Fargo (TV series)

Fargo is a television series by FX. The show is inspired and based on the 1996 film of the same name. Season 1 takes place in 2006 in Bemidji, Minnesota, Season 2 takes place in 1979 in Luverne, Minnesota, Season 3 takes place in 2010 in Eden Valley, Minnesota, Season 4 takes place in 1950 in Kansas City, Missouri, and Season 5 takes place in 2019 in Scandia, Minnesota. Each season has its own plot and cast of characters, but exist in the same continuity.

Opening

This is a true story. The events depicted took place in [location] in [year]. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

Season 1

The Crocodile's Dilemma [1.01]

Lorne Malvo: Mister, we're not friends. I mean, maybe we will be someday. But I gotta say, if that were me in your position? I would have killed that man.

Lester Nygaard: Well, now... Come on.

Lorne Malvo: You said he bullied you in high school, right?

Lester Nygaard: Four years. Gave me an ulcer. You know what, one time, he put me in an oil barrel and rolled me in the road.

Lorne Malvo: Seriously? And now he tells you that he had relations with your wife. He bullies you again in front of his children. This is a man who doesn't deserve to draw breath.

Lester Nygaard: Yeah, okay, but, uh - Here's the thing -

Lorne Malvo: No. That is the thing.

Lester Nygaard: Well, heck! I mean, oh, okay.

Lorne Malvo: Okay.

Lester Nygaard: But... What am I supposed to do? Heck, you're so sure about it, maybe you should just kill him for me.

Vern Thurman: You'll make a good chief one day.

Molly Solverson: Me? What about Bill? He's got seniority.

Vern Thurman: Bill cleans his gun with bubble bath. No, it'll be you.

Lorne Malvo: Your problem is you spent your whole life thinking there are rules. There aren't. We used to be gorillas. All we had is what we could take and defend. The truth is, you're more of a man today than you were yesterday.

Lester Nygaard: How do you figure?

Lorne Malvo: It's a red tide, Lester, this life of ours. The shit they make us eat day after day, the boss, the wife, et cetera, wearing us down. If you don't stand up to it, let 'em know you're still an ape deep down where it counts, you're just gonna get washed away.

Lorne Malvo: Evening, Officer.

Gus Grimly: Evening. License and registration, please.

Lorne Malvo: We could do it that way. You ask me for my papers. I tell you it's not my car, that I borrowed it. See where things go from there. We could do that. Or you could go get in your car and drive away.

Gus Grimly: Now, why would I do that?

Lorne Malvo: Because some roads you shouldn't go down. Because maps used to say, "there be dragons here." Now they don't. But that don't mean the dragons aren't there.

[tense pause]

Greta Grimly: [over the radio] Dad. Come in, Dad. Over.

Gus Grimly: [to Malvo] You step out of the car, please, sir.

Lorne Malvo: How old's your kid?

Gus Grimly: I said step out of the car.

Greta Grimly: Dad, come in. Dad, over.

Lorne Malvo: Let me tell you what's gonna happen, Officer Grimly. I'm going to roll my window up, then I'm going to drive away, and you're gonna go home to your daughter, and every few years, you're gonna look at her face and know that you're alive because you chose not to go down a certain road on a certain night. That you chose to walk into the light instead of into the darkness.

Lou Solverson: So I got two kinds of sandwiches, tuna and turkey. Tuna's for the fish. Unless you think they'd think that's cannibalism.

The Rooster Prince [1.02]

Postal Worker: Well, I'll need to see some ID.

Lorne Malvo: No.

Postal Worker: What?

Lorne Malvo: You heard me.

Postal Worker: Well, uh--uh, I can't give you your mail, if you don't show ID.

Lorne Malvo: Sure you can. All you gotta do is look through those packages over there, find the one addressed to Duluth, and then hand it to me.

Postal Worker: Look, son--we're in Duluth, so technically all the mail is addressed to Duluth.

Lorne Malvo: Am I gonna need to come back there and find it myself?

Postal Worker: ...sir?

[Malvo stares silently at the postal worker]

Postal Worker: ...o-okay.

[the postal worker turns and begins looking through the packages]

...

Postal Worker: This is highly irregular.

Lorne Malvo: No, highly irregular is the time I found a human foot in a toaster oven. This is just odd.

Stavros Milos: You're looking at the Supermarket King Of Minnesota, la mercado rey. And it all started right here in this office. Next quarter, we're expanding into Wisconsin and the Dakotas. By this time next year, rule the whole goddamn midwest. You see my mangos? Straight from Ecuador, kiwis too. That's what makes my stores so goddamn superior. I got mangos in goddamn January. And the back of a 90-year-old woman.

Lorne Malvo: This is kind of embarrassing, but, uh, would you sign a copy of my book?

Stavros Milos: I'd be delighted. You--you want something personal?

Lorne Malvo: Yeah, could you put "To Frank Peterson, thanks for nailing my blackmailer".

Gus Grimly: Well, you know, sometimes there's more than one right thing.

Greta Grimly: What does that mean?

Gus Grimly: It means I got you, and I am responsible for you, and sometimes I might be in a situation where-- and this hasn't happened, and it won't-- but a situation where if I try to stop a guy From doing a bad thing, I could get hurt. Or worse. And then who would take care of you?

Greta Grimly: But it's your job.

Gus Grimly: Well, I got two jobs, and the first, the most important, is being your dad.

Greta Grimly: Well, if I saw somebody doing something, I would stop 'em.

Lou Solverson: Not sure if you remember, but when you were five, they had to put you under anesthesia to fix your teeth. Gave you that mask.

Molly Solverson: Hmm. Gas that smelled like tutti frutti.

Lou Solverson: Yeah. My soft little girl in a hard world of drills and needles.

Molly Solverson: I'm 31, Dad. I carry a gun.

Lou Solverson: I know. But it's relative, you know? There's the kind of things a schoolteacher gets exposed to--truancy and the like-- and then there's the stuff a cop sees-- murder and violence and general scofflawery. And then there's the kind of deal you're looking at now.

Molly Solverson: Which is?

Lou Solverson: Which is, if I'm right...savagery, pure and simple. Slaughter, hatred. Devils with dead eyes and shark smiles. And one day, you're gonna get married and have kids, and when you look at them, their faces, you need to see what's good in the world, 'cause if you don't, how you gonna live?

Molly Solverson: You talk a lot, you know that?

Lou Solverson: It's always been a problem.

A Muddy Road [1.03]

Gina Hess: Now here I am, stuck in the Yukon with my two mongoloid sons.

Lester Nygaard: Oh, they're not so bad.

Gina Hess: I've taken shits I want to live with more than them.

Calamity Joe: A Zombie kit... shotgun, machete, some Bactine. It's a side business. I make up these knapsacks for the Zombie Apocalypse. You know... in case the dead come back to life and world gets all "dog-eat-dog."

Lorne Malvo: It's already "dog-eat-dog," friend. Not sure what worse a bunch of zombies could do.

Stavros Milos: A million dollars? He killed my damn dog and now he wants a million dollars? "Eat a turd" is my response.

Stavros Milos: Saint Lawrence. Patron saint of hard asses. Burned alive by the Romans. You know what he said? "Turn me over. I'm done on this side." That's a goddamn saint.

Molly Solverson: Hey, you ever heard of a spider layin' eggs in a person's neck?

Greta Grimly: What's that now?

Molly Solverson: Friend of mine said it happened to a friend of hers.

Greta Grimly: Gross.

Molly Solverson: Yeah. Said they were He was sleepin', and all these baby spiders just ran right out. Not sure I want to live in a world where something like that can happen to a person.

Eating the Blame [1.04]

Gus Grimly: How do you do that, just lie like that?

Lorne Malvo: Did you know the human eye can see more shades of green than any other color?

Gus Grimly: What?

Lorne Malvo: I said, "Did you know that the human eye can see more shades of green than any other color?" My question for you is, why?

Gus Grimly: No, no, no, just h-hold on.

Lorne Malvo: When you figure out the answer to my question, then you'll have the answer to yours.

Molly Solverson: What happened?

Gus Grimly: Well, they, uh-- they let him go, Malvo.Yeah, he had an alibi, it checked out, but it's him.

Molly Solverson: How do you know?

Gus Grimly: 'Cause I said the name Lorne Malvo, and he stopped, and he looked at me real funny. And then he said, like, a riddle.

Molly Solverson: What's that about a riddle?

Gus Grimly: Like, um, how come the human eye can see more shades of green than any other color?

Molly Solverson: 'Cause of predators. Used to be, we were monkeys, right? And in the woods, in the jungle, everything's green. So, in order to not get eaten by panthers and bears and the like, we had to be able to see them, you know, in the grass and trees and such. Predators.

The Six Ungraspables [1.05]

Stavros Milos: We're only as good as the promises we keep.

Ari Ziskind: A rich man opens the paper one day. He sees the world is full of misery. He says, "I have money. I can help." So he gives away all of his money. But it's not enough. The people are still suffering. One day, the man sees another article. He decides he was foolish to think just giving money was enough. So he goes to the doctor and says, "Doctor, I want to donate a kidney." The doctors do the surgery. It's a complete success. After, he knows he should feel good, but he doesn't, for people are still suffering. So he goes back to the doctor. He says, "Doctor, this time I want to give it all." The doctor says, "What does that mean, 'Give it all'?" He says, "This time I want to donate my liver. But not just my liver. I want to donate my heart, but not just my heart. I want to donate my corneas, but not just my corneas. I want to give it all away. Everything I am. All that I have." The doctor says, "A kidney is one thing, but you can't give away your whole body piece by piece. That's suicide." And he sends the man home. But the man cannot live knowing that the people are suffering and he could help. So he gives the one thing he has left: his life.

Gus Grimly: And does it work? Does it stop the suffering?

Ari Ziskind: You live in the world. What do you think?

Gus Grimly: So he killed himself for nothing?

Ari Ziskind: Did he?

Gus Grimly: Well, I mean... what are you saying?

Ari Ziskind: Only a fool thinks he can solve the world's problems.

Gus Grimly: Yeah, but you gotta try, don't you?

Lorne Malvo: It was the Romans, wasn't it?

Stavros Milos: What are you saying?

Lorne Malvo: St. Lawrence, your window, Romans burned him alive.

Stavros Milos: They did.

Lorne Malvo: You know why?

Stavros Milos: Cause he was Christian.

Lorne Malvo: Maybe. But I think it was because the Romans were raised by wolves. The greatest empire in human history, founded by wolves. You know what wolves do. They hunt. They kill. It's why I never bought into the jungle book. Boy is raised by wolves and becomes friends with a bear and panther. I don't think so. I knew a guy once, had a hundred and ten pound Rottweiler, and one night this girl thought it would be funny to get down on all fours and let the dog hump her. Dog still had its balls. Well the dog gets up there, but he's not in on the joke. This is just a bitch in heat as far as he's concerned. He's not leaving til he gets what he came for. Well the girl, too late, realizes the kind of mistake she's made. She wants to get up. But the dog had other ideas. Had to shoot it behind the ear to get it off of her.

Stavros Milos: I don't uh... I don't...

Lorne Malvo: Well, I'm saying that the Romans raised by wolves, they see a guy turning water into wine, what do they do? They eat him. 'Cause there are no saints in the animal kingdom. Only breakfast and dinner.

Ari Ziskind: This is a community. People watch each other's backs. Someone gets sick, someone dies, you bring a casserole, help.

Lorne Malvo: Maybe I'm here to help.

Ari Ziskind: No, you have black eyes. You're trouble. I'm going inside, and I'm calling the cops.

Lorne Malvo: Which building? The one with the Jew bus outside?

Ari Ziskind: There it is. Now the truth comes out.

Lorne Malvo: You know, some people think you don't need alarms on second-story windows. Think they can save a few bucks, you know, and still be safe. Another way they save money is they don't hook up the alarm to the phone line. So the bell rings, but the cops don't come. Or they come, but only after the neighbors call. Which, um, if this community's tight, as you say, you know just might be quick enough to save your life. Or your children's lives.

Buridan's Ass [1.06]

Parking Lot Cashier: Ticket, please.

Stavros Milos: I changed my mind. I decided... God. He told me. He has different plans.

Parking Lot Cashier: God told you not to park here?

Stavros Milos: No, no, no. I know what I have to do now. I didn't before.

Parking Lot Cashier: Well, sir, I gotta... It's $2 for the first 30 minutes, so...

Stavros Milos: Son, you go to church?

Parking Lot Cashier: Yes, sir.

Stavros Milos: Then open the goddamn gate. Your Lord demands it.

Don Chumph: [reading Malvo's letter] Once upon a time, there was a little boy. He was born in a field and raised in the woods. And he had nothing. In the winter the boy would freeze and in the summer he would boil. He knew the name of every stinging insect. At night he would look at the lights in the houses, and he would want. Why was he outside and they in? Why was he so hungry and they fed? "It should be me," he said. And out of the darkness the wolves came, whispering.

Lester Nygaard: You have gotta stand by me here.

Chaz Nygaard: You've been a burden my whole life. I'm done. There's something wrong with you, Lester. There's-- there's something missing. You're not right in the world.

Gus Grimly: When a dog goes rabid, right, there's no mistaking it for a normal dog. And here we are, we're supposed to be, us people, we're supposed to know better. To be better, you know?

Molly Solverson: Must be hard to live in this world if you believe that.

Gus Grimly: You have no idea.

Mr. Tripoli: Sam Hess.

Mr. Carlyle: [quickly looks up the progress on Hess] Assets deployed, Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers - three days, plus lodging, plus mileage.

Mr. Jergen: [Tripoli looks over at Jergen] You want the, um...? Bottom line, they don't think... our guys... they said, doesn't look related to the business. Could be extramarital on the wife's side. So, uh, now they're en route to a second location to apprehend who we, uh, think is responsible.

Mr. Tripoli: Dead.

Mr. Jergen: What's that?

Mr. Tripoli: Not apprehend. Dead. Don't care extramarital. Don't care not-related. Kill and be killed. Head in a bag. There's the message.

Mr. Jergen: Of course, boss. Yeah.

Who Shaves the Barber? [1.07]

Molly Solverson: What did I lose?

Gus Grimly: A spleen. Look, I'll get you a new one, I swear.

Molly Solverson: Yeah, you'd better.

...

Gus Grimly: You want some pop or something?

Molly Solverson: No, I want a new spleen, that's what I want, so you know, better get cracking, mister.

Lorne Malvo: [gesturing at a map of the United States on Rundle's office wall] So I noticed you got a pin on your map in every state but Georgia. What the hell do you got against Georgia?

Mr. Rundle: My first wife. She was Korean. She used to spit at me when we had sex.

Mr. Rundle: Can I sit? Or did you want to kill me standing?

[Malvo shrugs in response; Rundle sits in a chair opposite him]

Lorne Malvo: Two hombres took a run at me in Duluth.

Mr. Rundle: Mexicans?

