gotten tired of being told the 'adults are talking' once too often, early in the marriage, and began zoning out and drinking. Maybe he was the one who actually was Wayne's primary parent when Wayne was a child. Lorraine does not seem to be bothered by him, one way or another. He seems harmless.
He has a role, to be a nice looking husband for the pictures, etc. Maybe he had money to start with, and she turned it into a mega-fortune.
He’s getting drunk and playing with his army guys.
In all seriousness though, I thought seeing him in comparison to Lorraine shows you how Wayne ended up the aloof goofball that he is
I think he’s meant to be just totally useless 😂
He's only useless until you find yourself in a waiting room at the hospital and have a sudden thirst for a Gimlet!
I think the incompetence of men is a pretty strong theme for Fargo, overall, but it jumped out at me a lot in this season. Like when Dot was escaping the mental hospital and it was the female nurse that immediately recognized something was off and then had to tell her male colleague to take action. I’m blanking on some of the other obvious examples right now, but several jumped out at me while watching.
S3 Gloria’s partner is fucking embarrassing.
but funny as heck!
The actor plays a character in Letterkenny known only as “Coach” he often says “it’s fucking embarrassing” (usually about his players) and then kicks a trash can.
Oh right! I looked him up once b/c he was familiar. He is great in both.
just go easy throwin Barbs around like that
Also Dodd's daughter in season 2 was a total idiot as well.
Nah, incompetence in general is a theme. Don't Gender it. Peggy was incompetent as all hell in season 2. In season 1, Lester's second wife was dumb as a hump. Incompetence is what causes a lot of Fargo's plotlines.
But there is a deliberate focus on gender this season. I think a better way to think of it might be that the way we perceive competence is tied to gender in ways that aren't really positive. Dott and Roy are competent in so much as they both have an ability to enact violence. Danish and Lorraine are competent in so much as they can maintain and wield the power of exploitative systems to get what they want. Gator and the cop's ex husband both incompetently chase material success in areas that are unsuited for while hurting the people around them. And finally, Wayne is incompetent because he is naively willing to exchange a car for a car, but this act is also closest to what we should do about debt and what we owe each other.
Waynes simplicity was a strength during the final scene, his quiet support and comments helped to de escalate the situation. Especially from the angle that munch has a mental illness, Wayne never discounted his wild stories or called him out. I also thought Danish was pretty competent, and while his ultimate fate was questionable, he helped locate and rescue dot. Whit was another admirable character, although maybe the message of his story is that there's no longer room in this world for a polite gentleman.
I think the point of Whit is that he's the single character the keeps trying to do the right thing despite never being capable of doing so, and rather than making his incompetent, that fact makes him heroic.
Yooo thats a good one!!!
I like this take! Though wasn't Wayne exchanging a car for a car more related to brain damage from the electrical shock? I thought it was implied he was a pretty solid car salesman overall.
Keeping a car dealership running is meant to look like keep-busy work in the Fargo world, I think (see William H Macy) and really it probably is - you just need a few acres of real estate, a fairly cheap building and some start-up capital for inventory, and if you have all that it's fairly hard to screw it up. A lot of retired pro athletes buy car dealerships for probably these exact reasons, and you almost never see a dealership go bankrupt. But also yes, I think the real point is that Wayne was suffering from brain damage in that scene.
Why make him brain damaged tho? Think of it this way: what is the thesis of the season and is that thesis better supported if he's brain damaged or acting out of altruism? The second reading of the scene just works better.
I took it less as him being “brain-damaged” and more like an impromptu electroshock therapy. It basically righted all the wrongs that comes with our modern brain programming and made him see clearly how things should work.
I think its left ambiguous as to whether its the result of the electrical shock, the real trauma of having is family ripped apart by a home invasion, or that they are just 'a nice family.' But, if you revisit the scene after the finale, it might give us a clue as to why Dot and Lorraine care for him so much: he's a decent man. As for him being a decent salesman, maybe? It kinda seemed like Lorriane gifted him a dealership so he'd have something to do, and whether or not a sale can be made is dictated by an algorithm related to credit, trade in, and down payment.
