The excellent fifth season of Fargo wants to keep track of what we owe to each other.
This article contains spoilers forFargoseason 5 episodes 1 and 2.
Fargoseason 5 opens in as immediate fashion as possible.
As the curtains rise on episode 1 The Tragedy of the Commons, punches are already being thrown.
What is the world right now if not a grown man crying no ones listening to me!
while expressing directionless anger?
We get it, pal.
No ones listening to us either.
This is as close-to-the-present day as the franchise has ever allowed itself to be.
SinceFargos central gimmick requires some passage of time (This is a true story.
ButFargoseason 5s 2019 doesnt feel too far away at all.
The immediacy of the anger is recognizable.
No season ofFargohas ever been more primed to communicate something important about the current political moment.
But what exactly does this season want to say, aside from the obvious everyones angry?
Well present some quotes from the interviews below and see if it’s possible for you to spot it.
The moral theme of this one is debt.
The power structures of debt.
So uh …. did you catch the operative word there?
Obviously its debt and the concept of indebtedness.
Theres the obvious iteration of debt to begin with that of financial debt.
I think he feels complicit in it, Rysdahl says of Wayne Lyon.
Hes got his mother who is extremely wealthy on the backs of other people.
Meanwhile [Wayne and Dot] live in a kind of a middle income home.
Anytime she gives me money there are a lot of strings attached.
For this seasons central cop character Indira, that concept of debt is crushingly literal.
It can feel like youre in this hole that you might never get out of.
For characters like Dot Lyon and Roy Tillman, however, debt can be a more abstract thing.
It doesnt necessarily have to do with money.
He lives in more of a biblical world where those debts are accrued in a spiritual way.
But to go further down that road would represent a major spoiler for episode 3.
(Check back with us after that one airs for an article that discusses the event in question).
For Foley,Fargois a modern moral dialectic.
For Temple its an eye-opening way of telling stories about certain parts of America.
For Hamm, its a violent crime story with tremendously comedic elements in it.
For you,Fargocan be whatever you plainly see it to be.
Just be sure to keep an eye on all that accruing debt as well.
New episodes ofFargoseason 5 premiere Tuesdays at 10 p.m.
ET on FX and stream on Hulu the next day.