Lorne Malvo: That's the wrong part of the sentence to be focusing on. The point is, they said Fargo sent them. So, I have two questions. First: did you tell these boys where to find me? Second: who do I see about this in Fargo?

Mr. Rundle: But you gotta understand: this is a business of relationships. I can't just--

Lorne Malvo: [interrupting] Relationships.

Mr. Rundle: Right. And, well, it's not my position, professionally, to get involved in squabbles. Especially not of a private nature.

Lorne Malvo: How do you know it's private?

Mr. Rundle: If people are unhappy with our services, they call. A guy screws up, arrangements are made. A cash settlement; if that's not enough, break a leg, or an arm. No calls. Not about you. So whatever it is...it's gotta be personal.

Lorne Malvo: Doesn't matter. It's the principle.

Lorne Malvo: [pointing at two different phones on Rundle's desk] This one calls an ambulance, that one calls the hearse. I'm going to ask you again, and depending on the answer, I pick up this [points at the first phone], or that [points at the second phone]. Who do I talk to in Fargo?

[cut to Malvo departing Rundle's office; as he walks towards his car, a woman is heard screaming from inside the office]

The Heap [1.08]

FBI Agent Pepper: The file room. A room with files. Say you took one of them out.

FBI Agent Budge: Took it where?

FBI Agent Pepper: Doesn't matter. Let's say you took one of the files out. Is it still the file room?

FBI Agent Budge: Now I'm saying that you and I both agree that the file room minus one file is still the file room. Now, let's say you took another one out, and then another. If the file room minus one file is still the file room, and you keep subtracting one at a time, you could end up with zero files. I'm saying logically. Or even negative files, and it would still...

FBI Agent Pepper: How do you have negative files?

FBI Agent Budge: No, I'm just, logically I'm saying. 'Cept no one is taking files, they just bring more.

FBI Agent Pepper: What about a cemetery? I mean, remove one body from a cemetery, it's still a cemetery, but a cemetery with no bodies, what's that?

FBI Agent Budge: Condos.

Lorne Malvo: [to Mr. Wrench] I watched a bear once. His leg was in a steel trap. It chewed through bloody bone to get free. It was in Alaska. Died about an hour later facedown in a stream. But it was on his own terms, you know? You got close. Closer than anybody else. I don't know if it was you or your partner, but look. If you still feel raw about things when you heal up, come see me.

Ida Thurman: Heard you got some flowers.

Molly Solverson: Some people do love to flap their lips.

Ida Thurman: More than once what I heard.

Molly Solverson: Well, there's a suitor is all I'm prepared to say.

Ida Thurman: Vern was so bad at courtship. One time, he gave me a bouquet of poison ivy. Picked it himself.

Molly Solverson: He's up in Duluth, my gentleman. Has a daughter.

Ida Thurman: What's his name?

Molly Solverson: I call him Sergio. He's a pirate I think.

Ida Thurman: Very funny, you.

Bill Oswalt: Look, you can't... that's just how it is, sometimes. Life. You know, you go to bed unsatisfied. They're calling the lottery numbers on the TV and you get the first few and already in your mind you're buying a jet or a fjord or whatever, but it's just not meant to be. It's just not meant to be.

Lester Nygaard: You know, you can go through your whole life without a care, and one day it all changes. People die. They lose their homes. They go to prison. It's calamity, huh? I know it, 'cause I lived it. And if this year has taught me anything-- and believe me, I've seen it all-- it's that the worst does happen. And you need to be insured.

A Fox, A Rabbit And A Cabbage [1.09]

Burt Canton: I'm not afraid to admit it. Well, she's something else, that Jemma. Just between us girls, that body, is it... I mean... What's she like in the sack?

Lorne Malvo: Hellcat. It's the only word for it.

Burt Canton: Shit. Yeah. Weezy's basically a Jew in the bedroom.

Lorne Malvo: Oh, you mean she wears a wig, makes you do it through a hole in the sheet, yeah.

Burt Canton: No. No, no. She stopped putting it in her mouth soon as the ring went on her finger.

Lorne Malvo: Well, that's a national tragedy, Burt.

Greta Grimly: Hey, um, go fishing later?

Lou Solverson: You're the granddaughter I always wanted but was afraid to buy online.

Jemma Stalone: Oh, mick mike. I just keep pinching myself.

Lorne Malvo: Well, honey, you've earned it. It's like my mama always said, "boys, if you like the milk, buy the freakin' cow."

Jemma Stalone: Oh, that's so sweet. Well, I am gonna stick my whole thumb up your ass later.

Lorne Malvo: Aces.

Lorne Malvo: [after shooting three people] This one's on you. I worked this guy for six months, Lester. Six months. Can you imagine the number of sewer mouths I put my hands in? The gallons of human spit? Plus the hundred thousand ballot down the toilet, but still, the look on his face when I pulled the gun? Classic, huh?

Lou Solverson: Had a case once, back in '79. I'd tell you the details, but it'd sound like I made 'em up. Madness, really.

Lorne Malvo: Bodies?

Lou Solverson: Yes, sir. One after another. Probably, if you stacked 'em high, could've climbed to the second floor. Now, I saw something that year I ain't ever seen, before or since. I'd call it animal. Except animals only kill for food. This was-- Sioux Falls. Ever been?

Lorne Malvo: Went to Sioux City once back in my scandalous days. But anyway, you didn't answer my question there.

Lou Solverson: Well, I'll tell you what. You, uh-- you leave me your number. I'll make sure Lester gets it next time he comes in.

Lorne Malvo: Well, that's a solid offer, friend, but like I said, I'm just passing through. Thanks for the pie and the coffee. Haven't had a piece of pie like that since the Garden of Eden.

Morton's Fork [1.10]

Lester Nygaard: MY WIFE IS DEAD! And there are arrangements to see to. So you can either lock me up or let me go.

Molly Solverson: [on Lorne Malvo] He's not gonna stop. You know that. A man like that... maybe not even a man.

Lester Nygaard: You know, I'm not sure what you've had against me since day one. But I'm not the person you think I am, this, this kind of monster.

Molly Solverson: There was a fella once. Running for a train. And he's carrying a pair of gloves, this man. And he loses a glove on the platform. But he doesn't notice. And then later on, he's on the train sitting by the window, and he realises that he's just got this one glove left. But the train's already started pulling out of the station. So what does he do? He opens the window and he drops the other glove on to the platform. Now whoever finds the first glove can just have the pair.

Lester Nygaard: So, what are you telling me?

Molly Solverson: Goodbye, Mr. Nygaard.

Lester Nygaard: Goodbye, Deputy.

Bill Oswalt: [to Molly] I used to have positive opinions about the world, you know, about people. Used to think the best. Now I'm looking over my shoulder. An unquiet mind, that's what the wife calls it. The job has got me staring into the fireplace, drinking. I never wanted to be the type to think big thoughts about the nature of things and...all I ever wanted was a stack of pancakes and a v8.

Gus Grimly: I figured it out.

Lorne Malvo: Good for you.

Gus Grimly: Your riddle-- shades of green. I figured it out.

Lorne Malvo: [irritated] And?

[Gus kills Malvo]

Gus Grimly: They're gonna give me a citation for bravery.

Greta Grimly: You? Come on, you're afraid of spiders.

Gus Grimly: Buzz Aldrin was afraid of spiders, and he went into space.

Molly Solverson: Proud of you, hon.

Gus Grimly: They really should be giving it to you.

Molly Solverson: No. No, this is your deal. I get to be chief.

Season 2

Waiting for Dutch [2.01]

Dodd Gerhardt: You wear short pants till you prove you're a man.

Rye Gerhardt: I'm a man.

Dodd Gerhardt: You're the comic in a piece of bubble gum!

Rye Gerhardt: Well, I mean, says you.

Dodd Gerhardt: You got till tomorrow to bring the collection money you owe.

Rye Gerhardt: Or what?

Dodd Gerhardt: You make me wait for you again, I'll cleave your skull.

Rye Gerhardt: Look, there's two ways this can go...

Judge Mundt: [sarcastically] Is one of them "the hard way"?

Rye Gerhardt: This isn't one of those optional check "A" or "B" scenarios. I'm gonna change your mind.

Judge Mundt: [sighs] One day, the Devil came to God and said, "Let's make a bet between you and me for the soul of a man." And from on high they looked down on Job, a devout man, religious. And the Devil said, "I can change his mind and make him curse your name." And God said, "Try and you will only fail." So the Devil begins. He kills Job's herds and takes his fields. He plagues him with boils and throws him on the ash heap. But Job's mind remains unchanged. So I ask you, son, if the Devil couldn't change Job's mind, how the hell are you gonna change mine?

Rye Gerhardt: What?

Judge Mundt: You're a little dim, aren't you?

Lou Solverson: It's a diner robbery in Minnesota, Karl. Not a presidential assassination.

Karl Weathers: Oh, sure. That's how it starts-- with something small, like a break-in at the Watergate Hotel. But just watch. This thing's only getting bigger.

Karl Weathers: Unacceptable is what it is. A woman like that in the prime of her... With a young daughter! Tell her if John McCain could hold out for 5 1/2 years against Viet Cong thumbscrews, she can beat this cancer bullshit in her sleep.

Lou Solverson: I'll make sure to mention that.

Lou Solverson: Your dad said he'd be over Sunday in a suit of armor.

Betsy Solverson: Ugh. Geez. You light one souffle on fire...

Before The Law [2.02]

[Dodd and Dent are torturing a man]

Dodd Gerhardt: Fought in the trenches in France - World War I. He was an artillerieschuetzen, my granddad, a gunner. Blasted mustard gas at the Allies. Had them dancing like poisoned rats. Brits caught him in a raid, hung him by his thumbs for six days straight. So this, what we're doing, this is nothing. [beat] Are you listening to me? Is he listening to me?

Hanzee Dent: Cut off his ears.

Dodd Gerhardt: Wake him up.

Hanzee Dent: He's dead, I think.

Dodd Gerhardt: Weak.

Joe Bulo: Management says acquire the territory, we acquire it. Whether that's cash down or sending bodies to the morgue, that's up to the Krauts. First Gerhardt to switch sides gets a shiny, red apple.

Peggy Blumquist: We got a plan, you know?

Constance Heck: The word "we" is a castle, hon, with a moat and a drawbridge. And you know what gets locked up in castles?

Peggy Blumquist: Dragons?

Constance Heck: Princesses. Don't be a prisoner of "we".

Hank Larsson: I'm gonna radio ahead and make sure you make it out of State. If not, I'm gonna put out an APB and have you boys rounded up. And then we'll talk again. You understand?

Mike Milligan: I do. And isn't that a minor miracle? The state of the world today and the level of conflict and misunderstanding, that two men could stand on a lonely road in winter and talk calmly and rationally while all around them, people are losing their mind. You have a nice day.

Hank Larsson: After WWII, we went six years without a - without a murder here. Six years. And these days, well... Sometimes wonder if you boys didn't bring that war home with ya.

The Myth Of Sisyphus| [2.03]

Lou Solverson: Say, you wouldn't by any chance be Mike Milligan and the Kitchen brothers, would ya?

Mike Milligan: You make us sound like a prog-rock band. "Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Mike Milligan and the Kitchen brothers." [A Kitchen brother grabs a shotgun] Double whoops.

Lou Solverson: Easy.

Mike Milligan: Minnesota cop. You do know you're in North Dakota, right?

Lou Solverson: Must've got lost on the way to the lake.

Mike Milligan: So, where'd you say you saw old Skip?

Lou Solverson: At your mother's house. I think going in the backdoor.

Mike Milligan: I like him. I like you. Met another fella from Minnesota yesterday. Big guy, sheriff, I think. I liked him, too.

Lou Solverson: We're a very friendly people.

Mike Milligan: No, that's not it. Pretty unfriendly, actually. But it's the way you're unfriendly, how you're so polite about it. Like you're doing me a favor.

Hanzee Dent: No drugs, your dad says. Says anyone sells to you gets the axe.

Simone Gerhardt: Geez, you're all a bunch of squares. Sometimes a girl just wants to bust a nut, ya know?

Hank Larsson: Rye Gerhardt - raised without the proper moral fiber, I'm thinking. I mean, to kill all those people, and for what? You know, a little money?

Ed Blumquist: You sure about this plan?

Peggy Blumquist: It'll work. Like I said, my uncle used to drive his truck and drink Old Milwaukee. And, you know, insurance don't want to pay for accidents when you're drunk, so he came up with this plan. Every crack-up, he'd drive his truck to some deserted spot till he sobered up, fake a new accident to cover the damage he did drinking.

Ed Blumquist: Well, it's creative.

Peggy Blumquist: So, that's what we do. We cover the damage, file a report, and then, I mean, that should do it. We got rid of the - I mean, the guy's all ground up, and you burned his clothes, you said, so, once the car's fixed, it's - We're free. You been a real paladin.

Ed Blumquist: A... what's that?

Peggy Blumquist: It's like a knight. My knight.

Floyd Gerhardt: Maude Schmidt's boy here is trying to tell me your brother killed a judge.

Dodd Gerhardt: Nobody killed a judge. We own all the judges. What'd be the point of killing one?

Ben Schmidt: Now, Dodd...

Dodd Gerhardt: Don't you "Dodd" me. We're not friends.

Ben Schmidt: We found Rye's prints on the gun.

Dodd Gerhardt: You're gonna find my boot on your neck, you keep talking like that.

Lou Solverson: Well, now, to be fair - I'm the one who found the gun, so I think you're dancing with the wrong girl.

Dodd Gerhardt: What'd you say?

Lou Solverson: I says, I'm the one who found the gun, so you should be talking to me. And I'm from out of town, so forgive me if I should be terrified, but in Minnesota, when a police officer says talk, you talk.

Dodd Gerhardt: You want to dance? Let's dance.

Fear and Trembling [2.04]

Mort Kellerman: That Mao Tse Dung thinks he's gonna run the whole show. Be king of the world. Is that what you want? Be king, like your dad? Sit on my throne?

Otto Gerhardt: The way I see it, you're on his throne.

Mort Kellerman: Yeah, kill the king, be the king. That's the world. If you're feelin' sour about it, write a letter to Napoleon. Or maybe you've come to get your revenge.

Otto Gerhardt: Me? Nah. I just want a seat at the table.

Mort Kellerman: Ain't no table. There's me. Everybody else sits on the floor. So what're you waitin' for? Sit. Avert your eyes.

[one of Kellerman's henchmen puts a gun to the back of Otto's head; he leans forward, over the theater chair in front of him]

Mort Kellerman: [eating popcorn as he watches the movie] Love this part. Stupid to bring your kid.

Otto Gerhardt: Boy's gotta learn how men are.