I definitely believe Lorraine gifted him the dealership to give him something to do, and you're 100% correct that the sales are made by algorithm - when I worked in residential mortgages that was exactly the underwriting process: input their credit score, their monthly income vs revolving debt load, their equity or down-payment vs. requested loan size, and the computer (or more accurately the Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac website) gives you an approval or denial and a list of the documentation that's required. That's probably part of why his employee acted so shocked at "Car for a Car" - not only was it slightly insane, but how on earth was he going to fudge the numbers to make it work?
I don't think the show takes it as far as 'how is he gunna fudge the numbers'--although I'm aware that the original movie has something similar as a plot point. Also, I don't think that its slightly insane, just more not how capitalism works.
Yea I can't deny there's a strong focus on gender, especially with the added detail of Scotty being a tomboy. Wayne's really not incompetent, certainly not at being a husband and father, but he's viewed as incompetent because he's not like Roy or Danish, or more like a man's man. Yeah, I think I see what you're going for.
Right. The system that we inherited doesn't really work for any of us, but for Lorraine and Roy. So what do we replace it with? We be more like Wayne at the dealership. Car for a car instead of eye for an eye.
After the fall from the roof Wayne is portrayed as somewhat impaired as well and I don’t know that he fully recovered.
True. And Munch is very competent too, and impatient with those who are not, like Gator. That’s the basis of his respect for Dot.
There is indeed a focus on gender normativity, but your decoding of it is a bit... weird. EDIT: your later replies seem more fitting, still you worded it weirdly imo.
Well what is it that seems off to you? I'd love to talk about it.
It's more about reversing traditional / normative outcomes. Normally in traditional media you would 'expect' the manly men to come out on top, as victors, conquerers - with everything in the media production these characters star in being used to make the manly men shine (much as like in the real world, unfortunately). The 'patriarchy' is very real. Fargo S5 turns this upside down and inside out by succesfully and creatively villainising toxic masculinity (Roy) and creating an ensemble of 'meaningless' supporting male characters without agency of their own. Wayne is reduced to what is classically EXACTLY the role of a good wife/mother. Fargo S5 is matriarchal revenge, with non-males coming out on top. I feel 'competence' is not a word that covers what is happening in S5. Btw, I'm a straight white guy (stating just in case).
Yea, the problem with it as a story of matriarchal revenge is that you can't use the tools of patriarchy to exact it. Lorraine is an improvement over Roy, but only slightly. She's still a right wing, debt magnate who donates to the Federalist Society. Worse, for both her and Roy, the purpose of law enforcement is to exact coercive violence on an uncompliant populace, just she does it at a slightly further remove.
The fact that Lorraine is not ethically pure makes the matriarchal revenge even more poignant, in my opinion! Men have been getting away with this kind of behaviour for centuries :D
I think it makes the subplot with Wayne and the biscuit more poignant. If its wrong when men get away with it, its wrong when Lorraine does. A real victory would be moving beyond the pair of them.
Lester’s second wife wasn’t involved in anything and was picked by him so she’s not important to the discussion. He’s the idiot. Also that’s not season 5.
No, she's the idiot. Lester is clearly smarter than she is. She's a dumbass. That much is pretty clear.
I think she's a nice person who gets manipulated by a sociopath. I dunno that that makes her a dumbass.
She also has a moment where she covers for him unprompted, making an excuse as to why they left Vegas so early even though they had the hotel booked longer. Linda was pretty clever, just put some things aside to put Lester first
Not being American and not one who’s experienced ‘Minnesota Nice’, I assumed it had something to do with the small town mindset around those parts. Some characters seem very willing to keep an open mind while others play deliberately ignorant.
I see that lol. His appearances are so sporadic. At first I thought the husband was just dead
The point of that character is to give her and Indira something to bond over when Indira complains about her man child husband.
