Fargo: Season 2 Episode 5 "The Gift of the Magi" Review

"Son, there's not a challenge on God's Earth that can't be overcome by an American."
-Ronald Reagan 



"The Gift of the Magi" picks up with Hanzee Dent (Zahn McClarnon) returning to the Gerhardt's with news of Rye Gerhardt's (Kieran Culkin) death.  With some quick spinning by Dodd Gerhardt (Jeffery Donovan), Hanzee convinces Floyd (Jean Smart) that Ed Blumquist (Jesse Plemons) is a Kansas City hitman known as Butcher Luverne.  Floyd orders a hit on Ed.  Dodd sends one of his men, Virgil Bauer (Greg Bryk) to take out Ed, but Dodd's nephew Charlie Gerhardt (Allan Dorbrescu) convinces Dodd to let him go as well.

Meanwhile, as the Kansas City party has a meeting with a zoning commissioner, the Gerhardt's strike.  Hanzee kills Wayne Kitchen (Todd Mann) and decapitates the leader of the Kansas City group, Joe Bulo (Brad Garrett), sending his head to Mike Milligan (Bokeem Woodbine).  Simone Gerhardt (Rachel Keller) comes over to Mike's place to sleep with him again, but Mike threatens to kill her unless she tells him everything the Gerhardt's plan to do before it happens.

Ronald Reagan (Bruce Campbell) is on the campaign trail and Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson) is on his protection detail.  Up in Fargo, Detective Ben Schmidt (Keir O'Donnell) is investigating the shootout between Kansas City and the Gerhardt's.  Lou agrees to drive up the next day and help him out. 

Peggy Blumquist (Kirsten Dunst) decides it's time to run away to California, but Ed point-blank refuses.  Peggy decides to go alone, but at the last second, she sells her car instead, so Ed will have enough to buy the butcher's shop. 

Charlie and Virgil arrive in town to kill Ed.  At first Charlie chickens out, but Virgil convinces him to go through with it.  The hit goes poorly as Ed and his coworker Noreen (Emily Haine) manage to fight off the attackers.  Charlie is knocked out and Ed kills Virgil with a cleaver.  The butcher's shop burns down in the process.  Ed saves Charlie from the inferno and flees back to his house.  Peggy happily tells him they have enough to buy the shop, but Ed informs her the shop is gone and they need to run.  Before they can, the police shows up at their house.


What Works:

In my review of the 4th episode of this season, I mentioned that I'm not a huge fan of Peggy Blumquist.  For the most part, I find her insufferable, but I actually really liked her story, along with Ed's, this week.  We finally get to see Ed put his foot down and stand up to Peggy, which was really satisfying.  But not only that, we get to see her change her mind and do something kind for Ed in selling her car to buy the shop.  The reversal at the end of the episode where Ed now wants to flee and Peggy wants to buy the shop is fantastic and just some tasty, cruel, cosmic irony.

I also love the fight in the butcher's shop.  Watching Ed take down Virgil was brutal and really awesome.  He seems like such a sweet and innocent guy, but then we see him put a cleaver through a man's head.  He's like the good version of his character on Breaking Bad.

Finally, I want to mention the shootout between the Gerhardt's and Kansas City in the woods.  That was some awesome stuff.  Seeing the Kitchen Brothers wreck the Gerhardt's was really cool, but then having Hanzee come in and show them up was pretty insane.  Plus he cut off Brad Garrett's head!  I did not expect that at all.


What Sucks:

I gotta say, I didn't love the Ronald Reagan storyline.  I'm a huge Bruce Campbell fan, but it was a little frustrating to see Lou sidelined by this.  We didn't have any setup to this in a previous episode.  I know the season opens with the fictional Ronald Reagan film, but I mean, we weren't told Reagan was coming to Minnesota in a previous episode.  This story just kinda popped up out of nowhere and didn't really do much for me.


Verdict:

This was another great episode of Fargo.  I may not have loved the Ronald Reagan storyline, but the rest of the episode made up for that with some awesome violence and Peggy actually being likable for once.

 9/10: Great 

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