Mort Kellerman: Yeah. But it's the last lesson he'll ever--

[Kellerman stops talking as a squelching sound is heard; Otto then seizes the gun from Kellerman's henchman as Kellerman falls forward, dead, revealing a knife stuck in the back of his head by a young Dodd Gerhardt, who then proceeds to watch the movie as Otto eliminates the rest of Kellerman's crew]

Sonny Greer: Look, I-I was in 'Nam, yeah? Out there, they called me "Mad Dog," so you just-- you watch your, uh...

Hanzee Dent: Do you miss it?

Sonny Greer: What?

Hanzee Dent: Well, the-- the country-- you know, the wet, the heat, the bugs? Do you miss that?

Sonny Greer: God, no.

Hanzee Dent: It's this quiet I can't get used to, this frozen winter.

Sonny Greer: Yeah, well... Can't argue with ya.

Hanzee Dent: Did you work the tunnels?

Sonny Greer: The--

Hanzee Dent: "Send the Indian," they'd say. "Who cares about booby traps? Give Hanzee a flashlight and a knife and send him down into the black echo." Moving through the earth like a rat, killing off Charlie, taking his ears.

Sonny Greer: Ears?

Hanzee Dent: You got to push their faces down into the dirt so they don't scream and wake the others.

Simone Gerhardt: You know what depresses me? I missed the '60s-- free love, drop acid, Woodstock. Wake up one day, decide you want to call yourself Flower Rainblossom, you just call yourself Flower Rainblossom.

Mike Milligan: Yeah, but the '70s were always coming, like a-- What do you... A hangover. And you know what happened to Flower Rainblossom? She's on methadone in Bismark, turning tricks for breakfast meat.

Simone Gerhardt: I know. But at least I would've had fun, be free like how you get to dream before you wake up.

Floyd Gerhardt: Maybe, when you look at me, you see an old woman, and I am 61. I've borne six children, had three miscarriages. Two of my sons are here today. Two were stillborn. My firstborn, Elron, killed in Korea - gook sniper took off half his head. The point is don't assume, just because I'm an old woman, that my back is weak and my stomach's not strong. I make this counter because a deal is always better than war. But no mistake - we'll fight to keep what's ours to the last man.

Joe Bulo: You're a good woman. I wish I'd known your husband.

Floyd Gerhardt: No. My husband would've killed you where you stood the first time you met. So be glad you're talking to his wife.

Joe Bulo: And that's what I'm glad for. And if it were up to me, I would take your counter. Partner up. Except...I gotta admit, I-I just wonder, if we make this deal--split the territory, we move in, can you guarantee your boys will abide?

Floyd Gerhardt: My sons listen to their mother.

Joe Bulo: Good! Okay. Except...[gestures to his bodyguards standing behind him] here are two of my men, assaulted just this morning in the appropriation of doughnuts, by your oldest. Attacked in peacetime, during the period of deliberation, without provocation.

Dodd Gerhardt: Oh, I was provoked.

Floyd Gerhardt: [shushes Dodd] My sons will abide.

Joe Bulo: Ah, see-see, that-that's the problem with a family business. Now, if one of my men defies me, puts a deal in jeopardy, I take his arm. If he talks out of turn, I take his tongue. But you, your children, your grandchildren...what are you willing to do to show us you're committed?

Floyd Gerhardt: I'll deal with my son. This partnership will--

Dodd Gerhardt: [interrupting, rising from his chair] Come on, you gonna let this guy come here and disrespect us, disrespect Pop?

Floyd Gerhardt: Be quiet!

Dodd Gerhardt: Buncha fruits in ties, and your pocket protectors!

Floyd Gerhardt: [turning to Bear Gerhardt] Take him out!

Dodd Gerhardt: I'll pick my teeth with you!

Floyd Gerhardt: Take him out!

Dodd Gerhardt: My frickin' teeth with you!

[Bear grabs Dodd and quickly ushers him out of the room]

Dodd Gerhardt: [offscreen] My teeth! Get off me!

[Floyd pauses, looking down at the table and taking a moment to collect herself]

Floyd Gerhardt: ...I apologize.

Joe Bulo: He's a proud man. His father built an empire, and he just wants what's his.

Floyd Gerhardt: He'll fall into line.

Joe Bulo: [shaking his head] No. I don't think he will.

Lou Solverson: You didn't fight, did you, Ed - in the war?

Ed Blumquist: No, sir. 4-F on account I got the one kidney.

Lou Solverson: So... There's a look a boy gets when he's been shot or a - or a land mine takes off his legs, and he's laying there in the mud, trying to get up, 'cause he doesn't feel it yet.

Ed Blumquist: I, uh, don't...

Lou Solverson: His - his brain hasn't caught up with the reality, which is... he's already dead.

Peggy Blumquist: Ed, he's scaring me.

Lou Solverson: But we see it, the rest of us. And we lie. We say, "Lay still. You're gonna be fine." If you'd been to war, you'd know the look. See, you and Peggy, you got the look.

The Gift of the Magi [2.05]

Mike Milligan: She was a true gloom, my mother. We used to eat in the dark. For a laugh, I wrote on her tombstone, "Here lies Barbara Milligan, happy till the end." Me, on the other hand, I'm an optimist.

Noreen Vanderslice: Personally not sure why you're makin' all this effort.

Ed Blumquist: Gonna buy the shop, be my own boss.

Noreen Vanderslice: And?

Ed Blumquist: And what? That's the American dream.

Noreen Vanderslice: What's the point? Just gonna die, anyway.

Ed Blumquist: What do you mean?

Noreen Vanderslice: Camus says knowing we're all gonna die makes life a joke.

Ed Blumquist: So what, you just - you just give up?

Noreen Vanderslice: You could kill yourself, get it over with.

Ed Blomquist: Okay, that - that's not... I-I mean, come on, you gotta - you gotta try.

Noreen Vanderslice: No.

Ed Blomquist: You go to school, you get a job, you start a family.

Noreen Vanderslice: Die.

Ed Blomquist: That's - Would you please stop saying that? I'm gonna live a long, long life. My - my grandpa was 96.

Noreen Vanderslice: At which point he did what?

Dodd Gerhardt: You actually like it, huh, taking orders from a woman? Was that how it was in the bedroom with Kathy?

Bear Gerhardt: Don't you talk about her.

Dodd Gerhardt: She strap one on, bend you over the bed, and show you who's boss?

Bear Gerhardt: There's gonna be a reckoning one day, brother. All souls are called to account for their actions. In the end, we all get what we deserve.

Dodd Gerhardt: You keep telling yourself that.

Ronald Reagan: The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his presence him from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world. A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us. My friends, I believe that you and I together can keep this rendezvous with destiny.

Dodd Gerhardt: [to Simone] You think you're grown, is that it? What? With your clothes and your hair and no bra? Like you know somethin' about the world? Being grown's got a price. Kid gets slapped when he's bad. When you're grown, you get the fist. Or the knife.

Rhinoceros [2.06]

Ed Blumquist: This is all just so crazy. And I can't stop thinking about that book. Noreen's book. It's, like, stuck in my head.

Lou Solverson: What? What book?

Ed Blumquist: It's about this guy who, every day, he - he pushes this rock up this hill. Like a boulder. And then every night, it just rolls back down. But he doesn't stop. You know, he just - he keeps goin'. And - and he wakes up every day and starts pushin'. By which I-I-I guess I'm - I'm sayin' it doesn't matter what they throw at me. I'm gonna take care of what's mine.

Dodd Gearhardt: [to Simone] A whore's life is five good years, five bad years, and then some half-dick sweat stain grinds you out like a cigarette. Like a goddamn spent cigarette.

Hank Larrson: My question for you is, how come after you hit that fella, you didn't just drive to the hospital or waved down a passin' motorist and ask 'em to call the cops?

Peggy Blumquist: You say it like these things happen in a vacuum. Like it's a test. Check "A" or "B". But it's like decisions you make in a dream, ya know? I'll tell you what, if it was me, and we had to run I wouldn't look back. For what? The dazzle? This house? This is Ed's house. He grew up here. His mom washing his undies, his father taking his paper to the commode. You ask me how come I buy all these magazines? I'm livin' in a museum of the past.

Hank Larrson: [to Dodd] Son, I could fill out a steamer trunk with the amount of stupid I think you are.

Karl Weathers: [to Ed] Well, son, rest assured whatever your status, I shall defend you till your last breath. I mean my last breath. Excuse the obvious death penalty snafu. I'm slightly inebriated.

Did You Do This? No [2.07]

Hank Larrson: My wife passed last summer. We were up in Brainerd, visitin' my sister. Last thing she said to me - "Do you smell toast?"

Floyd Gerhardt: Different roads, same destination.

Hank Larrson: I suppose. But the question is - for you, I mean - how far does it go? Husband dead, plus your youngest, grandson in jail, and now Dodd's missin', we hear.

Floyd Gerhardt: Old-timers had it worse. Used to be 10 born, 2 survived - consumption, scalpings, smallpox, wolves.

Hank Larrson: Well, it's a question of what you can live with, I suppose - how many ghosts. I-I shot a man through the teeth in Vichy, France. I still see his face every night before bed.

Mike Milligan: There's a man.

Ben Schmidt: What - what man?

Mike Milligan: Just a man. He works in a factory. One day, the boss gets it in his mind that this man is stealing from him. So, every night at the gate, the guards search his wheelbarrow. But they never find anything.

Ben Schmidt: Pat him down.

Mike Milligan: Oh, they do that. Strip him naked - nothin'.

Ben Schmidt: So he's not stealin'.

Mike Milligan: Of course he is.

Lou Solverson: Wheelbarrows.

Mike Milligan: Thank you. That's right. He's stealing wheelbarrows.

Ben Schmidt: What?

Mike Milligan: My point is sometimes the answer is so obvious you can't see it because you're looking too hard. See, we can't leave because we're the future, and they're the past. The past can no more become the future than the future can become the past.

Hamish Broker: Braverman stood for you, said, "He's not like the other darkies. This one's smart, capable." But that is not what I'm seeing.

Mike Milligan: And I appreciate the opportunity... sir, believin', as I do, like the good Dr. King said, "A man should be judged on the content of his character, not the color of his skin."

Hamish Broker: Yeah, he's dead. You're gonna need a different quote.

Mike Milligan: So... is this a conversation about how it's time for me to pack up and go home?

Lou Solverson: No. Don't have to go home. It's a big country. Just maybe don't be here.

Mike Milligan: Are you familiar with the phrase "manifest destiny"?

Lou Solverson: Yeah, but see, here's the thing. I own two pairs of shoes - a summer pair and one for winter. We're not meant to have more than we can handle, is what I mean. So, this need for conquest, you know, tryin' to own things that aren't meant to be owned...

Mike Milligan: Like people?

Lou Solverson: That's an example. But also places - believin' we can tame things. That's a problem, right?... Not a solution.

Mike Milligan: You're saying capitalism is a problem?

Lou Solverson: No... Greed... Makin' this thing all or nothin'.

Simone Gerhardt: Please. Please! It's not... We're family!

Bear Gerhardt: None of us are family anymore.

Simone Gerhardt: Please! Pl-please, just banish me. Like you said, shave my head. Run me out of - I'll go! I'll go away and never... You don't have to.

Bear Gerhardt: Hush now. It's already done.

Loplop [2.08]

Dodd Gerhardt: And here I am, tied up for no reason, a concerned citizen just walking past, and I - and I hear a cry for help.

Ed Blumquist: No, you're a Gerhardt.

Dodd Gerhardt: And you're shit on my shoe. Why don't you come here and let me wipe you off?

Ed Blumquist: [to Peggy about Dodd] Hon, you got to stop stabbing him.

[Ed Blumquist and Mike Milligan are talking on the phone, after Mike and the surviving Kitchen brother have killed the Undertaker and his henchmen]

Mike Milligan: Hello?

Ed Blumquist: Mike Milligan?

Mike Milligan: Yes.

Ed Blumquist: Today's your lucky day, Mike. I've got Dodd Gerhardt in the trunk of my car. You want him?

Mike Milligan: Sir, if I kiss you when we meet, would that be inappropriate?

Ed Blumquist: What? I don't--um--

Mike Milligan: Nothin'. Just...well, it's been a day. But the fact is, I do. I do want him. The question is, what do you want?

Ed Blumquist: Well, I got the whole Gerhardt family after me, and I need you to make 'em stop.

[cut to an overhead shot of the hotel room, with blood on the walls and the dead bodies of the Undertaker and his henchmen lying on the floor]

Mike Milligan: Well, then I think you and I can make a deal.

Ed Blumquist: Yeah, and no funny business, either, ya hear? Because, I've killed people before, and I'm not afraid to do it again. Maybe you heard of me - the Butcher of Luverne.

Mike Milligan: I have heard of you. And may I say: brother, I like your style.

Dodd Gerhardt: [to Ed] Son, you got yourself a woman problem. How I know is they've been plaguing me my whole life. What's the joke? Can't live with them, can't turn them into cat food. Personally, I don't see the value in all that talking and the mood swings and the lack of rational thinking, which, brother, your bitch has got that in spades. See, the male of the species has got the potential for greatness. Look at your kings of old. Napoleon, Kublai Khan, Samson. Giants made of muscle and steel. But these women, even in those Bible movies, you see a Delilah and, uh, Scheherazade. I want to tell you my own private belief here. I think Satan is a woman. Think about it.

The Castle [2.09]

Hank Larsson: Well, that went wrong in a hurry.

Lou Solverson: You comin'?

Hank Larsson: No. Good to have at least one grown-up here, don't you think?

Lou Solverson: I'm gonna call my boss, see if he can stop this madness on a bureaucratic level.

Hank Larsson: Worth a shot.

Lou Solverson: This thing's officially out of control.

Jeb Cheney: You Minnesota boys don't got much in the way of backbone, now, do ya?

Hank Larsson: Well, now, I wouldn't say that. Just like to think things through.

Jeb Cheney: Mm. Army?

Hank Larsson: Yes, sir. Liberated France in the great war. Not single-handedly, but I like to think they couldn't have done it without me.

Jeb Cheney: Well, then, you know it's the generals that do the thinkin' and everybody else just says, "How high?"

Hank Larsson: I'm not gonna debate the merits of top-down decision makin' with ya, Captain. 'Cept to say I had a lieutenant in the war, and h-he told Eisenhower to go to hell once, on account of his orders woulda got us all killed. And I send that man a card every Christmas - 'cause I can.

Floyd Gerhardt: Three times, I sent men to do a job. Three times, they come back unfinished. I'll handle this myself.

Floyd Gerhardt: I miss them all.

Bear Gerhardt: We'll be together again. On high.

Peggy Blumquist: It's just a flyin' saucer, Ed. We gotta go.

Palindrome [2.10]

Mike Milligan: Sovereignty is absolute power and authority.

Ricky G: Like a king?

Mike Milligan: Exactly. Which is who I am - your king.

Ricky G: Uh, it's America, brother. We don't do kings.

Mike Milligan: Oh, we do. We do. We just call them something else. See, today is my coronation day. And on coronation day, I've always believed a new king should start his reign with an act of kindness.

