‘Fargo’ recap: You say you want a revolution

Central to the heart of this week’s episode of “Fargo,” is the idea of revolution. At one point, while Mike Milligan is waxing philosophical about the nature of revolution, he points out how amusing it is that on Earth we use the word revolution to signify great change, when in astronomy, it represents a 360-degree course.

Which is to say that revolutions, more often than not, leave you precisely where you started.

In “Did You Do This? No, You Did It!” the families, all of them, seem to be breaking apart. The episode opens with an extended montage of hits that eventually ends with Floyd burying Otto and (symbolically) Rye. Through it, only Simone stands by her side, bearing witness to Floyd’s grief. Bear can’t bring himself to attend, and Dodd is off on his own mission, the details of which remain unclear to all involved.

The Gerhardts are in turmoil, partially because they do not stand united behind anything other than being a family, a moniker that seems increasingly tenuous as times pass. Floyd strikes Simone for speaking poorly of her father, which Simone responds to by saying, “This family deserves the ground.” And Bear consoles his mother, telling her that there’s “not enough of us left to start telling the truth.”

Throughout the episode, the truth is a tremulous thing. It’s truth that exposes betrayal of the family and truth that drives Simone’s confession that it was her father who drove Floyd to war instead of negotiating. But it’s the final thing Bear says to his niece before (presumably) killing her that strikes as the greatest truth of them all: “None of us are family anymore.”

The entire scene that precedes Simone’s death is pristine, a chilly, desperate send-off for a character who was always searching for approval in the wrong places. It hearkened back to one of the most iconic episodes of television ever, “Long Term Parking,” in which a beloved informant is taken on a long drive into the woods before being eliminated.

But the Gerhardts aren’t the only family in trouble in “Did You Do This?” The Kansas City family is losing men by the handful and the heads of business are getting increasingly concerned about Milligan’s ability to close the deal once and for all.

As far as Milligan goes, he doesn’t seem concerned that he’s not up to the task of handling “Fargo,” though he does seem increasingly vexed by it. That said, when informed that someone will be usurping his role, he has no problem gunning them down in cold blood.

Things are also rocky in the Solverson household, as Lou sends Karl to help out Betsy while he’s out working his case. Betsy is a bit chagrined at the idea of needing help, but it becomes increasingly clear that she’s in desperate need of it.

This becomes all too evident during a heart-to-heart between Betsy and Karl, in which she talks about herself as the dud that Lou got stuck with when he came back from the war, and pivots to making sure Karl will take care of Molly and Lou once she’s gone. Betsy is convinced she’s been given the placebos and that death is imminent.

Her instructions are straightforward. Make sure Lou feeds Molly more than jerky. Tell him it’s OK to marry again, so long as it isn’t Rhonda Knutson. She shuts down Karl’s suggestion that she look to John McCain for inspiration, saying, “John McCain was a fighter pilot. I live in a starter house in Minnesota and dream of having chickens some day.”

Revolution is coming for everyone. For the Gerhardts and Mike Milligan, it looks like the next stage is in Sioux Falls, where Ed Blumquist has informed each he’s keeping Dodd. But when all is said and done, will their lives really be so much different than when they started?

There will be more dead, sure, but that’s the game they signed up for and the price you pay to play.

For the Solversons, however, revolution will be intense and unwilling, and in the end, they will not end back where they began. Cancer doesn’t allow for such things, and when death comes calling, it’ll surely knock everything out of orbit.

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