This is also Fargo season 5’s obsession with a stop-motion animated classic.
This article contains spoilers forFARGOseason 5 episode 4.
Punches are being thrown at a meeting of the Fall Festival Planning Committee in Scandia Middle School.
Look past the melee of writhing white Midwesterners towards to stage and what do you see?
Thats right: crude plywood renderings of the iconic landscapes from the 1993 animated filmThe Nightmare Before Christmas.
Now, at the beginning of episode 4 Insolubilia,Fargoseason 5 kicks itsNightmare Before Christmasappreciation up a notch.
Gator, naturally, is Jack Skellington.
His partners are the Mayor of Halloween Town, Lock, and Stock.
But why, exactly?
To me, this season is a fever dream of Americana, Rysdahl says.
Like the world ofNightmare Before Christmas.
This idea of a nightmare American dream, for me thats how I made sense of it.
Dave Foley, who plays the Lyon family attorney Danish Graves, concurs.
All of our characters, especially our central character Dot, have this strong duality.
That movie is about the dual nature of human beings.
This season is very much about that.
InFargo, evil is real.
Or at least the kind of banal evil that can reside within the greedy human heart is real.
Its light and dark, good and bad, yin and yang.
But most importantly … mostAmericanly, its Halloween and Christmas.
What is Dot Lyons boobytrapping of her house if not a classicHome Alonescenario?
And one invader being dispatched via an unfolding attic door is right out ofNational Lampoons Christmas Vacation.
The question then isnt why isFargoso fixated onThe Nightmare Before Christmas?
Its why did it take it this long to realize it should be?
New episodes ofFargoseason 5 premiere Tuesdays at 10 p.m.
ET on FX and stream on Hulu the next day.