Ricky G: Right on.

Mike Milligan: And an act of cruelty. That way, your subjects know that you're capable of both - God and monster.

Noreen Vanderslice: Camus says knowin' we're gonna die makes life absurd.

Betsy Solverson: Well, I don't know who that is. But I'm guessing he doesn't have a 6-year-old girl.

Noreen Vanderslice: He's French.

Betsy Solverson: Ugh, I don't care if he's from Mars. Nobody with any sense would say something that foolish. We're put on this earth to do a job. And each of us gets the time we get to do it. And when this life is over and you stand in front of the Lord... Well, you try tellin' Him it was all some Frenchman's joke.

Lou Solverson: I was there at the end, you know? After the war, when Saigon fell, on the USS Kirk patrolling the coast. And when the country went, it went fast. And we had, like, you know, 24 hours to get everybody out. And not just Americans, but our allies, the South Vietnamese, all packed onto boats and helicopters. We stood on the deck and waved them in. And one by one, they'd land, unload, and then we'd push the whirlybirds into the sea. The damndest thing. But then, this Chinook comes. And those things - you can't just land one on a ship this size. So we wave them off. But the pilot's got his whole family inside, and he's running out of fuel, so it's now or never. So he hovers over the deck. People start jumping - scared or not - onto the ship. There's a baby - literally a-a tiny baby and the mother just - just drops him. And one of my boys like catching a ball, just sticks out his hands. So, now everybody's out, and I'm thinking, "How the heck is this pilot"- right? - "How's he gonna get out?" But he maneuvers off the port bow, and he hovers there for the longest time doing, you know, what we learned later - uh, takin' off his flight suit. And somehow he rolls the bird on its side, and just before it hits the water, he jumps. 6,000 pounds of angry helicopter parts flyin' all around him. And somehow he makes it. How'd he do that?

Peggy Blumquist: What are you sayin'?

Lou Solverson: Your husband, he said he was gonna protect his family no matter what. And I acted like I didn't understand, but I do. It's the rock we all push - men. We call it our burden, but it's really our privilege.

Peggy Blumquist: I never meant for any of this to happen. You know? Not to Ed. Not to anybody. I just wanted to be someone.

Lou Solverson: Well, you're somebody now.

The Book: What'll you do then, I wonder? Join a-a new empire?

Hanzee Dent: Maybe start one of my own.

The Book: So that it, too, may one day collapse and fall into the sea. Do I take it you'll try to get revenge on Kansas City, apprehend those responsible? 'Cause you can bet Kansas City will be heavily guarded.

Hanzee Dent: Not apprehend. Dead. Don't care "heavily guarded". Don't care "into the sea". Kill and be killed. Head in a bag.

Season 3

The Law of Vacant Places [3.01]

East Berlin Official: We are not here to tell stories, we are here to tell the truth.

Valet: No tip?

Ray Stussy: Ya. Get a real job.

Nikki Swango: You're the hand and I'm the glove.

Ray Stussy: You're the bottle and I'm the beer.

Nikki Swango: Or the beer and the glass in my case.

Ray Stussy: Oh yeah, but I mean it comes in--

Nikki Swango: No, I know. Yeah. Simpatico.

Sy Feltz: It's, see your firm, Narwhal, like I said last year, we borrowed a hefty sum. And I know you're not bona fide FDIC, but I mean, unless you boys do business differently in... Where you from?

V. M. Varga: America.

Nikki Swango: Ray, there's a man in my bathroom.

Ray Stussy: Let's not jump to any conclusions.

Nikki Swango: Are you saying he's not a man or he's not in my bathroom?

The Principle of Restricted Choice [3.02]

Irv Blumkin: You borrowed $1,000,000 from a man without knowing his first name.

Emmit Stussy: I know how it -

Irv Blumkin: It's not a question. I'm just assessing the level of stupidity.

Attendant: Are they with you?

V. M. Varga: Surmise.

Attendant: What?

V. M. Varga: Because we arrived together, we are together. Surmise.

Attendant: Well, are ya?

V. M. Varga: Yes.

Gloria Burgle: The old way works just fine. Type out a report, send it via telex.

Moe Dammick: You do know what year it is, right? The future. We don't use - Who uses telexes anymore?

Gloria Burgle: So that's why no one ever writes me back.

Nikki Swango: So, even if they wanted to solve it, the police, what possible solve is there, besides unfathomable pinheadery?

V. M. Varga: There. There you go. Now you're seeing it. The inescapable reality. You're trapped. Don't look so sad. By the time we're done, you'll be billionaires. On paper, at least.

The Law of Non-Contradiction [3.03]

Hotel clerk: Room 203. Very nice room, very nice. It's got air conditioning. You can smell the ocean.

Gloria Burgle: There's a view?

Hotel clerk: No, there's a smell. At low tide.

Oscar Hunt: Look, I'm just gonna cut to the chase here, gorgeous: Am I getting laid here, or what?

Gloria Burgle: Uh, "what".

Oscar Hunt: Cool. Thanks for the beer.

Howard Zimmerman: Let me ask you something. Do you know about science?

Gloria Burgle: Do I know about...?

Howard Zimmerman: About science. Well, science has this thing - it's been proven - they call it "quantum"... something. It talks about how we're all just particles... we're floating out there... we're moving through space. Nobody knows where we are. And then every once in awhile... "BANG!" We collide. And suddenly for maybe a minute, we're real. And then we float off again. As if we don't even exist. I used to think it meant something. These collisions, the people we found.

Gloria Burgle: And now?

Howard Zimmerman: Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Vivian Lord: [about Thaddeus] He was right. I am a bad person. But he wasn't that good, either.

The Narrow Escape Problem [3.04]

Ray Stussy: Buck, if I wanted an opinion from an asshole, I'd ask my own. Got it?

Winnie Lopez: We've been tryin', me and Jerry, for months now. Like those old roadrunner cartoons with the wolf and the sheepdog, how you punch a clock to go to work. It's mostly missionary, if I'm being honest. We used to spice it up, but now it's about the shortest distance between two points. He'd pop faster from the back, if I'm being honest, but I think it's important to look each other in the eyes when it comes to making babies.

V.M. Varga: In the favelas of Brazil, there are six-year-olds with Glocks. They roam in packs, stealing whatever they can find. Mexican lowlifes stream into this country like wolves, eyeing our women and children. In the Congo, a family of six live on ten cents a day. You turn on the TV, what do you see? Boat people. Mass migration. You're living in the age of the refugee, my friend.

Emmit Stussy: Look, if you won't take back your money, well, I can't make ya!

V.M. Varga: You see it, don't you? Millions of people bought houses they couldn't afford, and now they're living on the streets. Eighty-five percent of the world's wealth is controlled by one percent of the population. What do you think is going to happen when those people wake up and realize you've got all their money?

Emmit Stussy: Hey, I just charge for parkin'!

V.M. Varga: You think they're going to ask questions when they come with their pitchforks and their torches? You live in a mansion. You drive a $90,000 car.

Emmit Stussy: It's a lease, through the company!

V.M. Varga: Look at me. Look at me. This a $200 suit. I'm wearing a second-hand tie. I fly coach. Not because I can't afford first - because I'm smart. So look at you, and look at me, and tell me who's the richer?

Emmit Stussy: Well, I-I feel like this a trick question.

V.M. Varga: There's an accounting coming, Mr. Stussy. And you know I'm right. Mongol hordes descending, and what are you doing to insulate yourself and your family? You think you're rich? You've no idea what rich means. Rich is a fleet of private planes filled with decoys to mask your scent. It's a bunker in Wyoming and another in Gstaad. So that's action item one: the accumulation of wealth. And I mean wealth, not money.

Emmit Stussy: What's action item number two?

V.M. Varga: To use that wealth to become invisible.

The House of Special Purpose [3.05]

Nikki Swango: You have made me the happiest woman ever. Now let's make a sex tape.

[A shocked Sy Feltz discovers that V.M. Varga has taken over his office]

Sy Feltz: What the goddamn hell--!

V.M. Varga: [holding up a framed photo of Sy's wife] You have a fat wife.

Sy Feltz: Excuse me?

V.M. Varga: Which part of what I just said is giving you trouble?

Sy Feltz: This is my office!

V.M. Varga: A fat woman is inherently untrustworthy as she is a sensualist; she sees no real difference between a pastrami sandwich and a dick in the mouth.

[Varga sees the "World's Greatest Dad" mug on Sy's desk, then stands up and unzips his pants]

Sy Feltz: What are you doing?

[in a low shot obscured by the mug, Varga takes his genitals out, then proceeds to place them in the cup, twisting it around occasionally, as a shocked Sy looks on]

V.M. Varga: Do you know what a chicken is?

Sy Feltz: What?

V.M. Varga: A chicken. Do you know what a chicken is? A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg.

[after a few moments, Varga takes his genitals out of the cup, puts the cup back on the desk, and zips his pants back up]

V.M. Varga: You see, it's all a matter of perspective. The chicken sees it one way, the egg another. So let's start again: this is not your office, just as your wife would not be your wife if I came to her in the night with a platter of cold cuts.

[after a moment, Varga looks at Yuri, and nods]

Yuri Gurka: [patting Sy on the back and leading him to a chair] Oh, sit down, my friend. You have shock. All is well.

Sy Feltz: I'm not--I just--I need a minute to--

Yuri Gurka: No problem, no problem.

V.M. Varga: Have a drink, you'll feel better.

[the sound of water being poured is heard; Yuri then presents Sy with water poured into the same cup Varga had placed his genitals in]

Sy Feltz: [shocked] Are you out of your mind?!

[Yuri looks at Meemo, who looks around to see if anyone is watching]

Yuri Gurka: Nice drink. Refreshing.

Sy Feltz: ...are you threatening me?

[Meemo produces a gun, and chambers a round, as Yuri holds the cup to a struggling Sy's mouth, forcing him to take a sip, which he immediately recoils from]

Yuri Gurka: No, no no no. The whole thing.

[Yuri forces Sy to drink the whole cup, who nearly vomits as he does so]

Sy Feltz: We're in trouble here. Enemies are at the gates - inside the gates! Fornicating with our cookware!

Nikki Swango: I'm sorry. Who are you?

Yuri: [says something in Russian]

Nikki Swango: What?

Meemo: He said, "Pretty girls should only open their mouths when they see a dick."

Nikki Swango: Well, just so I'm clear, which one of you is the dick?

The Lord of No Mercy [3.06]

V.M. Varga: The First World War was started by a sandwich. On June 28th, 1914, Gavrilo Princip, one of seven conspirators, failed to blow up the Archduke of Austria with a hand grenade. Demoralized, Gavrilo stopped for lunch at Schiller's delicatessen on Franz Joseph Street in Sarajevo. But as he was eating, the Archduke's driver, lost, pulled up outside the restaurant and stopped. Fate had delivered Gavrilo's target to him, and he would not miss twice.

Sy Feltz: You're talking about doubling the size of the company in six months!

V.M. Varga: Three months.

Sy Feltz: It's a lot of debt! Just to line our pockets? Shouldn't we... I'm just sayin'... the more cautious approach. Why not?

V.M. Varga: Because the shallow end of the pool is where the turds float. Emmit?

Emmit Stussy: No one ever got anywhere stayin' home, Sy.

Sy Feltz: And what does that mean?

Emmit Stussy: It means we're either doin' this, or we're not doin' this. Whether you step off the board with one foot or two, you still end up in the water.

Sy Feltz: Okay. But what about the IRS? You said yourself, he's sittin' in a conference room, right now, goin' over the books!

V.M. Varga: Some books. Not the books.

Sy Feltz: What the heck does that mean?

V.M. Varga: Let's just say, for testimonial purposes, it's better that you don't know.

Sy Feltz: You think the IRS won't - this is what they do! Tax cheats!

V.M. Varga: Middle managers and movie stars. People who park their money in a Denver Wells Fargo under their mother-in-law's maiden name. But I assure you, the IRS could not unravel an intricate web of shell companies and loan-outs with secret accounts in Monaco, Luxembourg, and the Cook Islands if you gave them the account numbers.

Sy Feltz: What?

V.M. Varga: I'm beginning to think that finance is more of a hobby with you.

Emmit Stussy: You win. I'm done. Whatever you want, just tell me. [Ray gapes at him in shock.] I co-signed the mortgage, you think I don't have a key?

Ray Stussy: Came for my money.

Emmit Stussy: The dalmatian at the bank. You poured her in the trash, the dog. I got her for Grace when she was seven.

Ray Stussy: Laverne.

Emmit Stussy: She didn't live that long. Car got her, but we'd grown attached.

Ray Stussy: I was looking for my stamp.

Emmit Stussy: You know, I was thinking about it on the way over. I can't think of a single person doesn't like me, except you.

Ray Stussy: That's what they say to your face.

Emmit Stussy: No, Ray! I'm a fair man! I treat people honestly, help 'em when they're down!

Ray Stussy: Them you help!

Emmit Stussy: When did I not help you, kid? Everything you asked! Co-signing the mortgage, repairs for the car!

Ray Stussy: I'm not less than you. Some child that needs–

Emmit Stussy: Ray, come on. We've done this already. Been doing it for twenty years. Enough. [Pause. Emmit stands up, picking up a picture frame by his feet. He walks over to Ray and shows it to him, revealing the stamp inside. Ray takes it and looks at it.] It's finished, okay? Words said in anger, crimes committed, we've both done things. It's a certain madness, I think. Brotherhood. Buttons you push in me, that I push in you, grudges...but I don't want that anymore. So...I'm giving you the stamp.

Ray Stussy: [pause] Well, you're not giving it to me.

Emmit Stussy: No, I am.

Ray Stussy: You can't give me what was mine from the start!

Emmit Stussy: [sighs] Okay.

Ray Stussy: No, that's...take it. [He holds out the frame.]

Emmit Stussy: It's yours.

Ray Stussy: I said take it!

Emmit Stussy: I don't want it.

Ray Stussy: Take the damn stamp! [He pushes the frame into Emmit's chest.]

Emmit Stussy: [shoves him back] Stop!

Ray Stussy: Take it! [He shoves him again.]

Emmit Stussy: Stop!

[He pushes back, and the frame slams into Ray's face and shatters, dropping to the floor. Ray, dazed, finds a piece of glass in his neck and puts his fingers around it.]

Emmit Stussy: Don't. Don't! [Ray pulls it out, he groans as blood sprays from his neck.] Jesus!

Ray Stussy: Emmit. E–emmit.

Emmit Stussy: Ray...

[Emmit watches in horror as Ray drops to his knees, lays down, and bleeds to death.]

V.M. Varga: Mr. Stussy. Do you know what Lenin said about Beethoven's Piano Sonata Number 23? Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, not the bloody walrus. He said, "I know nothing that is greater than the Appassionata, but I cannot listen too often. It affects one's nerves, and makes one want to say kind, stupid things, and stroke the heads of those who, living in such a foul hell, can create such beauty. Better to beat the person unmercifully over the head." Where are you, Mr. Stussy?