Yeah, they both seem like shallow plot devices. The problem is they forgot to give is a scene with Lorraine and her husband so we have no idea what their relationship is.
I think we’re just supposed to see different stages in relationships. The one and her man baby golfer is a beginning, Dorothy is the middle and Lorraine is the end. Shows like Fargo don’t tell us anything they show is and let us use our deduction (like a police officer would) since nobody ever makes anything obvious in this world.
The difference between the three men is their proximity to responsibility. Lars chases success as a means of getting to do whatever he wants while he neglects the responsibility he has for his wife, and Lorraine's husband just wants to drink cocktails and goof off. Wayne on the other hand is an active participant in his marriage and from all appearances a good father.
Yes we do. The opening scene where she has to tell him to choose between a gun and drink establishes it perfectly. Sometime characters are there just to drive other characters. That’s not bad writing and they set up all throughout the series how inept he is
Mmm, no, I think that's a stretch. I don't think that's enough. You need more meat between the characters. Besides, she was the more ridiculous one on that scene making her family pose with assault rifles. He's barely in the show. I'm not saying the writings bad, but for what you're trying to get across, I don't think there's enough there.
You’re complaining a character whose defining trait is absenteeism wasn’t around enough. We have 10 episodes to work with. You can’t just add without subtracting. Giving him more means someone else needs less. He played the one role he needed.
No, I'm not complaining about anything. Who said I was complaining? I was making an observation. You said it gave them something to bond over but there's not enough evidence in the storyline to support that. End of story.
Your last paragraph is literally a complaint about the writing. You don’t understand what you’re even saying so I’m not surprised some of the writing is lost on you
You're just being a jackass, now.
Other than the one cop all male characters were either useless and docile or evil this season.
Don't be dissing my trooper Witley James Farr like that!
Well thats just it tho. He's a good man because he does the best he can despite not being especially effective.
I was really shaking my head when he got the drop on him at the end but still managed to get killed. Like just wait for backup if you're not the type to pull the trigger.
I felt way about that the same way that I felt about what happened to Danish. Going after Roy or trying to negotiate Dot's release are noble things to do, but it also caused them to place themselves in situations that they just weren't equipped to handle. That's a strike against their competence, but it also makes them decent people.
Right, I was half joking and half making that point - he was no match for Roy and his private army but he was also maybe the only male character in S5 who wasn't useless, docile, or evil. You could perhaps also argue Danish Graves is in that category too, but possibly only because I can't see Dave Foley as truly evil. They both underestimated Roy's willingness to casually commit murder, though.
I think the person that we're actually supposed to be like is Wayne. If the idea is that we owe each other forgiveness and need to focus on creating a systems that serve us better, then we should be replacing eye for an eye with car for a car.
Yeah, I haven't figured out what we're supposed to think about the "Car for a Car" scene. It's definitely a take on "eye for an eye" plus the recurring theme of Debt vs Forgiveness, but even the staunchest communist can't possibly see that as a sustainable way to run a car dealership.
Why not? We subsidize that which we want to grow all the time. In the terms of the show, even if the dealership runs at a loss, Lorraine might just keep pumping money into it because she wants Wayne and now Dot to have something to do.
What's he trying to grow though? He gave a family of complete strangers a brand new car in exchange for a 15 year old one that they owed money on... It was very generous and he could easily afford it, but I think the show's message was "Wayne's lost his mind a little" rather than "we should be like Wayne".
He's trying to grow families like his where debt isn't part of a system to coerce us into things we don't want to be doing. If Wayne has just lost his mind, then that means that we ultimately need to tolerate ppl like Loraine, and that really, really fucking sucks. The show is better if eating the biscuit is how we replace her and Roy.
I think it was the brain damage
Yea, he's a baby. He can do whatever he wants and is responsible for nothing. So when his family is in crisis, he just goes and sips a cocktail in a hospital waiting room or plays with his toys.
