Linda – Episode 7 opens with Irma’s (Clare Coulter) son (Laurent Pitre) returning home to discover Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) has moved in. It doesn’t take Munch long to realize that Irma’s son is a real piece of work. This is only confirmed when the young man leverages him into paying rent. Although Munch pays him with little resistance, he later kills him with an axe in the front yard.
Nodding in and out and narrowly avoiding disaster, Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (Juno Temple) decides to stop at a truck stop for breakfast. A postcard for Camp Utopia is shown as she enters the diner and is offered to sit anywhere. The waitress attempts to spark up a conversation while taking her order, but Dot offers little. Just as quickly as the pancakes arrive, Dot is back on the road. Her next stop is a windmill aside the side, where she retrieves a hidden metal box with the same postcard from the diner. The back reads, “I’m sorry, Linda.” After returning to the road, a mechanical failure forces her next stop, which just happens to be a few miles from Camp Utopia. Backtracking on foot, it takes her well into the night to locate the camp. The shock of the puppet show portraying an abusive husband beating his wife causes her to faint and draws the attention of the ladies.
Dot wakes the following morning in an unfamiliar bed and is greeted by an unfamiliar lady who introduces herself as Lindo (Sorika Wolf). Dot shares the postcard and attempts to explain she’s there looking for Linda. Lindo only confuses her and continues to do so as she tries to explain that Linda is a transitional name used at the camp. Lindo doesn’t offer much of a response when Dot points out that the Linda she’s looking for was named Linda before the camp. Dot doesn’t get much of a response from her questions regarding the strange puppet show either. Instead, Lindo invites her to breakfast. Along the way to the breakfast cabin, Dot explains how she needs Linda’s help to bring the abusive Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) to justice. Lindo reveals that it was Linda Tillman “Saint Linda” (Kari Matchett), who built the camp as an escape for women in women relationships.
Dot’s meeting with Saint Linda doesn’t go well and she has to be retrained by several of the other Lindas nearby. Dot only grows more upset and incessant as Linda refuses to help her. Dot not only accuses Saint Linda of setting her up but she also throws Linda’s abandonment of Gator Tillman (Joe Keery) in her face.
When it becomes clear that there will be no easy resolution, one of the Lindas suggests a truth tribunal. Saint Linda agrees and explains the process to Dot. Dot is in a rush to get back to her family but clearly doesn’t have another option. Learning that she has to go back through making a puppet and earning a new name makes her madder.
Although Wayne (David Rysdal) has returned to work at Lyon’s Motors and is even helping Scotty Tillman (Sienna King) with a homework assignment, an encounter with an employee Daryl (Sean Tyler Foley) reveals he hasn’t fully recovered mentally.
One of the Lyndas (Queeny Kuffour) shows Dot around at a workstation where she is provided with everything needed to make her puppet. That evening at dinner with Saint Linda, Dot fails to convince her to bypass the puppet process.
Gator narrowly avoids an encounter with Munch while following the tracker he placed on Munch’s vehicle in the last episode. Munch stages Irma’s son’s body in a rocking chair near an upstairs window. Gator later shoots the body in the head from a distance, thinking he’s eliminated Munch. While retrieving the tracker from the undercarriage of Munch’s vehicle, he spots the bag of money. Irma returns from her late-night shopping trip just as he busts the window and retrieves the bag. A struggle ensues and ends with Irma cracking her skull on the sidewalk and bleeding out.
That night at the Lyon mansion, Wayne reads Scotty an imaginary bedtime story from an imaginary book, using Dorothy as the hero. As he tells the story, Dot is shown starting the puppet project. For several minutes while The Optic Nerve’s “A Long Way To Go” blares in the background, Dot continues to work on the puppet. After completing the project, she finds Saint Linda and the others in the main house, where she starts the tribunal.
Dot’s coming-of-age backstory is one of a troubled girl who leaves home at 15 and only finds herself in worse trouble. When she gets caught stealing from a grocery store, Saint Linda intervenes and claims her like a daughter. Although Roy is introduced as a stern man who rules his household with a firm hand, Dot appears to admire him. Along with his belief that everyone needs to earn their keep, Linda uses the opportunity to create scenarios where Roy and Dot would be alone. Roy would eventually not only develop feelings for her that he would act on, but this caused him to forget about Linda as well, providing her with the opportunity to escape.
Now known as Dorothy Lyon amongst the other Lindas, she and Saint Linda set out to end Roy’s reign. Later during their trip, Linda apologizes for leaving her with Roy. Despite the apology, Linda has no answer for why she didn’t take Gator or Dot with her.
As if Dot has imagined the entire scenario, the footage reverts to the truck stop where Dot stopped for breakfast that morning. Seconds later an out-of-control semi comes crashing into the parking lot and knocks a parked vehicle into Dot. She is later startled awake and shares a conversation with a nurse (Lara Taillon about her concerned husband, who has been waiting patiently in the waiting room. The episode ends with Dot’s realization that the waiting husband is Roy.
Fargo Review
I have to start by saying that I am shocked by how dark and how quickly the series became. The series has been alluding to Roy being an abusive husband for a while now. And, his being a pedophile isn’t that shocking either, but the way the confirmation was delivered made it feel much more impactful. At least that’s how it felt to me. In fact, this was an all-around great episode, despite it focusing primarily on Dot’s backstory.
I enjoyed learning more about Munch and Irma as well, although it wasn’t much. Normally, I wouldn’t care about a young girl caring for what appears to be a mentally disabled man, but seeing Scotty tenderly nurse her father back to health while also heavily relying on him so much is incredibly rewarding in this specific scenario. This episode deserves a 6 out of 10.
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