Emmit Stussy: There's been an accident.

V.M. Varga: Things of consequence rarely happen by accident.

Emmit Stussy: Can you come?

V.M. Varga: Give me the address and I'll leave immediately.

Emmit Stussy: I'm at Ray's.

Emmit Stussy: Did anyone see you?

V.M. Varga: I'm so rarely seen, maybe I don't even exist.

[Varga looks over to the living room, where Meemo whistles, having appeared from nowhere and examining Ray's body.]

Emmit Stussy: What's he doing here?

V.M. Varga: You called for help. This is what help looks like.

Emmit Stussy: I wanted to find his pulse, but I was afraid.

V.M. Varga: Afraid you'd leave fingerprints? Where else might we find your fingerprints?

Emmit Stussy: Uh, I came in that door.

V.M. Varga: So the knob, inside and out.

Emmit Stussy: And, uh, that frame, the glass.

Meemo: Bury the body, missing person?

V.M. Varga: [walks over and picks up a picture frame] No. Collect the frame and the stamp, and leave the glass. [to Emmit] Is there someplace you're supposed to be right now? [taps Emmit's forehead] Is there someplace you're supposed to be right now?

Emmit Stussy: What time is it? [Varga shows Emmit his watch] A meeting, a dinner.

V.M. Varga: Which is it, a meeting or a dinner?

Emmit Stussy: Uh, dinner.

V.M. Varga: With whom?

Emmit Stussy: Sy.

V.M. Varga: Which restaurant?

Emmit Stussy: Uh, it's in my phone.

V.M. Varga: Never mind, never mind. Listen, this is important. If the restaurant has a back door, go to the bathroom and wash your face and hands in very cold water, then go the table. That way, if any witnesses see you, they won't be able to time your arrival. Do you understand?

Emmit Stussy: Yeah, but–

V.M. Varga: Emmit! Look at me. Are you listening?

Emmit Stussy: Yeah.

V.M. Varga: Your brother...was killed, by his ex-convict girlfriend. He'd been abusing her, you see? Beating her in places that don't show. Ad tonight she'd had enough, so she cut his throat. And watched him bleed. Now, the police will contact you tonight to inform you of his death. Be upset, not too upset. Volunteer nothing, you haven't seen him for days, you haven't spoken to him–

Emmit Stussy: I called him on his cell.

V.M. Varga: When?

Emmit Stussy: Yesterday.

V.M. Varga: Right. Well, there'll be a record of that. Did you speak for long?

Emmit Stussy: Just a few minutes.

V.M. Varga: All right. Well, it's just a quick call, just to catch up, innit? Be vague.

Emmit Stussy: I didn't mean to.

V.M. Varga: No one ever does. [to Meemo] Walk him to his car, out in the back. Make sure you're not seen.

The Law of Inevitability [3.07]

Emmit Stussy: Sy tells me you're in self-storage.

Ruby Goldfarb: Me and my late husband. We started in mortuaries.

Emmit Stussy: Ah, just another kind of storage, I suppose.

Moe Dammick: [shows Nikki a picture of Ray's corpse] He's dead, in case you couldn't tell. Lady cop who printed you said you're a little tender. Around the middle, maybe? Got some bruises. See, I'm a simple guy. When it snows, I put on boots. Sun comes out, I wear shades. I see a girl like you and a guy like that, I think, "Now, how's a working man with hillbilly hair and a beer belly land Miss State Penitentiary 2010? And then I get the record. I see the girl has got 18 months' probation and the guy with his head half cut off was the schlub who signed the forms. Now it starts to make sense. I mean, stop me if I get it wrong, if this wasn't some kind of tit-for-tat handjob-gets-you-work-release program. If it was, whatever. Love story of the century. No? That's what I thought. See? Simple things. Cause and effect, crime and punishment. Mash a potato, you know what you get? Mashed potatoes.

Nikki Swango: I want a lawyer.

Moe Dammick: Yeah? Well, that's a mistake. Think it through. The evidence, shared domicile, you, a known felon, spinning a web of lies. History of domestic violence with a beer-drinking loser. You don't have to be a mathematician to add two plus two. No. Your best bet? Tearjerker. What a monster he was. How he beat you every night where it wouldn't show.

[Nikki says nothing]

Moe Dammick: [sighs] Okay. We're done. I'll leave the picture, in case you're the type of girl who likes to take pride in her work.

Moe Dammick: Either you're on vacation til the handover - take some time to grieve, be with your family, Merry Christmas, all that - or start looking for another job.

Gloria Burgle: Happy holidays, sir.

Moe Dammick: That's what I thought.

Emmit Stussy: Sy said your husband died.

Sy Feltz: That's not- we don't need to...

Ruby Goldfarb: It's fine. My Walt. It'll be a year in May since he passed. Did you lose someone?

Emmit Stussy: Stella. 25 years. She left last week. Sex tape. Not a real one, of course - I mean, it was a real sex tape, but not my, y'know... forgery. To the end of securing a payout. Which, y'know, that's the price of it, I guess, being rich.

Ruby Goldfarb: I don't know...

Emmit Stussy: Enemies, I'm sayin'. Not at first. First come the well-wishers with their fake smiles. Then, the richer you get, here come the deadbeats with their hands out.

Sy Feltz: You know, it's getting pretty late...

Emmit Stussy: The jackals laughing in the dark, trying to pick the meat off your bones.

Sy Feltz: Check, please!

Ruby Goldfarb: Money is a blessing and a curse.

Emmit Stussy: No, don't blame money! It's people. Sore losers. Making up stories about how we're villains. The dreamers, the hard workers. In the office before dawn. Toiling, saving... Ebenezer Scrooge and the like. Have you heard of the vile maxim?

Ruby Goldfarb: No...

Emmit Stussy: "All for ourselves and nothing for other people is the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." You think a rich man wrote that?

Who Rules the Land of Denial? [3.08]

Paul Marrane: Shartis.

Nikki Swango: Huh?

Paul Marrane: "Job sat on his dung heap, covered in boils..."

Nikki Swango: Mister, it's been a long day...

Paul Marrane: They're all long. That's the nature of existence. Life is suffering. I think you're beginning to understand that.

Nikki Swango: Amen.

Paul Marrane: Can I show you something?

[Marrane reaches into a box and pulls out an orange kitten]

Nikki Swango: Aww!

[Marrane hands the kitten to Nikki, who cuddles it]

Paul Marrane: Ray is the cat.

Nikki Swango: What?

Paul Marrane: His name. I call him Ray. I know, that's not really a cat's name, but when I looked at him, that's the name that stuck. But this is how it is, I think.

V.M. Varga: Emmit. Emmit, are you listening?

Emmit Stussy: Yes.

V.M. Varga: You won.

Emmit Stussy: I won? What did I win?

V.M. Varga: Life.

V.M. Varga: I want you to picture an island, a tropical island. Somewhere warm. The South Pacific, perhaps. Can you see it? Now, I want you to imagine that on this island, one day in September 1945, a load of paper fell from the sky. Leaflets dropped in their hundreds by the Allied forces to tell the Japanese soldiers stationed there that the war was over. The Emperor has surrendered. But down below, one man refused to believe. Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda. A man of honor, values. And as the rest of the world went about its business -1946, '47, '50, '64, '71 - as peace was made and a Cold War fought, Hiroo Onoda battled on. A tireless soldier of the Emperor's Imperial Army, and the last man to die for an ideal.

Emmit Stussy: [tearfully, about Ray] He was just a boy. He used to follow me around after school - "Emmit, play with me. Emmit, watch this."

V.M. Varga: Is the Bible a children's book? What we're doing here, the sober affairs of men. These are feats of great strength and cunning and fortitude. Not child's play, not "the best you can do". Nobody remembers the second man to climb Mt. Everest. That's it. Sleep now. Everything will be clearer in the morning.

Aporia [3.09]

Emmit Stussy: He played tennis.

Gloria Burgle: Ray?

Emmit Stussy: Our dad. At his club, rain or shine, every Saturday. He had that thing all dads have after 30 years of wearing socks, where the hair gets worn away, so he's basically bald from the shins down. [chuckles] I was on the drive, you know, throwing a ball against the house, a tennis ball. Wasn't supposed to, but he was gone, so... And Ray's someplace, kitchen probably, he was always eating, that kid. Real chubby. And then, Dad's home. He had this old Mercedes diesel, you could hear it on the come. So I hide the ball and he pulls in. Not out of the car ten seconds, when down he goes, flat on his face. One minute, he's waving hello, the next, just drops like - like the lights go out. [pause] I killed him.

Gloria Burgle: Your dad?

Emmit Stussy: Ray. First I tricked him, then I killed him. Like no days had passed. Like one thing goes and then another. Like you whack a tennis ball back and forth.

V.M. Varga: You can't win this game, you do realize that?

Nikki Swango: I thought you didn't play games.

V.M. Varga: I'm offering you a fortune, you're asking for a piggy bank. Porquoi?

Nikki Swango: Because I wanna hurt you, not be your pet. I wanna look you in the face and rip out something you love.

V.M. Varga: I didn't kill him. You do know that? It was Emmit.

Nikki Swango: Wasn't Emmit who came for me in the precinct. Wasn't Emmit who flipped that bus.

V.M. Varga: You know, I didn't have any feeling about you before, but now I'm starting to really dislike you.

Nikki Swango: Good. [gets up to leave] I'll give you till tomorrow to get my money.

Gloria Burgle: Got married straight out of high school to a guy I knew since fifth grade summer camp. Summer wedding. Guests were mostly mosquitoes. We had a baby boy, then a toddler, now a teen. Last year, my husband phones me at work, tells me he's got a boyfriend named Dale. Says they're moving in together. Says he's sorry. He loves me, but not like that. "What else is there?" I say. You think the world is something, then it turns out to be something else.

V.M. Varga: The problem is not that there is evil in the world. The problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?

Somebody to Love [3.10]

V.M. Varga: Well, you should be happy, Mr. Stussy. Your first action item is complete: the accumulation of wealth.

Emmit Stussy: I'm just so tired.

V.M. Varga: Perfectly natural. You see it all the time in the wild - the smaller animal going limp in the jaws of the larger. Genetic instinct. At some level, food knows it's food.

Nikki Swango: Are you as low as you can go?

Emmit Stussy: What?

Nikki Swango: I asked you if you still feel you've got room to fall, or whether this is bottom.

Emmit Stussy: Honestly? If you'd asked me yesterday, I'd have said I couldn't go lower - sitting in jail, staring at a life behind bars or the electric chair. But now, here we are today, lower still.

Nikki Swango: Oh, I've been watching. This Varga fella plucked you like a chicken. But he's gone now, so I'm gonna finish the job.

V.M. Varga: Oh, that this was my salvation, a weary traveler, I.

Gloria Burgle: Agent Burgle, Department of Homeland Security.

V.M. Varga: Ah, the nation state defending its borders, and me, a simple salesman.

Gloria Burgle: What do you sell, Mr...

V.M. Varga: Rand. Daniel. I sell accounting software.

Gloria Burgle: In Brussels. Is that where you live?

V.M. Varga: Good lord, no. I'm a citizen of the air, madam. Moving, always moving.

Gloria Burgle: You don't remember me, do you?

V.M. Varga: Surmise. Because I haven't greeted you, I don't remember you.

Gloria Burgle: Do you?

V.M. Varga: We may have met once, in my younger days. [Gloria takes out the security camera picture of Varga in the storage facility's elevator] Are you familiar with the Russian saying "The past is unpredictable?"

Gloria Burgle: I'm pretty sure you made that up.

V.M. Varga: Possibly. But which of us can say with certainty what has occurred, actually occurred, and what is simply rumor, misinformation, opinion?

Gloria Burgle: A photograph is considered proof in a court of law.

V.M. Varga: Photographs can be doctored. One's eyes can be deceived. We see what we believe, not the other way around.

Gloria Burgle: Six people dead, including a state trooper. Two hundred million dollars unaccounted for. Those are facts. And you at the heart of the morass. What else am I supposed to see?

V.M. Varga: A man wakes up one morning and decides to kill four men over a certain age, all with the same last name.

Gloria Burgle: [laughs] That didn't happen.

V.M. Varga: And yet, if evidence is collected, if confessions are made, if a verdict of guilty is entered in a court of law, then its happening becomes as the rocks and rivers, and to argue it didn't happen is to argue with reality itself.

Gloria Burgle: Did you know Emmit Stussy was murdered? Three months ago. Killed in his own home.

V.M. Varga: Pitchfork. Peasants.

Gloria Burgle: What?

V.M. Varga: I said, it is a dangerous world for men of standing. Human beings, you see, have no inherent value other than the money they earn. Cats have value, for example, because they provide pleasure to the humans, but a deadbeat on welfare? Well, they have negative value. So ipso facto, Emmit's death is more tragic than the death of a wasteling.

Gloria Burgle: [pause] That's...you can't believe that.

V.M. Varga: Oh, it's true. It's true, whether I believe it or not.

Gloria Burgle: Did you kill him?

V.M. Varga: Emmit? From Brussels?

Gloria Burgle: They got phones in Belgium, yeah? Email? Mr. Varga.

V.M. Varga: You're asking me if there are phones in Belgium?

Gloria Burgle: Let me tell you what's gonna happen next. Three agents from Homeland Security are gonna put handcuffs on you and take you to Rikers. And then we're gonna charge you with felony money laundering and six counts of conspiracy to commit murder. And then I'm gonna go home to my son. It's his birthday tomorrow, I promised I'd take him to the state fair. You ever guess a pig's weight? Or eat a deep fried Snickers bar? There's no better way to spend a Saturday in this, our great American experiment. So, while you're eating mashed potatoes from a box in a dark room, think of me, among the amber waves of grain.

V.M. Varga: [pause] No. That's not what's going to happen next. What's going to happen next is this. In five minutes, that door is going to open, and a man you can't argue with will tell me I'm free to go. And I will stand from this chair and disappear into the world, so help me God.

Gloria Burgle: [pause, grins] Rikers, and Snickers bars.

V.M. Varga: [tuts] Agent Burgle. Gloria. Trust me. The future is certain. And when it comes, you will know, without question, your place in the world. Until then, we've said all there is to say. Any further debate would be wasting our breath. And if there's one thing I can't abide, it's waste. Goodbye.

Season 4

Welcome to the Alternate Economy [4.01]

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: Frederick Douglass once intoned, "I stand before you as a thief and a robber. I stole this head, these limbs, this body from my master and I ran off with them." My point being, the moment our feet touched American soil, we were already criminals.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: Webster's defines "assimilation" as "the process of becoming similar to something". But imbibing these words, dear reader, we are forced to ask, similar to what? If America is a nation of immigrants, then how does one become American?