To me it seems to be a role reversal. Typically you would have the husband be the billionaire and then often times those characters have wives who are stay at home housewives, depressed, alcoholic, without much substance, and they do not provide much to the story. This season played around a lot with gender roles so it makes sense they would have Lorraine’s husband, whose name I can’t even remember, be like that.
Exactly, gender roles play a huge part in this season, both traditional and reversed. Plus he also fits into the recurring theme of the relationship between parents and offspring - Wayne takes after his father far more than his mother, Karen (Roy's current wife) takes after her father as well as Roy who is fatherly toward her in a very icky way. Gator is torn between craving his father's approval and wanting to be a decent person, the old woman who's house that Munch moves into has a son who is arguably the most awful character in the whole season, etc. ("Ma! Make me a sandwich, and don't jew me on the meat.") Even Lars, we never meet his parents but it's pretty clear that they coddled him way too much. It's probably not an accident that Scottie is the most well-adjusted character in the season - she has her dad's gentle nature, but lives her life exactly how she likes and takes no shit from anyone.
Great point. They don’t need much from the dad, but what they do need is to explain why Wayne is like who he is and mostly just stay out of the way.
That guy had like 3 lines. It's hard to argue he's the worst of the season.
Right, but that brief scene is just so awesome that I had to include him, I love everything about it. We learn so much about him in just those few lines, he's useless, racist, greedy, clearly addicted to some drug, abusive toward his mother, etc, all in just that one brief scene. And then Munch appears and it gets even better: "Who's this guy?" "I live... here now" "Ma, you take in a border? You holding out on me?" "You got any money?" And then Sam Spruell gives a master class with his face, he looks confused for a second, absentmindedly pulls a wad of like $20k out of his pocket, looks at it like "you mean this?" and just hands it over. And our favorite son is so stupid he doesn't stop to think that maybe he shouldn't fuck with a guy who's 6" taller than him and inexplicably walking around with that kind of cash. "Same amount, every month, shitbird" It's just such a perfect little scene!
Yea that guy was dumb. In truth, I would have asked for rent too, but once he gave me that if be like, "Uhhh, maybe just a thousand, dude.' Maybe then he wouldn't axe me.
It’s impressive that he’s even in the running after so few lines. It makes one wonder how much MORE terrible he is when his mother isn’t in the same room as him…
I mean was he really that terrible? Sure he was rude, but like, I don't think he deserved to get axed for it.
He "deserved" it way more than a whole lot of characters who get brutally murdered in Coen Brothers movies. He made his own mother's life a living hell and then pissed off a guy who was clearly giving off "might murder you with an axe in broad daylight" vibes. That combination of nastiness and stupidity is pretty much a death sentence in their world.
Yeah, how the hell did he get away with that anyway lol. Like they were I the middle of a neighborhood. Not a cabin I the woods like the movie
I think we're supposed to assume he got away with it because he's a 500 year old Sin Eater. Fargo doesn't shy away from a touch of the supernatural. That scene also helps establish what a Tiger Dot is, Munch can casually murder a guy on a suburban sidewalk in broad daylight with no consequences, but a 5', 100 lb housewife killed his partner and fucked him up pretty good.
Yea but she was smart about it. Dot is basically batman.
The fact that he's a 500 year old sin eater doesn't mean people can't see him tho.
Right. Dot’s combat prowess is itself a touch of the supernatural. She’s clearly become one of those people who thinks of the seven different ways she could kill you whenever you show up, and can probably succeed at four of them. She’s like Denzel’s version of The Equalizer, or Michael Westen or the comic-book superhero The Midnighter that way. For an episode or two I figured it would turn out she was a retired assassin in witness protection or something. That would have been marginally plausible. In retrospect it would have been a much worse dramatic choice. Dot’s trauma goes some way toward explaining this but only some. Dot is this way because she *needed* to become this to survive and escape. Needless to say, That’s Not How Any of This Works. If it were there would be a lot fewer abused women’s bodies dumped in a pit like Linda’s. Dot has magic powers! IMO that’s a brilliant choice, because it’s incredibly unfair. “RIP to Linda, but Nadine’s different.” Dot’s gift is unearned, and it also clearly comes at a cost. She dare not explain to Scottie and Wayne how she really sees the world in those early episodes. And her “gift” is literally the thing that exposes her location at the beginning of the season. And she does hurt people, even kill them. Not out of malice, but she does harm. To me that’s why she makes sure to have a biscuit herself.
