Lessons in Capitalism #33: Raddoppiario

Were I my brother, I would be spending this post going in-depth on the vast and insidious implications of the first explicitly racist police officer in Fargo being a Mormon. (Note: this is in contrast to Moe Dammik, who was only implicitly racist.) I would go dive deep into the various cruelties of that American religion. I would explore the history of men wanting to own women, of a leader who is currently in jail for pedophilia, of a faith built on the racist ideals that built America.

Alas, I am not my brother, so I am left to simply talk about pie.

 

In the work of Noah Hawley, the corrosive and corruptive nature of pie had been previously used all the way back in the first season of Legion. Though we did not discuss those implications within our sister series, Lessons in Masculinity, it is perhaps best to discuss them here. The scene opens with David Haller getting a slice of pie. A rather innocuous moment all things considered and one that isn’t really bursting with import and implications. What is notable is that director Hiro Murai opts to present the initial sequence in one continuous shot. The long shot is often used to either ramp up the tension or to show off how good you are at moving through a set. But since the shot has none of the show offy trademarks an Iñárritu or Fukunaga would use, the shot has an air of unease. We are stuck in the moment and can’t quite put our fingers on why.

 

A potential reason comes in the form of Amy Haller, whose presence in this scene is at once intimidating and perplexing. Nurse Ratchet if she was played by Bea Arthur in a child’s idea of an evil mental hospital. Immediately, entering the frame as David was about to have a small piece of pie, she takes the pie from him without reason or provocation. She even, sadistically, eats the piece that was on his fork, and she savors it. The cruelty, as it so often is, is the point.

 

The first moment of pie within Raddoppiario comes when Thurman Smutney is forced to hold onto it while the blatantly racist police force storms his home looking for escaped convicts and breakout characters Zalmare Roulette and Swanee Capps. Note that throughout their unwarranted raid (The Fourth Amendment, which grantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” was placed into law as far back as 1792), Thurman is ignored throughout, barely questioned. He’s not even told he can put the pie down.

 

Instead, focus is laid squarely on Ehtelrida Pearl Smutney and, after she tells Dick Wickware that she does not consent to a minor being interrogated by the police (a right that Wickware ignores as the police often do), Dibrell Smutney. Throughout Dibrell’s interrogation, there’s an air of tension brought on by the racial undertones of why she is being interrogated. Sure, Wickware says he’s not a racist and treats all criminals equally. But note that his steely eyes never pierce Thurman’s eyes. The threats of imprisonment are aimed squarely at Dibrell and not her husband. The rights of a black woman are ignored when blatantly crooked cops surround him. For the cruelty is the point: to make sure the black women know their place and don’t aid the ones for whom it is far too late to exist in “polite society.” More on this in a latter lesson (or, if you wish, considering exploring Lessons in Capitalism’s look at season three of Fargo).

 

The Legion Long Take concludes with the sound of pie being eaten by Sydney Barret. (Believe me, I’m surprised this series has yet to talk about Hawley’s naming conventions.) Only, the sound isn’t that of pie. Instead, it’s a loud crunch. The shot cuts to an image shot of the pie covered in bugs. Though not as grotesque as later episodes of Fargo or, indeed, Legion would use, the moment is nevertheless a shock to the system, invoking a sense of revulsion in the viewer as it does Barret.

 

A more grotesque usage of pie would come towards the end of Raddoppiario. Here, the sole member of the Smutney household to eat the pie, Swanee Capps, is in the middle of a robbery when her bowls and stomach begin to act up. At first, it’s played as a joke similar to Welcome to the Alternate Economy’s fart joke with Donatello Fadda, wherein we are set up to believe he is about to die of a heart attack, only for the tension to be released like the wind between his butt cheeks. Here, the sweet and loving kiss between Swanee and Zalmare is deflated by Swanee’s bowls acting up. However, unlike the Fada gag where the bit was forgotten both by the tension of an assassination by the Cannon Limited and the actual assassination being an accident caused by two kids playing with bb guns, the bit goes on and on throughout the robbery, escalating to causing tension via Swanee’s sickness distracting Zalmare from the gun the Cannon Limited member is reaching for.

