Chapter Five: The Tiger – The episode opens with Lorraine Lyon (Jennifer Jason Leigh) alone in her office replaying the events of the past several days over in her mind. Her discussions with Doctor Goodbee (Simon Wong), Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (Juno Temple), and Danish Graves (David Foley) seem to stand out the most.
In the present, she makes plans to travel into town while Danish is left to deal with Dot, upstairs sleeping. He approaches her with two orderlies (Micahel Rolfe/Ari Cohen) and tries to explain her psychotic break. As Dot wakes, she’s flooded with memories of being held against her will. The confrontation gets physical but ends with Dot being carted away to a psych ward. Jerome (Kudjo Flakpui) later shares the news with Lorraine during a business meeting. It doesn’t take Dot long to manipulate one of the male orderlies and escape using the scrubs and identity of one of the ward’s female employees (Elena Porter).
Lorraine attends a business lunch with two male bankers who appear to be uncomfortable doing business with a woman. After placing an order for the table, she talks about her interest in buying their bank. The two men attempt to object, but she reminds them that they don’t currently have enough collateral to be legally offering loans.
Dot foils her own escape by stopping at the nurse’s station to speak with the receptionist (Robyn Ord) and orderly (Eric Johnston). A chase ensues and leads to Dot trying to escape using an old lady in a wheelchair (Nancy Boyd).
Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) follows Lorraine and her driver (Stephane Legault) to her house where he attempts to discuss Dot. Lorraine tries to blow him off until he openly reveals himself as Dot’s husband. Inside, she affronts him when she automatically assumes he is looking for a payoff. As their discussion of right, wrong, and religion goes back and forth, she refers to him as a “constructional sheriff” and admits to having heard of him. Danish interrupts to inquire about Lorraine’s meeting with Vivian Dugger (Andrew Wheeler). Roy surprises both Danish and Lorraine when he shares a story about catching the Danish banker with a “lady of the night.” On Roy’s way out, he meets Scotty (Sienna King) and immediately recognizes her as Dot’s kid before making a joke about her boyish name. Deputy Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) arrives to share the news of Dot’s escape with Danish just as Roy is leaving.
Still in the driveway, Roy calls Gator Tillman (Joe Keery) to let him know they are going with Plan B. Gator expresses enthusiasm with the announcement but that quickly fades when he learns from Bowman (Conrad Coates) that Roy doesn’t want him involved. Using the wheelchair patient, Dot has made her way to the ground floor but is forced to retreat when she sees Bowman and his goons enter. All while this takes place, Gator notices the arrival of FBI Agents Meyer (Jessica Pohly) and Joaquin (Nick Gomez) and follows them inside.
Dot has abandoned the patients and made her way to Jordan Seymore’s (Steven McCarthy) room where an altercation forces her back into the hallway. She swaps Jordan and Wayne’s room nameplates before joining Wayne and locking him in the bathroom. Bowman and his men are right on her heels when she unexpectedly encounters the FBI agents in the hallway. Although the agents recognize Dot, they address her as Nadine. While they introduce themselves and try to uncover information from her, she witnesses Gator’s arrival as well as Bowman and his men take the wrong man. She agrees to speak with them but requests to use the bathroom first and escapes.
While Olmstead meets privately with Lorraine to attempt to uncover why she had Dot committed, Lorraine only wants to discuss Olmstead’s overwhelming debt. Lorraine reveals that Olmstead is nearly $200,000 in debt. The longer the conversation goes, the more upset Olmstead becomes and the harder she tries to steer the discussion back to Dot.
Jerome listens to men’s reports while monitoring the front grounds of the Lyon mansion from the front window. He pays especially close attention to Scotty practicing her slap shot but misses Dot nearby in the bushes. Their meeting quickly gets awkward when Scotty mentions “Sheriff Roy.” Dot attempts to explain him away as someone she used to know.
Danish becomes upset when he is carded by one of Jerome’s guards. He not only reminds the guard that he is the one who hired and signs his paychecks but he’s leaving. The dispute doesn’t get much further due to the urgent arrival of Jerome, looking for Scotty.
Deputy Olmstead arrives home to find that two unexpected guests have made themselves at home in her house. Dot offers her coffee while Scotty doodles away. Dot soon encourages her to leave while she asks Olmstead to keep an eye on Scotty for the next few days. Olmstead says she might be able to help but the price of admission is the truth. Dot only gets as far as revealing that she got into an abusive marriage when she was just 17 before Lars Olmstead (Lukas Gage) interrupts. He’s so wrapped up in explaining how his defective clubs are throwing off his golf game that it takes a minute for him to recognize Dot. Olmstead introduces Dot as Alice and says that her daughter, Scotty is going to be staying with them for a few days.
Fargo Review
I’d have to say this episode was somewhat of a disappointment, although it was one of the more revealing. It didn’t feel like an entire waste and I am certainly enjoying the shorter run times. The shorter run time makes everything seem so much more important. I did enjoy how some of the episode was shot like a mock nature documentary with the narrator referring to Dot as a Tiger. I also felt that the episode focused more on Lorraine and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I am intrigued to see where it goes from here and for that, I’d have to rate the episode at a 5.6 out of 10.
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