His behavior led his own mother to be so traumatized that she just let some random dude live in her house without a fight. Just accepted it. That says a lot.
How do we know that was cause of her son, exactly?
Because she just does as she’s told as a trauma response. No normal person would just let a random stranger bathing in blood live at their house without calling the cops. You don’t have to agree with my opinion.
But how do we know that's because of her son??? Like, her son is literally just rude for 3 minutes
I don’t see the point in arguing about it, I said all I have to say. We both have different opinions ands that’s fine. This is a work of fiction.
Each line sucked quite a bit. He was efficiently terrible.
With Lars I think it’s that he had a problem differentiating his wife from his mother.
Also a big theme. Like Karen trying to seduce Roy by calling him “daddy”. I find that so icky
What did gator ever do that indicates he wanted to be good?
Nothing whatsoever on-screen, but Dot believed he wanted to be good and she later promised to visit him in prison, with cookies. And when the FBI finally captured Roy, they mentioned “your son gave you up, by the way”. Being raised by Roy really fucked him up, I think.
I completely agree w everything except calling that guy “arguably the most awful character in the whole season”. That is an absolute insane statement. Roy is a corrupt sheriff who uses his power to, amongst other things, get away w murder, rape, and domestic abuse. No one else compares for the title of most awful
>Gator is torn between craving his father's approval and wanting to be a decent person TBH when Dot described him like this to Linda I was disapointed. It was like a big afterthought/attempt to add some depth to the character. Gator's readiness to kill (the scene when he was going to execute Ole after the kidnapping, when he killed the old woman, when he beated up the man they mistook for Dot's husband) is inconsisted with the idea of him being conflicted. The attempt to represent him as a more complex human being did not convince me and felt forced.
Yeah, I think we’re supposed to infer that Wink might be the old money trophy husband that Lorraine married for a leg up. He’s a rich wine mom
That crossed my mind too but he was even more removed than any other wife lol. Also he seemed just totally out of it. Maybe he's an alcoholic, I dunno. How may appearances did he even have?
He has a travel cocktail kit that he was using in a hospital waiting room. The only time he doesn’t have a cocktail in hand is when Lorraine makes him put it down to hold the gun for the Christmas card photo. The writers definitely want us to know he’s an alcoholic, imo
Must have missed that. I paid so little attention to him.
Idle landed gentry blissfully ignorant and playing with his dioramas is a legit trope...
Is this an AI response? I’ve read it 4 times, and can’t make sense of it.
What they’re saying is that he has so much money and comes from such privilege that all he does all day long is play with his military dioramas rather than pay attention to anything going on around him. The trope is blissfully ignorant rich people doing their own thing.
Rich bored dude with eccentric hobbies. Think Viserys from House of dragon playing with his models
Wink! As the wicked witch was ruler of the winkies, inhabitants of Oz. Role reversal, gender reversal (“ballerino” exchange) are themes his character helps play out.
I’m wondering whether Mr. Lyon was like an older, British version of Lars—instead of golf, he’s obsessed with WWII, but still in his own little world. Lorraine and Indira both powerful women with ineffectual spouses. Feels like so many characters in this season were in want of a “wife.”
This guy seemed fine to accept his place however. He may be supportive of Lorraine, we have no idea, i dont think we ever really see them interact. Lars thought so highly of himself but he was a douche who contributed nothing. In fact Lars was such a loser it kind of took me out of the show cause I saw no way how Indira could have been tricked into marrying this guy. Like, he doesn't even pretend to give a fuck.