Oraetta Mayflower: Oh, oh, apologies.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: What?

Oraetta Mayflower: Oh, I was simply excusing myself. I’m not normally this out of sorts.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: It’s a funeral. People cry at funerals.

Oraetta Mayflower: Ah, amen. Those are wise words for a person of your complexion. But then I’ve noticed your people are often more in touch with your spiritual side and emotional side.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: My people?

[Oraetta snorts cocaine]

Oraetta Mayflower: The Negro. It’s a Baptist fervor, I’d wager, what causes them to hoot and tumble to the floor, aflush with the Holy Spirit.

Thurman Smutny: Miss Mayflower, I see you’ve met my daughter, Ethelrida.

Oraetta Mayflower: Your daughter?

Thurman Smutny: The one and only. Ethelrida, this is Miss Mayflower. She’s a nurse at St. Bartholomew.

[A confused Oraetta looks at the white Thurman and dark-skinned Oraetta]

Oraetta Mayflower: Oh yeah. Huh! Yes, now I see it. This child is certainly the product of miscegentation.

Thurman Smutny: Uh, if by that you mean she’s the spitting image of her father, then I take that as a compliment.

Oraetta Mayflower: Your mother must be quite dark-skinned. As I’ve noticed in my study of the human animal, that in the combination of races, it is de rigueur for the more extreme coloration to prevail.

Loy Cannon: This is my associate, Doctor Senator.

Clayton Winckle: You're a doctor?

Doctor Senator: No, sir. Name's Doctor. Doctor Senator. It was my mother's idea.

Clayton Winckle: And what was her name?

Doctor Senator: Ma'am.

Josto Fadda: You got a funny way of talking.

Oraetta Mayflower: Yep. I'm from Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes.

Josto Fadda: No, I mean you use big words.

Oraetta Mayflower: Well, I've found in my 36 years on God's green Earth that it's absolutely critical to be precise in your use of language so as to avoid instances of misreckoning.

The Land of Taking and Killing [4.02]

Zelmare Roulette: Looks like you done well for yourself these years I've been away.

Dibrell Smutny: You ain't getting no handout.

Zelmare Roulette: Listen at you, acting like the big sister. Wasn't asking for money. Swanee and I got prospects.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: What kind of prospects?

Swanee Capps: Bank robbing. [Swanee makes a finger gun gesture] Pa-choo, pa-choo.

Loy Cannon: You seeing to his education?

Rabbi Milligan: I'm teaching him how the world works.

Loy Cannon: And how's that?

Rabbi Milligan: It's dog eat dog.

Loy Cannon: That's how dogs work. Men are more complicated.

Rabbi Milligan: Not in my experience.

Milvin Gillis: Am I getting fucked here?

Josto Fadda: Slow your roll.

Milvin Gillis: 'Cause the only reason I'm letting my daughter marry some guinea greaser is that I got ambitions: political, financial...

Josto Fadda: And here I am, hopelessly in love.

Milvin Gillis: Go fuck a state park! You ain't getting a piece of the Gillis legacy until I got assurances you can deliver votes. Mayors don't elect themselves and elections aren't free.

Josto Fadda: Dad? Can I call you dad? My pop didn't claw his way out of the plebian dynasty so that his sons could end up in middle management. You want to be mayor? I want my kids to be president. So I'll get you your votes and your, uh, bustarella. But first I'm gonna slow-pump some babies into your daughter one at a time and twice on Sundays. Now get a drink. And try the calzone! They're a riot.

Zelmare Roulette: [regarding Oraetta] That is one weird white lady.

Doctor Senator: We haven't met. I'm Doctor Senator. [Doctor reaches his hand out but Gaetano refuses to shake it] You got to give respect to get respect.

Gaetano Fadda: Is that why you Americans are so soft? All this giving and getting? [in Italian] It's all shit. [in English] In the land of taking and killing, Gaetano is king.

Raddoppiarlo [4.03]

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: Captain Hanhuck, I can safely say you blasphemy more than any man I've ever met. And I've been to Cleveland.

Doctor Senator: I was in the legal corps. Army. Pushing papers. After the ceasefire, they send me to Nuremberg for the trials. Last Negro in Germany, I'd imagine. You ever heard of "Double V"? It's what they sold us. Mm-hmm. Fight for our country and we get two victories: one for America and one for we sons of servitude. No more lynchings. No more blackjacks at the polls. So they send me to Nuremberg and this colonel tells me he's got a big job for me. Says, "You're gonna interview Hermann Goring, the Reichsmarschall himself." Says, "Days, weeks, however it long it takes to get him to talk." Says, "I need you, Doctor Senator, Esquire, to use your training, your skills to build the People's case." Well now, what is that if not the double victory, hm? So I sit with the man for six weeks, eight hours a day, six days a week and we get into it. The first two weeks, he just stares at me, murder in his eyes. But I use my wiles. You know, appeal to his ego, get him talking. Ah, soon he won't shut up. Bragging about every little thing, and I type it down and write it up for the colonel word for word. I spend two weeks crafting my conclusion, my analysis of international law. Then, one Sunday morning, after services, I knock on the colonel's door and I give him my report. You know what he does? Throws it in the trash. Yeah. 400 pages with footnotes. Throws it it in the trash and says, "I just wanted to make that old Nazi squirm having to answer to a Negro." So you say respect the deal? Excuse me if I say our word is exactly as good as yours. The slaughterhouses, they belong to us. Deal or no deal. You can call it the cost of transition.

Satchel Cannon: Are you Jewish?

Rabbi Milligan: No.

Satchel Cannon: Then how come they call you Rabbi? Isn't a Rabbi a Jewish priest?

Rabbi Milligan: You ever play poker? [Satchel shakes his head] But you know there's a game called poker, played with cards. Well, there's this saying in poker: "You play the hand you're dealt." You and me, we're proof of that. You see, when yours truly was a boy, he had the same thing happen to him, what happened to you.

Satchel Cannon: You got traded?

Rabbi Milligan: What?

Satchel Cannon: From baseball. That's what my daddy said. I got traded to another team.

Rabbi Milligan: Exactly. I got traded twice. Except, well, for you, you get to go back to your original team one day.

Satchel Cannon: Is this your original team?

Rabbi Milligan: No. My team was shite.

Loy Cannon: What you need, son?

Dwayne: Just rub some coins together, that's all. Just a cup of joe.

Loy Cannon: Cup of joe? That's why your eyes so runny? Too much Sanka? Let me see what I got for you. [Loy pulls out a roll of cash which Dwayne stares at in awe; Loy turns to Lemuel] You see that? What happened to his face when I pull out my roll? What do we call that, Doctor?

Doctor Senator: We call that the blight.

Loy Cannon: The blight. See, five seconds ago this young hustler was fingering the holes in his pocket, living the now. But then he sees this and he starts to dream. "With that much cash, I can make plans! Turn my shit around!" Right? So now he's planning months into the future, sees himself all cleaned up, fine girl on his arm. Then what do you know? He ain't even colored no more. He's J.P. fucking Morgan. An American success story. But watch this.

[Loy puts the money back into his pocket]

Dwayne: [lunging for the money] Hey, hey, hey!

[Loy's entourage holds Dwayne back]

Loy Cannon: You see that? I just stole from that man. Forget it weren't his money. Just seeing that much scratch, he made a future for himself. And I took that from him.

Omie Sparkman: Girl, you got a panty on your head.

The Pretend War [4.04]

Ebal Violante: When I first come to America, I know nothing. How to dress, what to eat. I sleep in a closet with a stuck hanger in my jacket so I don't fall down. On the street, I hear this phrase. You know this phrase: American values. And I think what does it mean? Financial values, I understand. Money, what a thing is worth. Human values, this also makes sense. The things we love. Family, i bambini. But this American values, land of the free, home of the brave. This I don't know. And then I learn the history of this country. Your slavery, the smallpox in the blankets, how you stole the land from the natives. And I realize to be an American is to pretend. Capisce? You pretend to be one thing when really you are something else. And I can do that. Lie. Hide. But what I will not do is pretend we are at peace when really we are at war. Are we at war?

Doctor Senator: Not yet, but we're trying real hard.

Loy Cannon: How many?

Doctor Senator: 300 semiautomatic. Out of New York. So either the Faddas are going into the gun business now or they're going to war with us.

Loy Cannon: Sell 200 to Mort Kellerman.

Doctor Senator: Out of Fargo?

Loy Cannon: Tell him he can have them at cost, but he owes us devotion.

Oraetta Mayflower: Goodness. Your mind's a clutter of grievances. Here I am talking about waterfalls and you're making a list of nemeses.

Josto Fadda: Friends or enemies. That's the world, hm?

Oraetta Mayflower: Oraetta Mayflower's enemy to no man.

Josto Fadda: You're a dame. Where I come from, we sleep with one eye open and a razor in our teeth. You got any more of that fluffy whiz bang? Get my head on straight?

Oraetta Mayflower: And here I thought you liked me for my vocabulary.

Josto Fadda: Well, it's not your vocabulary that just took a ride in my lap.

[Josto smacks Oraetta on her behind]

Oraetta Mayflower: Hey! Rude! We fly elevated in this house, mister! Proper ladies and gentlemen, which is a lesson you should take to heart in your other lives. And you sleep with a mouthful of razors, it's your own throat that gets cut, believe you me.

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: What's the ordeal upstairs? Booze? Gambling? If a man's pud need a tug, would this be the place for said tugging?

Loy Cannon: That's a lot of greenbacks, Thurman.

Thurman Smutny: Yes, sir, it is.

Loy Cannon: Where'd you get it?

Thurman Smutny: Well, sir, I'd rather not say. [Loy stares at him] It was, uh, the loss of a loved one, if you must know. My dear Uncle Boolie. He passed last week, left me this money, and since you were nice enough to give us that loan, I figured I should bring it you straight away.

Loy Cannon: So he left you this bag of cash. Your uncle...what was it?

Thurman Smutny: Boolie. No, sir. His bequeathment came in check form. Uh, I just figured cash should be easier for you.

Loy Cannon: Thurman, Thurman. Always thinking. I got to tell you, I can't remember the last time a white man tried to make my life easier.

Thurman Smutny: Well, here's me, then.

Loy Cannon: Here's you. [Loy takes a long, suspicious stare at Thurman, making Thurman nervous] Well, okay! Thanks for stopping by.

Thurman Smutny: Okay then. [Thurman stands up] That's...hoo! I got to say, I really thought you were gonna shoot me there, money or no.

Loy Cannon: I thought about it.

Thurman Smutny: [chuckling nervously] I'm gonna go now.

Loy Cannon: Good choice.

[Thurman heads to the door, then turns around]

Thurman Smutny: You have a lovely home. Uh...

Loy Cannon: Leave now.

The Birthplace of Civilization [4.05]

Thurman Smutny: Listen, this Miss Mayflower. She's....she's not really...I mean, I'm sure she's real nice, but she's not someone you should be hanging around, huh? We got a real precarious situation here, living outside the law and all, so... Not to mention, I think she might've poisoned that pie she baked us. Anyway, steer clear.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: Aunt Zelmare, what would you do if you saw something wrong? Something you could fix?

Zelmare Routlette: Nothing.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: What do you mean?

Zelmare Routlette: I mean nothing.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: Because you're a criminal?

Zelmare Routlette: I ain't a criminal.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: You're innocent, you're saying?

Zelmare Routlette: Girl, I ain't been innocent since Uncle Charlie cornered me in the shed when I was nine.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: Then I don't understand.

Swanee Capps: She's saying we ain't criminals. We're outlaws.

Zelmare Routlette: See, criminals play the game.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: What game?

Swanee Capps: Life. The earth.

Zelmare Routlette: Society, right? They got their rules. Banking and family. An honest dollar for an honest day's work. Politics and voting. And the criminal, he on the other side of that, but still he play the game. And if he plays it long enough, he even starts to talk about going legit.

Swanee Capps: The outlaw, on the other hand...

Zelmare Routlette: The outlaw, on the other hand, well, we reject the game. Society. Ain't nothing organized about our crime 'cause our crime is freedom.

Swanee Capps: No rules.

Zelmare Routlette: And nothing's ever broke and there ain't nothing to fix.

Swanee Capps: All we want is to live while we're alive and die with a gun in our hands.

Zelmare Routlette: You a bit of an outlaw.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: Me?

Zelmare Routlette: Yeah. Your mama sees it, too. In the eyes. That's why she say, "Keep away."

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: I'm not an outlaw.

Swanee Capps: Then which are you - a convict or a square?

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: I'm not either one of those things.

Zelmare Routlette: What are you then?

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: I'm Ethelrida Pearl Smutny. One of a kind.

Loy Cannon: I just came home to change my shirt.

Narcissa Rivers: Mmhmm.

Loy Cannon: What? [to Buel] What's wrong with her? Where you off to?

Buel Cannon: They arrested your son.

Loy Cannon: I know. I'm handling it.

Buel Cannon: The same way you're handling your other son, lives in an attic with an Irishman?

Loy Cannon: Come on now, we talked about that.

Buel Cannon: We did, and there he is, eating someone else's food still.

Narcissa Rivers: Mmhmm.

Loy Cannon: Doc's gonna bail the boy out this morning. He got his bell rung pretty good, but he's alright.

Buel Cannon: I'll get him.

Loy Cannon: He's not the only boy I got in there. They all need bailing out. Now, Doc's gonna sort it.

Buel Cannon: You best get out of my way.

Narcissa Rivers: Mmhmm.

Loy Cannon: [to Narcissa] You got something to say to me?

Buel Cannon: Don't take this out on mama.

Loy Cannon: You ain't going down there.

Buel Cannon: Loy Cannon, you know better than to come between a mother and her child.

Loy Cannon: I'm handling it.

Buel Cannon: Oh, you handling it. Well, send a letter to the Pope! You hear that, mama? Daddy's handling it!

Narcissa Rivers: Mmhmm.

Buel Cannon: I got two baby girls upstairs sleeping. You're gonna handle them, too? Maybe into the hospital or the cemetery? Pretty soon, all we're gonna have around here is a house full of clothes.

Loy Cannon: I said I'm....You like that coat you're wearing? The food you're eating? [to Narcissa] How about you, your majesty? You like the view from your room? Your fancy blankets? Where do you think all that comes from? [to Buel] The razor's edge! What, we're supposed to get rich and stay rich? How? By saying our prayers? The boy went to the club and the bulls lit him up. You act like that can't happen just walking down the street. Acting like the I'm the villain when all I do is fight for this family! You don't like how it's going? You scared to take the risk? Too bad. We're on the ride now, and we can't get off until the roller coaster stops! Now take off your damn coat and get me some fucking coffee! [Buel takes off her coat and slowly walks away. Loy turns to Narcissa] Can I get a "mmhmm?"

Narcissa Rivers: Hmph.