 

The fluids in this scene are treated realistically, having their presence be the tension rather than being ramped up to eleven. An obvious contrast would be Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Released shortly after Fargo’s second season, The Hateful Eight is a western set one state shy of the mid-west Fargo explores. It tells of a three lawmen, four criminals, and an innocent bystander trapped between them. This being a Tarantino project built with the base premise of “Fuck every single one of these awful people,” all of the lawmen are racist shits where the most sympathetic is too young to have actually participated in the Civil War as a confederate; the criminals are openly homicidal and only spare the innocent because he adds something to the room’s flavor and probably will kill him in the end; and said innocent is an honest to god confederate soldier still wearing his uniform years after his side lost. (OB is different and perhaps best saved for a full piece on The Hateful Eight.)

 

As such, when it comes time for these characters to receive their poisoned pukings, the moment is exaggerated with gallons of blood and bile. And yet, the moment is nevertheless played for horror as opposed for the retribution such a moment would imply. Though the primary victim of the poisoning is a man who gleefully beats women, claims to not be a racist while holding racist values, takes sadistic pleasure in the suffering of others, and is based on Harvey Weinstein, we are nevertheless horrified by his murder. The blood painfully shoots out of his mouth like a geyser had been shoved up his esophagus. We aren’t supposed to feel comfortable watching this bad man suffer and die, even if the moment of death is satisfying and fitting. (Again, such implications are best saved for a Tarantino focused project.)

 

Contrasted with Fargo, Swanee feels like she got off lightly. And yet, Fargo treats the moment not as a light moment such a contrast would imply, but rather of a different register. The tension in Tarantino’s film comes from the potential of who else will consume the poison and the puking is the release from that tension in all the horror it can provide. Conversely, the puking and farting is the tension in Fargo. The failures of the human body lead to a potential failure in, as Fargo puts it, “getting rich the old fashioned way.” For capitalism isn’t designed for human weakness. It isn’t made for people who get sick don’t think or look like “normal” people. It is designed for cruelty.

 

The final shot of the pie in Raddoppiario invokes the final shot of the pie in Legion’s pie scene. Both feature zoom ins into a partially eaten pie with the filling revealed to the audience. But where in Fargo, the pie has nothing but the tan apple filling, Legion has a cherry filling and also the face of Lenny Busker. This would of course lead into an epic dance number set to Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, which we previously discussed in Lessons in Masculinity #24, but it’s her presence in the pie that’s more important. The implication of her presence here allows her to haunt the moment of tension previously discussed. This is, after all, a false world created by the thing wearing Lenny’s image.

 

Similarly, with Fargo, we are meant to consider who made the pie for the Smutneys to consume. That being Oraetta Mayflower. Her role in the series remains ambiguous at the time of this episode. While she is most certainly an independent figure within this tale of the rise and fall of empires and structurally akin to Gaear Grimsrud, Lorne Malvo, Hanzee Dent, and VM Varga, the nature of her role remains even more mysterious than those others. In contrast to her, by episode three of previous seasons, we knew Lorne was an assassin working for a syndicate, Hanzee a beleaguered hatchet man, and Varga an agent of modernity and control that seeks wealth and power.

 

But Mayflower remains ambiguous in her nature. Sure, we know she’s a serial killer out to “ease suffering,” but we don’t know what her deal is beyond that. She remains an enigma, the hole in things that may very well have no answer. Perhaps of the ones mentioned, she is most akin to Grimsrud from the movie: seemingly dimwitted, but in reality possessing a vast intellect and a murderous intent. Not unanswerable per say, but one who requires more than three episodes of context to discover the full extent of her being.