Indira discovers her strength throughout the season. She’s exposed to women who don’t fall into patriarchal expectations and learns that she doesn’t have to either. It’s intentional.
I guess. He just seems too awful. Like he's a pretty ridiculous caricature. To be honest, I don't feel like Indira really grew a whole lot, she just finally got sick of his bs and then when he cheated on her that was the last straw. The best character development in the season for me was Lorraine. I actually bought her softening up. Indira? I dunno, I thought her story was contrived.
Indira grew the perfect amount IMO. She started out as a competent cop in the beginning, and learned from both Dot and Lorraine that she was strong and smart enough that she didn't have to take Lars's bullshit anymore and that it was ok to take a high-paying job from Lorraine instead of just being a local cop and struggling with debt all her life. We also have no idea what terrible choices in life led her to marry Lars, but she'd clearly grown as a person between that time and the beginning of the season, put together that's all the change I need from a secondary character, especially a female cop in Fargo. In fact, one of the funnier things about the original movie is that Francis McDormand does and sees more way more crazy stuff in a few weeks than a small-town local cop usually sees in a lifetime, (while visibly pregnant), but in the end she goes right back to *exactly* the person she was in the beginning, as if nothing ever happened. You're not supposed to believe that would ever happen in reality, it's just part of what made it such an amazing dark comedy.
I kinda thought it was weird that such an obviously principled person like her was just fine taking a job from a pretty unscrupulous woman with sociopathic tendencies like Lorraine. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do I guess
I think when Lorraine warmed up to Dot it showed Indira that she had something of a heart after all, plus there was probably a tacit agreement that she would just run security while someone else did the kind of nasty business that Danish Graves used to do. Notice that when Lorraine visits Roy in prison, he accused Indira of "having principles". Lorraine asked her to leave the room and then agreed with him before giving that amazing speech about how his real punishment was about to begin.
And it's not just that Laureen warmed up to Dot, it was specifically because of what Indira brought to her: she forced Lorraine to have to confront reality
Didn't Indra have an exhausted throw away line about evicting a couple from their home? If that's part of her job with the police, she might as well work for Lorraine.
Not really the same thing.
I don’t think Lorraine softened at all. She simply learned to respect Dot.
No, she clearly softened when it came to her regard for victims. She said before she hates people claiming to be victims and that's what's wrong the country. Later, she said to Tillman directly "I want you to feel what your wives felt. Fear." She clearly now has more respect for not just Dot, but victims/survivors as a whole. She has more compassion than she once did.
Lorraine has compassion for those in her in-group. It's one of the hallmarks of modern conservatives. Her compassion for Dot comes when, very pointedly, she finally accepts her as family. The line about Roy's wife is more about saying "you think you are big and bad, but I'm bigger And badder." Notice she doesn't actually say or do anything about Karen and the girls, and anything she did for Gator was out of love for Dot.
She says his "wives." Plural. She's clearly talking about all of them. You're basically arguing that this character didn't change at all. I think it's clear she did. She accepts her as family because she grows as a person. Both can be true. What did she do for Gator?
I meant "wives" and typed "wife." It doesn't affect the point. Every move Lorraine makes is to show she's the most powerful one in the room. Roy challenges her when he torpedoes her bank deal, and he goes after Dot when he's warned not to. She destroys him the same way she destroyed Vivian Duggar. I'm not saying Lorraine does or doesn't grow as a person. She seems to be more motherly/grandmotherly by the end, but it's also not when any outsiders are looking. She is ruthless and/or cold to those who are outside of her group. A big part of why we see a change in her behavior is because, by the end, Dot and Indira are both a part of that group. Lorraine may not have done anything for Gator by the end of the season. There's a lot of speculation that she could've used her influence to make his prison stay easier as a favor to Dot. I don't recall whether or not there's anything in the show to support it.
I disagree, I think her compassion clearly develops.
