‘Fargo’ Series 5 Postseason Power Rankings: Revenge, Redemption, Biscuits

UNRANKED: Bank creeps who got steamrolled by Lorraine and cost their children a fancy education; angry school board moms: previous and current wives of Roy; various Lindas; sin eating, generally; spooky Halloween masks; watching your house burn down; having your corpse tossed into a hole; county and/or hospital employees who didn’t do much to help the situation; anyone else I forgot; running around with bloody feet; bloody feet, generally.

Short version:

Last place.

ON ONE HAND: I wanted to like him at first, if only because we as television viewers so rarely get to see Jon Hamm wearing nipple rings and a cowboy hat and riding a horse and doing the whole Menacing Don Draper thing all at once, even with him on almost every television show these days.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Roy was a serial abuser and creep who poisoned every relationship he’s ever had and also sometimes murdered people and now gets to spend the rest of his life in a prison filled with people who are being paid to torment him. Not even the Jon Hamm of it all can overcome that.

Just a massive loser. Duck-hooking long irons into a golf simulator in his garage in front of the drums he covered up because he probably sucked at playing those too. Running up six figures of debt and sleeping around while his wife investigates murders. Still complaining about all of it.

It is genuinely upsetting to me that dozens of people died on this show and this weenie didn’t end up lifeless in his driveway with a drumstick jammed into his brain.

Disfigured by homemade blowtorches and sharp objects and smashed in the face by staircases and sledgehammers. They never stood a chance but if you gotta go, might as well give it the full Home Alone.

ON ONE HAND: If you or anyone else anywhere finds peace and solace in dressing up marionettes and acting out miniature stage productions of traumatic moments in your life to help you deal with it all in a healthy way and get to a better place that allows you to find happiness and comfort again, honestly, I am thrilled for you.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Puppets have always creeped me out. Just a longstanding personal distaste. Your mileage may (and probably should) vary.

This kid:

Would be ranked below the puppets if it wasn’t kind of sad. He made his own decisions, sure. But he was set up to fail.

A gangly creme puff who latches onto strong women and lets them tell him how to do his life. Maybe the most spineless man who has ever been on television. Got cooked to a nice medium-rare by a booby-trapped window in his house and spent half the season trying to remember how anything works anywhere.

And yet… I love him. Seems like a great dad. Loves the hell out of his family. Gave another family a nice new car in exchange for their old used one, capitalism be damned. I’m glad Dorothy is around to protect this sweet, sweet man.

What we know about Wink Lyon:

Give me a series of little webisodes that show what he was up to during this entire season. I’m serious.

I like to picture these two at some law enforcement convention 20 years from now, sitting at a table at the hotel bar, absolutely holding court with a crowd of younger colleagues standing around them and listening to them tell the story of the mysterious Dorothy Lyon and the militia showdown at a ranch compound.

They’ll never have to pay for a drink again in their entire lives.

DAMMIT WITT

JUST SHOOT HIM

JUST SHOOT ROY

I KNOW YOU WERE A NICE MAN

I KNOW YOU WERE TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING

BUT WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN IN THAT TUNNEL

COME ON

JUST SHOOT HIM

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE

NO ONE WOULD HAVE BEEN MAD ABOUT IT

BUT NO

YOU DIDN’T

NOW YOU’RE DEAD

DAMMIT

ON ONE HAND: Great cop. Great heart. Only person other than Dorothy who stood up to Lorraine even a little. Finally left her useless husband, even if it did take catching him nude in bed with another lady to do it. Terrific accent.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Cashed out to work personal security for an evil debt collection agency, which, coupled with the death of Witt Farr (JUST SHOOT HIM), decreases the number of good cops out there and leaves me room for the Roys and Gators of the world to run around unchecked.

Appeared for two seconds in a short scene where he got his name changed from John Sasquatch to Roy Tillman purely for the purposes of debate shenanigans. There’s really no good reason to have him in the top 10 above actual characters who did things. But I almost put him in the top five, so let’s call this one a fair compromise and move on.

Scotty Lyon:

Scotty rules.

I do not think I have ever seen a television show that featured this much graphic violence and gory open wounds that also made me hungry for baked goods almost every week. Between Dorothy making pancakes and biscuits in her kitchen and people ordering them at diners — see above — it was really just a parade of buttery carbs dancing across the screen between shots of people getting parts of their faces mangled by their enemies. Takes a special show to pull that off. I’m kinda hungry again now just looking at that picture.

Oh, and speaking of biscuits…

Let’s track Ole Munch’s season:

Good for him.

Toughest ranking on the board.

Like, yes, her heart did grow a few sizes toward the end there, what with her acceptance of Dorothy and her string-pulling to ruin Roy in a few ways (calls to the government to put down his lil revolution, various debt relief to his fellow prisoners in exchange for making his time in prison a living hell). That was nice to see. I loved her accent. I kind of want to hear Jennifer Jason Leigh narrate audiobooks in that voice. Just a fun evil little monster whose character arc bent the tiniest bit toward goodness at the very end.

But…

She still does run that evil debt collection business. I should still hate her. Maybe I still do. It’s a miracle I put her above John Sasquatch. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll publish an update like three years from now out of nowhere that flip-flops them. Everyone will be so confused.

The facts here are undisputed:

I’m so mad he died. What a wonderful television character.

I mean, who else was it gonna be, you know Booby trapping homes, mangling goons, making biscuits from scratch. Tough to top that for anyone on any show. And her original name was Nadine Bump, which is… cool. Not as cool as Wink Lyon or Danish Graves or John Sasquatch, but still. Pretty cool.