Josto Fadda: You know why America loves a crime story? Because America is a crime story. But here's the rub. When we hear a crime story, who do we root for? Not the poor sap that got taken, the victim. No. We root for the taker. The guy with the gat. [Josto imitates shooting a machine gun at the Cannon enforcers] See, this country loves a man who takes what he wants. Unless...unless that man looks like you. Capisce? See, Johnny Society looks at me, they see a fella who's using crime to get ahead. But you? All they see is crime. And that's why you're gonna lose. 'Cause I can take all the money and pussy I want and still run for president. But you? It's always gonna be the rope. Tell him it's time to surrender.

Doctor Senator: [final words] Like I tried to tell you, I don't know how they do it in your country, but here in America, respect is earned. Ebal, he earned my respect. But you? You... You're just boys making a mess that one day I'm gonna have to clean up. [Doctor stands and heads for the exit, paying the waitress] Thanks for the coffee, Nadine.

Camp Elegance [4.06]

Loy Cannon: I'm losing this war, Odis. People are being taken from me. People I trust. Things I've earned. You see, I'm not just fighting a few Italians. I'm fighting 400 years of history. I'm fighting a mindset. [Loy notices a large set of Hummel figurines] You like those dolls, huh? You collect 'em?

Odis Weff: I, uh...

Loy Cannon: How do you think they feel, being owned? Imagine if these dolls rose up and became citizens of this apartment. Imagine if they asked for equal rights? You might say, "Man, fuck these dolls. I'm gonna crush these dolls, thinking they all human, thinking they equal." 'Cause that's your mindset. And look, maybe you feel like these Italians own you, but you got no idea what it feels like to be actual owned, to be property. Until now. 'Cause I own you. You're gonna help me win this war or I'm gonna put you in the ground, you hear me?

Odis Weff: Yeah, yes, I hear you.

Loy Cannon: Good. We'll be in touch.

Loy Cannon: Now, you can say your whole life is just a series of mistakes. No big deal. But Doctor Senator? Now that's the one that got you killed.

Oraetta Mayflower: Dr. Harvard, I can assure you Oraetta Mayflower is a Christian citizen of the highest character. I'm unsure even of the spelling of the word "crime".

Antoon Dumini: The Americans, when they capture me, I was cooking my belt.

Satchel Cannon: Your belt?

Antoon Dumini: I already eat my shoes. Monte Cassino. They send me here, to Kansas. Did you know they bring war prisoners here? I think I was dead. A corpse, they shipped. A skeleton. It was the food, the smell, that bring me back. Fields of corn, bread for every meal. Land of plenty. That's in the Constitution. Every day the sun come out. That big, yellow American sun. It make me grow again, like a winter weed. And then, I am alive again. I took the blood oath, carve my name on the stone there. "Antoon Dumini, American." This I would become.

Rabbi Milligan: You hurt?

Satchel Cannon: No. I-Is he dead?

Rabbi Milligan: Yes, but don't look away. This is what men do. Snap out of it. We have to go. It's war now, for real. You're not safe here.

Satchel Cannon: Home?

Rabbi Milligan: You're not safe there, either. You trust me? [Satchel nods] I never got to choose. A child soldier, that's what they made me. But that's not gonna happen to you. Understand?

Satchel Cannon: I think so.

Rabbi Milligan: So we're gonna find someplace quiet, wait 'til the dust settles, and if you want to go home - if that's your choice - I'll take you home. Understand?

Satchel Cannon: I'm scared.

Rabbi Milligan: Me too.

Lay Away [4.07]

Odis Weff: You listen to me, slick. If I knew where your Mormon God was, I'd drive through the night and I'd stab him in the fucking eyes! We're done.

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: If that's the way you want to go. But careful how many sides you play, palomino. Even a gold coin's only got two faces.

Buel Cannon: Can I help you?

Constant Calamita: Good afternoon. There's a guard usually on the porch. But not today. How many kids in the house?

Buel Cannon: Get out of here.

Constant Calamita: Answer the question.

Buel Cannon: How about I got a question for you?

Constant Calamita: For me?

Buel Cannon: Yeah. You ever go to the zoo?

Constant Calamita: [chuckles] Sometime.

Buel Cannon: Hmm. You see the mama lion and her cubs? You think she's in that cage for her protection? [Buel pulls out a shotgun] To be fair, it's what we call a rhetorical question. Now get the fuck out of here.

Ebal Violante: First, we recognize things have gotten out of hand. Our two families. We recognize this and, uh, we apologize.

Loy Cannon: You apologize?

Ebal Violante: Doctor Senator-

Loy Cannon: Don't...say his name.

Ebal Violante: He was a friend of mine. His death should not have happened, but Gaetano Fadda is the son of Donatello Fadda, chosen by New York. His death is not allowed.

Loy Cannon: Not allowed?

Ebal Violante: I'm simply telling you how it is. There are people you can kill, people you can't.

Josto Fadda: Eh, well... [Ebal looks at Josto] No, I'm just saying he's more animal than people.

Ebal Violante: Hey... [in Italian] He's your bother.

Josto Fadda: Cain was Abel's brother. [in Italian] How'd that turn out?

Loy Cannon: Elevate, don't denigrate. That's what I tell 'em. My kids. What do you think the Italians tell their kids?

Odis Weff: I-I don't know

Loy Cannon: Yeah, yeah, but you see it, though, right? What they're doing? Call a man an animal, keep him in the dirt. But what if he don't grunt? What if he don't honk? What if he walks tall and stays a man? C'mon, you know what that is. You boys do it all the time.

Odis Weff: No, not me.

Loy Cannon: You get in the dirt yourself and you show him how to be an animal! You show him how to hate! You show him how to be cruel! You kill his friends! You murder his child.

Odis Weff: Boss...I didn't know.

Loy Cannon: They can't rise to our level, so they got to drag us down to theirs. But it's a trap. It's a trap, 'cause if I get in the dirt like them, that means they were right the whole time.

Loy Cannon: You know what I think? Every country has its own type of criminal. In America, we got the confidence man. Snake oil salesman, grifter. He don't rob you as much as trick you into robbing yourself. See, 'cause in America, people want to believe. They got that dream. And a dreamer, you can fleece.

The Nadir [4.08]

Loy Cannon: Tell me.

Opal Rackley: It didn't work. They're a team now, the brothers. So what do we do?

Loy Cannon: Fargo.

Loy Cannon: I told those ladies no harm would come to them. That makes me accountable.

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: Should I tell you what I've learned about the criminal mindset? By definition, the criminal rejects accountability, as their identity is based on getting away with things. Similarly, the criminal - you - rejects morality and ethics, for if there is a larger right, then the criminal himself is always wrong. And you don't strike me as the type of man thinks himself wrong.

Loy Cannon: Rarely.

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: So there goes morality out the window, but in that vacuum, what should rush but a code. A system of rules, mostly having to do with loyalty. And this way, the criminal detaches himself from the civilian world.

Loy Cannon: And yet, here I am. Family man, community leader, deacon in the church.

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: Oh, the criminal is capable of being all those things. But it's a ruse. For though you claim to share the values of your wife or preacher, the Lord knows it's a disguise. Ask me how I know for certain.

Loy Cannon: How do you know for certain?

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: Would a family man trade his youngest son to his enemy in exchange for power and monetary gain?

Loy Cannon: You need to leave.

[Opal reaches for a gun but Deafy pulls out his gun first]

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: And so we circle back, inevitably, to your original statement. To wit, I'm accountable for those ladies, murderers both, thieves and cheats. But now, since we both know the criminal is capable of love and loyalty only when it suits his own self-interest, I've come to the make the following point: It don't. Not no more. In summation, boy, if you could sacrifice your youngest, like Isaac in the Holy Book, well, then giving up two strangers to keep the might of the federal government off your back, well, now, that should be as facile as breathing.

Loy Cannon: I like you.

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: We Mormons are very friendly people.

Loy Cannon: No. Pretty unfriendly, really. But it's the way you're unfriendly, like you're doing me a favor.

Odis Weff: This is...this isn't a choice. I got a condition. When I was a kid, the teachers said "oversensitive." The army shrink said I-I worry too much, which...How can you worry too much when you're at war? All those things you called me - twitchy, touched - I been hearing that my whole life. All I know is I-I feel better when I'm in charge, when I got the power. That's why I joined the force. You know, because cops have power. So, now I'm on the street, I'm the boss. Except, turns out, being a cop's real risky. Risky makes me nervous. So I'm...I make a deal with the street. I take a few bucks, I-I look the other way. Less risk, but also less power. So here comes that feeling again. Like I'm...I'm drowning o-on dry land.

Dick "Deafy" Wickware: Cheer up, palomino. In times like these, my mind goes back to the wisest words I ever heard. And forgive me for the blueness of the final stanza, but here it is: "Behold the amazing pelican, whose beak can hold more than his belly can. He can hold in his beak enough food for a week. I'll be damned if I know how the hell he can."

East/West [4.09]

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim." - Bertrand Russell

Beachwood Indiana: I got a wife.

[Rabbi turns his gun on Haskell]

Haskell Indiana: I...I ain't married yet. Who's gonna feed the dogs?

[Rabbi and Satchel spot an incomplete billboard that reads "The Future Is"]

Rabbi Milligan: The future is what?

Worker: How's that?

Rabbi Milligan: What's it gonna say?

Worker: Wait 'til it's finished, then you'll see.

Rabbi Milligan: Well...finish the damn thing already!

Worker: Moment I finish it, I'm out of a job. Plus, why do you care? It's just a sign.

Rabbi Milligan: It's the principle. Making people live with uncertainty, it ain't right!

Worker: Send a letter to your congressman, you're so irate.

Hunk Swindell: Hey, funny you mention that. I was talking to a fella on the train, must've been, um, winter last, works in publishing. Did you know that in the original Goldilocks, it was witches, not bears? In any case, he tells me, think about this poor girl, no home of her own, just wandering the woods. This fella said that to his mind, Goldilocks is the classic example of an outsider in search of himself. If you think about it, the story's got no ending. I mean, the bears, they get justice chasing an intruder out of their home, but for the girl? Well, she's back out in the cold. No family, no home. Doesn't fit in anywhere.

[Rabbi discovers the complete billboard reads "The Future Is Now"]

Rabbi Milligan: Hey! Hey! What the heck does that even mean?

Worker: Got me. Could be a statement as to the underlying unreliability of time. Or a testimony along the lines of "seize the day". They don't pay me to write 'em, just slap 'em up. Which I did. And now it's done. And I find myself once more at a crossroads, unemployed. So I suppose for me the future I once feared has arrived as predicted by this very billboard.

Happy [4.10]

Oraetta Mayflower: What does it feel like to be so sure you're right and know that nobody cares? Hmm? I'll see you in your dreams.

Milvin Gillis: I'm a U.S. alderman! You can't punch a U.S. alderman!

Josto Fadda: Well, apparently, you can.

Loy Cannon: It was blizzarding when Satchel was born. Middle of the night. Why do babies always come in the middle of the night?

Opal Rackley: It's the moon, my mama said. Babies come like the tide.

Loy Cannon: Buel birthed him in a tub with her mama. I was downstairs with the girls. I swear I couldn't hear a sound. My missus, passing a twelve inch head through a six inch hole. On my best day, I'm half as tough as that. And this ain't my best day. No, siree. That's behind me, I think.

Redneck: Hey, boy, what you doing out here all by your lonesome? You hear me, boy? What, you got shit in your ears?

Satchel Cannon: No.

Redneck: No what? [Satchel pulls out a gun] Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey...

Satchel Cannon: No "you". No "boy". No "do what you're told". No everything. This is my world. I'm the boss. I tell you what to do.

Redneck: Hey, hey, hey...

Satchel Cannon: Now fuck off.

Oraetta Mayflower: Excuse me! You take your hands off me! Police! Police!

Detective: Ma'am, we are the police.

Storia Americana [4.11]

Ebal Violante: And this is why the family business doesn't work. Because families are crazy.

Oraetta Mayflower: They made me tell them.

Josto Fadda: I'm not talking to you.

Oraetta Mayflower: You don't have to be mean. I've had, and I don't mind saying, as hard a 24 hours as ever been had on God's green earth.

Josto Fadda: What do you think's happening right now? You killed us.

Oraetta Mayflower: I told the truth.

Josto Fadda: Now you tell the truth? Now?! How about when I said help with my dad, why didn't you tell me you were a demented hag?

Josto Fadda: You don't have to do this. Hasn't there been enough killing?

[Joe and Oraetta laugh]

Joe Bulo: Wait, that a serious question?

Josto Fadda: Listen to me. This is it, what they make us do. We're paisan. Come on. We change our names, we eat each other, we forget. For what? Don't you get it, Joe? This is a ladder, but there's nowhere to go.

Joe Bulo: Nah. Any last requests?

Oraetta Mayflower: Yeah, can you shoot him first so I can watch?

Josto Fadda: What?

Loy Cannon: Are you kidding? This is half our business. You want to take half our business? We had a deal, in the park. WE MADE A DEAL!

Ebal Violante: Please be calm. This is just part of the new plan. Our national plan for the nation. New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Miami, Texas, California. You too are a national outfit, yes? Mm, wait, no. You are one man in one city. What do they say? Big fish, small pond. But we are the sea. Mm, I can tell you are thinking you can just kill me the way you kill the men before. But this is a mistake because when you look at me, you don't see the man behind me and the man behind him and all the men that follow. Forever. Mmhmm? You see them now. The wave that never ends. We understand each other. Cheer up. Look at it this way: we are not taking half, we are leaving half. You work for us now. You do what we say or we kill you and find someone who will. [in Italian] End of story.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: History is a form of memory. But what does it mean to remember? We think naturally of our own past, our lives day by day, and through them we see the events of our times. We are black and white, rich and poor, foreign-born and domestic. And yet, if our pasts are separate, then aren't our histories separate, too? Segregated? Ask yourself, who writes the books? Who chooses what we remember and what gets forgotten? My name is Ethelrida Pearl Smutny. This is my history report.

Season 5

The Tragedy of the Commons [5.01]

Minnesota Nice:

1) an aggressively pleasant demeanor, often forced, in which a person is chipper and self-effacing, no matter how bad things get.

Indira Olmstead: What's the world coming to is all I'm saying. Neighbor against neighbor.

Dot Lyon: That...I agree with you there. We were just trying, me and my girl, to get out. School board meeting, my A-S-S. And then Mr. Abernathy, the math teacher, he came at me like something from a zombie movie. Which, don't come at a mama lion when she's got her cub. You know what I mean? But the officer, that...He was just wrong place, wrong time.

Indira Olmstead: Well, here's what I know. It's a beautiful day. And you know what they call a herd of lions? A pride. So think about that.

Lorraine Lyon: What were you doing there in the first place?

Dot Lyon: I mean, it was a school board meeting. I'm on the committee for the new library. We're trying to raise money to expand thrillers and mysteries. Lee Child and the like.