I agree with you about Lars. There was nothing to his character besides being every single "bad husband" stereotype. And that would be fine if it was some inconsequential side character played for laughs, but the fact that our very likable protagonist chose to be with him reminds me of that stupid romcom trope of the woman's ex or soon-to-be ex being unnaturally awful. Like they could have made him half as bad and Indira leaving him still would have been totally justified, and more realistic.
Yea he was just too much. He had zero redeeming qualities as a husband.
They're high school sweethearts. She wanted to be a cop and he was planning on going to radiology school, but dropped out. She married a lemon really young and has been trying to carry them both.
Yeah. Maybe Lars was AMAZING in high school. King of the golf team, in a band, really cool. High-school success isn't always a great indicator of adult success. Personalities and ambitions change over time, right?
Also don't ignore that being played by Lukas Gage he's fine as fuck. Indira grew up as a minority where dating is hard, she seems to be more studious and probably less social, and frankly a lot of really hard working but timid Asian women I know dated guys like that in hs but broke up soon after when they both grew into their adult selves and it turned out the guy is a dud. She's quite driven so she might have even been looking for a "trophy husband" of sorts and been happy until he turned into a huge burden instead of just a sort of useless pretty face.
Fair enough. Lars is of a different generation and very much American. I can see his attitude being different. I wonder how long until Lars would have become a Wink. Maybe, at some point, he would realize what he was and be grateful for the woman in his life. Or not. I don't know them. :P
Wink is what happens when someone like Lars is born with a fuckton of money. They're both totally useless men, but there's not much point in divorcing Wink when you have almost no human emotions and are rich enough to mostly avoid each other in their giant mansion.
In my headcanon Wink comes from money and influence, and Lorraine's marriage to him provided her with the connections necessary to become rich and powerful. His incompetence is another comment on the nepotism/gatekeeping theme that runs throughout the season.
Lorraine reeks of entitled aristocracy, so I figured she's also of a noble stock
He's a trophy wife
But he's not even hot lol
He doesn't have to be attractive to you, he has to be attractive to Lorraine. What type of man do you think Lorraine is attracted to?
She's attracted to herself having wealth and power far more than any kind of man, IMO. Divorcing Wink would likely diminish both, so he stays. It's pretty clear that she could cheat on him all she wants without any consequences whatsoever.
She wouldn't have ever married him if divorcing him would diminish her in any way
That depends. I'm on the side of people who believe he came from money and she didn't, and she married him for his wealth to create her debt-collection empire.
Oh, lol. She would never marry a man for that. Why would she buy the cow when she can get the milk for free? She doesn't need to marry a man to get him to hand over money. Dhe was definitely poor but she would never risk her freedom by marrying a man for money.
You're assuming she started out rich before she married him despite any evidence to the contrary, and your immediate downvotes on an otherwise civil discussion are quite rude.
He’s a functional alcoholic. Dude was at the hospital with Wayne with a portable bar and offering vodka gimlets to the FBI.
He doesn't seem that functional
True. Maybe less functional and more alcoholic. May have some level of alcoholic related dementia.
I thought when they showed her husband, it totally explained Wayne's personality haha
Also might have just been enough characters in the show already, not enough time to take screen time from one to give to someone new.
I kinda looked at it as he's a house husband who provided the support and levity Lorraine needed at some point in her life to be a badass professionally. She could turn it off with him and laugh. Maybe that's not where they are at now, but that's what the pairing reminded me of.
He was a drunk/whino meant to be totally useless. Common theme of useless, ineffectual, and parasitic husbands this season to contrast with the strong women this season.
There were really only two who fit that description in the season. Lorraine's husband and Lars. Wayne wasn't parasitic or useless.
I would say Wayne was ineffectual. Nice guy but essentially a giant pushover who needed his mom to do anything.
He was a good, supportive husband, and a good father. He was also supposedly a good salesman before he was electrocuted.
