‘Fargo’ Recap, Season 3, Episode 6: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Am I the only one who’s starting to think V.M. Varga (David Thewlis) isn’t all he’s, uh, cracked up to be?

As the primary antagonist for Fargo Season Three and presumptive title character of its sixth episode, “The Lord of No Mercy,” Varga is a menacing figure, no question. He’s the wolf in this particular fairy tale, the alpha predator, equally able to blow people’s proverbial houses down with either dazzling “resistance is futile” rhetoric or a visit from one of his goons. But I think his weak spots are starting to show, and I don’t just mean in his bulimia-rotted gums.

Take a look at his first scene in the episode, as he presents Emmit Stussy (Ewan McGregor) and Sy Feltz (Michael Stuhlbarg) with his expansive plans for, uh, expansion. He kicks off his presentation with a typical Varga monologue about history featuring three “true stories” — red flag number one, given that the Fargo television series has thus far told us three “true stories” that are anything but. The first involves the collapse of Lehmann Brothers during the 2008 banking crisis: “Perception of reality becomes reality. One day it’s solvent, the next day it’s worthless.” Okay, sure. The second involves the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip in the incident that started World War I, a truly bizarre coincidence in which, having survived Princip’s first failed attack, the Archduke wound up getting taken by his lost driver right to the spot where the demoralized would-be assassin went to grab a bite to eat after his plan went belly up, thus giving him a second and successful opportunity to get the job done. Okay, again, yeah, that scans, though I’m not really sure where it ties into the Lehmann fiasco. The third story is about…how the moon landing was faked in a sound stage in New Mexico?

Sy immediately objects that this is bullshit, but Varga blows him off, once agin returning to his perception vs. reality wheelhouse, the relativity of truth, all that jazz. But like Sy, I’m starting to get the impression that this dude just likes hearing the sound of his own voice, reveling in his own erudition and cynicism. (In this he has much in common with Johnny, the scumbag street philosopher and criminal played by Thewlis in his breakout movie, Mike Leigh’s Naked. As a matter of fact you could read Fargo Season Three as an unofficial sequel that shows what became of Johnny under an assumed name if you wanted to. Heck, it wouldn’t be the first time this sort of thing happened in this universe.)

To see what I’m saying, flash forward to the climax of the episode — and arguably the season so far. Emmit’s attempt to effect a rapprochement with his brother Ray (who unbeknownst to him is now on the run from both the cops and Varga’s goons) by giving him the coveted stamp has gone disastrously wrong. Ray would rather hang on to his anger and resentment than let it go, so he refuses to take the damn stamp, despite having fought in spectacularly failed fashion to steal it back all season long. A shoving match ensues, and quite by accident, Ray winds up with a shard of glass from the stamp’s frame in his neck. He takes it out and bleeds to death, to the (frankly, less than convincing on Ewan McGregor’s part) dismay of Emmit.

Emmit calls Varga for help, and he and his earbud-sporting goon Meemo (Andy Yu) show up to Mike Ehrmantraut the crime scene for him. “There’s been an accident,” Emmit stammers during the phone call. “Things of consequence rarely happen by accident,” Varga replies. It’s a great line, but there’s just one problem: It’s the opposite of what he said regarding World War I starting just because Gavrilo Princip stopped to eat a sandwich. I’m not sure how it fits with his conviction that truth is subjective, and subject to rewriting on the fly, either.

However, Varga’s admittedly brilliant decision in the moment to call off Meemo’s murder of Nikki (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), which was seconds away from going down around when Emmit called for help, in order to use her as the fall guy in Ray’s death works pretty well with that guiding philosophy.

The brutal beating Nikki endured at the hands of his thug Yuri (Goran Bodgan)? That’s Ray’s doing, years of abuse, hitting her in places that won’t show, you know how it goes. The glass in his throat? Nikki finally got tired of it and took the law into her own hands, stabbing him just to watch him bleed. Two birds, one stone, and presumably the end of Chief Burgle (Carrie Coon) and Officer Lopez’s (Olivia Sandoval) investigation into the Stussy family.

But again, another problem: Good God, Varga’s people skills are abysmal. When Gloria and Winnie show up at Stussy HQ to let Emmit know they suspect Ray orchestrated the break-in gone bad that led to the death of the unfortunate Ennis Stussy in Eden Valley, V.M. inserts himself into the conversation — literally, at times putting himself between the cops and their quarry. He refuses to divulge his own name, dismisses their theories with ludicrous historical comparisons (is every Hitler in the German phone book in 1939 responsible for the Final Solution, he asks?), kicks them out of the office even as Emmit seems increasingly receptive to what they’re saying, and generally behaves like the world’s most suspicious man. As a side note, he’s contradicting himself once more: If things of consequence rarely happen by accident, then what’s his take on the great Ray/Maurice LeFey/Ennis Stussy trainwreck?

My working theory at this point is that V.M. Varga is a clear and present danger primarily to the weak and stupid and easily cowed — to the Rays and Nikkis of the world, who can’t shoot straight (or at all; think of what might have been avoided had Nikki not come up with the oh so brilliant idea of not letting Ray shoot Varga and his minions to death when he had the chance); or to the Emmits and Sy Feltzes of the world, so comfortable and successful living according to their own code of conduct that the introduction of someone playing by entirely different rules catches them completely flat-footed. But in the person of Gloria Burgle, he may have encountered an enemy too dogged and determined and just plain lucky to give this wolf a run for his mutton. What else do they have in common besides their mutual interest in the Stussy brothers, after all? Like Varga, Gloria is a ghost in the machine.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, the Observer, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.

Stream Fargo, Season 3, Episode 6, "The Lord of No Mercy" on FXNOW