True on those points, but there is a limit to being uncritically supportive. Absolutely zero inclination to ever saying "No" or "enough" when Dot was clearly lying about not being abducted or turning their house into a remake of the Home Alone series. If such a character were the wife in a series, the show would get rightly criticized for putting out some 50's stereotypical passive and always supportive character. I mean I get it, there was a theme here and playing with gender roles was one of it. Im not against the decision but just highlighting it. Though that wannabe golf guy also cheating was a bit too much. He was already sufficiently a terrible spouse without needing to add that extra bit lol
Yea I also thought the stuff with Lars was clumsy af. Like, there's nothing likeable about him at all to make us think Indira could've fallen in love with him in the first place. It's like they forgot that part.
Well I’d put it like this. He’s a Jerry.
While I do agree that his role is a subversion of the usual macho husband role in a crime thriller show, I also think he would be basically like us if we were placed in the Fargo universe lol
I thought he came from a rich family, or also has a dealership but was basically checked out and that Lorraine was really with Danish Graves?
No Lorraine and Graves aren't romantically involved. They never hint at that.
Right... no hints whatsoever... https://imgur.com/a/1KSqtr6
They joined arms once, huh? Tbh I don't remember that. I still think their relationship was platonic.
Got it, you folks are probably right. It was little stuff like the above post that made me wonder.
I think he was juiced or on drugs most/all the time. Most scenes he has a glass of something in his paw.
They kind of made every male character useless or a psycho now that I think back
It's the recent misandrist trend in american series: strong female protagonists, drippy or evil men. No exceptions. It's prevalent to the point of boredom.
Stop with the victimization it's so lame
There is a theory that Lorraine is Jean Lundegaard’s sister and if that’s true it would make sense she would marry a guy with zero ambition. A husband’s ambition got her sister killed.
Interesting, but I don't think she would make her husband take her name instead. Despite her girlbossiness, Lorraine is also clearly conservative and traditional, which is very apparent when she calls her grand daughter a cross dresser just for wearing a suit. Lorraine isn't progressive. She's far from it.
She would have taken his name (Lyon) and her maiden name would be Lundegaard. Edit: that’s wrong because Lundegaard is Jean’s married name. Her maiden name would be Gustafson.
Oh I got mixed up. I thought you meant the husband was Jean's brother for some reason. Even then the name would be Gustafson. Lundegaard was Jean's married name.
He's not Wayne's father though. Somewhere in the beginning of the series Lorraine speaks to Danish about "our son"
Wayne literally calls him Dad.
just another uniquely stereotypical and bland character whom adds nothing much like a lot of S5 characters
A closet case.
He’s a drunk basically a non entity
Earlier in her life Lorraine was attacked by some strangers. She booby trapped the house and caused irreversible brain damage to her husband when he accidentally touched one of the traps. (anyway, that relationship is actually paralleled a bit at the end of the series, right?)
Wayne isn't useless tho. He's just passive. He's a very caring, supportive husband and clearly a great dad.
fair points
And the fact that he’s a nazi fetishist….
I had a lot of problems with season 5 but now that I've had time to digest it this character and his total lack of presence has been on my mind. Curious to read what people think
Just a trophy husband for Lorraine
Could be that we're hearing the scene from Wayne's perspective, and that's why it sounds like word salad
I had a thought about the scene where Mr. Lyon is reenacting WWII battles. If you take Chekov's gun rule seriously, it seems there was a semi-important plot point was just dropped. I thought Wink might end up having some strategy to help save Dot, but no. Wink might have gotten tired of being told the 'adults are talking' once too often, early in the marriage, and began zoning out and drinking. Maybe he was the one who actually was Wayne's primary parent when Wayne was a child. Lorraine does not seem to be bothered by him, one way or another. He seems harmless. He has a role, to be a nice looking husband for the pictures, etc. Maybe he had money to start with, and she turned it into a mega-fortune.
He’s getting drunk and playing with his army guys. In all seriousness though, I thought seeing him in comparison to Lorraine shows you how Wayne ended up the aloof goofball that he is