Lorraine Lyon: Can't you just give money like a normal person?

Donald Ireland: Could you take me to a veterinarian?

Ole Munch: What?

Donald Ireland: You know, like in the movies 'cause they're also a doctor, just for animals.

Dot Lyon: You need to go to the hospital. Burns like that, you're gonna get infected. Maybe even go to the brain.

Donald Ireland: I need my brain!

Wayne Lyon: Well, ya, hon, there was...you were abducted.

Dot Lyon: Stop saying that. I had a bad day. I needed some time to clear my head. Did I leave the house a mess? Well, shoot. I know you think I'm kinda this perfect woman, wife, mother, but you know, even I got a breaking point. Now, you want to set the table for breakfast? Gotta make sure Scott gets her vitamins and minerals for school. Most important meal of the day.

Trials and Tribulations [5.02]

Roy Tillman: I was sheriff of this county when I was 25. Hard to believe. Grandfather was a sheriff. Father, too. Ranchers all. Working the land through times flush and fallow. There's a natural order of things. We know it in our bones. Jesus was a man, not some bearded lady. And just as water flows downhill, a husband is head of his household. Under him, the woman abides. She holds her virtue close until that matrimonial threshold is crossed, and then she opens to him, as the flower opens to the sun. And in exchange, the man shelters and protects his female, as the sword has its sheath.

Josh Hunk: ...OK, but what I'm saying is, you-

Roy Tillman: No. He only raises his hand to her when she forgets her place and acts the man. And then only for instruction, never taking any pleasure or satisfaction from the task. Whereas you, son, seem to have played a Tommy Lee drum solo all over your missus's façade.

Ole Munch: You say the woman is a woman, a...how do you...housewife. Never do you mention she is, for real, a tiger.

Indira Olmstead: But what I'm dealing with is the fact that the blood on your entry floor is different than the blood type we have on record for you.

Dot Lyon: Records? Those...y'know, I heard a man went into the hospital in St. Paul for a kidney transplant and he ended up with someone else's brain.

Wayne Lyon: No way!

Dot Lyon: Yah!

Agent Tony Joaquin: We're new in the Fargo office. We thought we'd come by and see why you aren't enforcing any of our laws.

Roy Tillman: What laws?

Agent Tony Joaquin: Oh, you know, gun laws, drug laws, any of the half-dozen other American laws passed and ratified by the United States government that you don't seem to recognize.

Roy Tillman: Well, Agent Ja-Queen, I think you'll find that there is no one on God's green earth who is a greater enforcer of the laws of this land than Roy Tillman.

Agent Meyer: Why do I feel like there's a "but" here?"

Roy Tillman: But...what you need to know is that I am the law of the land. Elected by the residents of this county to interpret and enforce the Constitution given unto us by Almighty God.

Gator Tillman: Freedom.

Roy Tillman: Amen.

Dot Lyon: [dropping her Minnesota accent] Listen, bitch. I've climbed through six kinds of hell to get where I am and no Ivy League royal wannabe is gonna run me off just because she doesn't like the way I smell. If you want to tussle with me, you better sleep with both eyes open because nobody takes what's mine and lives. [bringing back her Minnesota accent] Anyhoo! Thanks for stopping by. Dinner Sunday? I'll bring my blue salad.

The Paradox of Intermediate Transactions [5.03]

Ole Munch: I live here now.

Gun World Clerk: Arr! Welcome to Gun World! How can I help ye?

Wayne Lyon: I like your eyepatch.

Gun World Clerk: [dropping pirate accent] Actually, that's, uh, that's a hunting accident.

Gator Tillman: Asshole. I'm a winner. I'm a winner. I'm a winner. I am a winner. I'm a fucking winner. I'm a winner. I'm a winner. I'M A WINNER!

Witt Farr: Last chance. Tell me what you took.

Gator Tillman: You don't know? I took your mama out for dinner. She gave out that ass like a coupon on coupon day.

Lorraine Lyon: What is your function?

Indira Olmstead: Excuse me?

Lorraine Lyon: The police. I mean, why do we need you except as a tool to keep a certain element in line? To separate those who have - money, class, intellect - from those who don't. You're gatekeepers standing outside the walls keeping the rabble from getting in. But in here, inside these walls, you have no function. You should remember that.

Insolubilia [5.04]

Roy Tillman: Well, old friend, it's the crossroads, no question. We know who's waiting there. The midnight man with his serpent tongue. I met him once. Old Baylor Maze cut his children to pieces and hung his wife with a curtain tie, and I was first through the door. And old Baylor was sitting there in his easy chair taking it easy. Behind him, I swear - and you know this 'cause you were there, too - Beelzebub himself, crouched low, whispering in that poor man's ear. You protected me then, old friend. Be with us again in our hour of need. Amen.

Lorraine Lyon: It starts as an itch. "I want a new pair of shoes" or maybe the minivan finally gives up the ghost. And just like that you're in debt.

Witt Farr: It's good to see you again, Mrs. Lyon.

Dot Lyon: That...That's not accurate.

Witt Farr: Ah, well, first of all, I recognize you. And second, we pulled the security tape from the Gas N' Go, so it's clear you were there. And for the record, that's just reality.

Danish Graves: With all due respect, we've got our own reality.

Witt Farr: You can't...That's not a thing.

Ole Munch: When Munch was a boy, freedom was a potato. It was you didn't get killed today. Freedom from hunger, from the rusty blade. But to free himself, the man ate first so others could not. He killed before he was killed. He wanted nothing more because only kings had the freedom to want. But now everywhere you look, you see kings. Everything they want, they call their own, and if they cannot have it, they say that they are not free. They even pretend their freedom should be free, that it has no cost, but the cost is always death. Life for life. Me or you.

Irma: Please. I don't understand. Why are you here? What do you want?

Ole Munch: Pancakes.

Roy Tillman: My great-grandfather's name was Roy. Indian killer. Fought in the Battle of Big Mound, Dead Buffalo Lake. Lost an ear in the Battle of the Badlands. He's the only American to earn four Medals of Honor. Now he was one of the good ones. Me, I try to be. You...not so much, I think. You're what we call a waste of skin. Defective. Eating our food, breathing our air, wasting precious resources.

The Tiger [5.05]

Narrator: The tiger, spelled T-I-G-E-R, is one of the fiercest hunters on Earth. Known for its cunning and strategic mind, the tiger is most dangerous when cornered. Though it may look like the tiger has given up, this is, in fact, a ruse. Look closer. Even now, she plans an escape. The female, or lady tiger, can outsmart even the most skilled hunters. She is a literal genius when it comes to saving her young and protecting her mate. The tiger has been known to set traps to ensnare her pursuers, thus the popular colloquialism: "Do not hunt the tiger unless you want the tiger catching you." Only the tiger shark is a more dangerous foe, though the tiger shark - or any kind of shark, really - would suffocate in a hospital setting.

Lorraine Lyon: Let me guess, the last time you negotiated with a woman was over the price of a Tijuana blowjob. How much to stick it in your asshole, that kind of thing.

Lorraine Lyon: So you want freedom with no responsibility? Son, there's only one person on Earth who gets that deal.

Roy Tillman: The president?

Lorraine Lyon: A baby. You're fighting for your right to be a baby.

Danish Graves: Here's my card. I'd be happy to sit down tomorrow to discuss the details of the deal.

Roy Tillman: Well, son, I'm not sure I can negotiate with a man named after a breakfast pastry.

Dot Lyon: They never hit you when it's going their way, y'know? It's when they're weak and just pretending to be strong. When they need something small to climb on to feel big.

The Tender Trap [5.06]

Agent Tony Joaquin: Well, sir, there's no easy way to say this. Um, your wife isn't who she says she is.

Roy Tillman: You don't talk much, I like that.

Ole Munch: A man has only so many words in his lifetime. For us, there are very few left.

[Roy tosses Munch a duffel bag of money]

Roy Tillman: Plus interest 'cause we got sideways. Now I didn't make your deal, but if I had, I would've been clear: that woman's like a tick. Can't crush her, can't pull her out clean. Suffocation is the key, or fire. If I had a nickel for every time she found the daylight or when I thought I had her buried. Never had a problem before or since breaking a woman, but that one, she's...What'd you call her?

Ole Munch: A tiger.

Roy Tillman: Right. You think you're hunting her, but all the while you're just a mouse and she's playing with her supper. Probably ought to let her be, but...

Ole Munch: When a man digs a grave, he has to fill it. Otherwise, it's just a hole.

Gator Tillman: Happy now, shitbird? You got your money? People are dead, good men, but you're still wandering the earth, breathing the air they should be breathing.

Ole Munch: A boy complains because he thinks the world is unfair. He cries to his mother when the toy breaks or the knee is skinned.

Gator Tillman: Fuck that. You're the one who's gonna be crying.

Ole Munch: A man knows better. The things that happen, happen. Who lives, who dies. You don't yell at the boulder for being a rock.

Gator Tillman: You want the last word? Here it is: I'll see you soon, asshole.

Lorraine Lyon: What's that?

Indira Olmstead: That's the history of your daughter-in-law, written in punches and chokeholds.

Lorraine Lyon: Well, I'm sure I don't need to see that. People who claim to be victims are the downfall of this country.

Indira Olmstead: Mrs. Lyon, have you ever in your life ever heard your daughter-in-law say she was a victim of anything? You may not like it, but sometimes crimes are committed against people. They're victimized and it's not their fault.

Lorraine Lyon: I told him not to marry her. This whole sordid mess.

Indira Olmstead: You're saying if a woman is abused and she manages to escape, she should move to the woods, live in a tree, free from the burdens of basic human contact? God forbid she gets a fresh start, a good man to wash out the taste of the bad.

Lorraine Lyon: I don't like your tone.

Indira Olmstead: Tough shit! Some of us work for a living and go home to empty houses, or houses that should be empty but are instead filled with the dirty underpants of our man-child spouses. Your problem is you think that you're rich 'cause you're better than me.

Lorraine Lyon: Oh please.

Indira Olmstead: We're the same. Up before dawn, making our mark on the world. But you know who you're really in sync with?

Lorraine Lyon: Hm?

Indira Olmstead: Dorothy. Yeah. I know you don't want to see it, but let me tell you what I see. I see a woman who outsmarted two kidnappers, killed one and nearly killed the other, and who probably saved your son and granddaughter's lives when they came at her again at the house. I see a woman who doesn't quit no matter what. Who won't be silenced. And, unlike you, who never complains. Even when her mother-in-law has her committed to a mental hospital. So I brought you her file so at least you could be an educated asshole.

Vivian Dugger: Hello?

Lorraine Lyon: Are your balls in your belly, looking for a safe place to hide? Good. Listen to me, I'm pulling the offer. That $100 million is going to Mesa Prudential out in Flagstaff. What you get instead is the full might of the federal government reading the shit stains in your underwear like tea leaves.

Vivian Dugger: Mrs. Lyon-

Lorraine Lyon: Quiet. A grown-up is talking. I called the SEC chairman personally, and as we speak, two dozen federal agents are in your office, seizing your books. They've also frozen every personal and business bank account you've got, so I hope you didn't give all your walking around money to that stripper. Oh, plus I hear your son is starting his freshman year at, uh, Notre Dame, except, whoops, you're late on tuition. So, hmm... [Vivian's other line rings] Oh, that ring you hear? That's your son on the other line, calling to tell you he's been expelled.

Vivian Dugger: Mrs. Lyon, please-

Lorraine Lyon: Oh, "please". That's your secret weapon? You want to know what your mistake was? It was thinking death was the worst thing that can happen to you. So congratulations, the sheriff's not gonna kill you. Instead you're going to live the rest of your days in squalor, surrounded by the dead-eyed stares of your futureless children.

Linda [5.07]

Dot Lyon: That's why I need her help. My Linda.

Lindo: Saint Linda. That's what we call her.

[Dot laughs, Lindo does not]

Dot Lyon: Oh, you're serious.

Dot Lyon: Look, I think it's wonderful what you're doing here, this place you've made for suffering. But I don't need a a doll to say what's on my mind. Maybe I could have used one before Wayne and this new life, but I am in control now. I know who I am and what's important. So if there's any way that we can skip-

Saint Linda: It's not gonna work, dear. You came here to confront me, the things you think I did, what happened after I was gone. This is the process. You wouldn't be here if you didn't need to be here.

Dot Lyon: I came for you. And to take you back to testify.

Saint Linda: And what I'm saying is you need to testify first. Then we can decide if I should go or you should stay. Now eat your piccata.

Wayne Lyon: Chapter One: The Hero. Once upon a time there was a girl named Dot. Dorothy. She was the sun's favorite. Y'know, the, uh, the sun? And everywhere she went there were rainbows.

Scotty Lyon: Dorothy, like mom.

Wayne Lyon: Mmhmm. And she could do anything, our Dorothy. Y'know, she could, uh, climb a tree. She could, uh, wrestle an alligator. And everyone she met, she put a smile on their face. But the darkness hates the light and the ugly things come out at night. And so she, our Dot, in order to save the rainbows, she had to go fight against the darkness. And leave the, uh, the flowers and the birds at home. Her family, I'm saying. Because until you go someplace, you can't come home.

Dot Lyon: It got worse after that. He'd beat Linda every night and then come to me smelling like sweat and cigarettes. And then she was gone. Packed a bag, Roy said, and left in the wee hours. But he wasn't sad, he said, because he had me and what we had was true love. And then I was his puppet.

Roy Tillman: I got you.

Blanket [5.08]

Dot Lyon: You don't even have a plan, do you?

Roy Tillman: God has a plan.

Dot Lyon: And what is that?

Roy Tillman: Must be cold living out there in the dark, so let me spell it out for you: you made a promise. To Him, to me. You broke your vow.

Dot Lyon: You broke my fingers, my collarbone, three ribs. You dislocated my jaw.

Roy Tillman: I was trying to fix you.

Dot Lyon: Like a window cleaner pissing on a window.

Dot Lyon: Please, I can't be here. I'm Scotty's mother. She said ice cream cake for her birthday and I forgot to order it and there's a three day minimum. She just started a new school and the girls are being mean. There's Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is probably the last year she's gonna believe in Santa Claus. And I can't unsee it, her sitting on Santa's lap at the mall and he's asking her, "What do you want for Christmas little girl?" And she's saying, "I want my mommy back." It's not just me. What you're doing, you're doing to them, too. And we're getting kittens next year we decided, and who's gonna be there to teach Scotty how to take care of them? Plus, I am den mother for the Girl Scouts, and I raise money for the library.

Roy Tillman: Enough.

Dot Lyon: No! I'm in love. True love. With the most wonderful man. He's my best friend. We went ice skating on our first date. And if you ask him, Wayne will tell you, shepherd's pie is still his favorite food. We just started watching Call the Midwife and there's, like, 13 seasons of that show! So if...if I don't come home...who's gonna remind him to take a Lactaid when he eats cheese?

Roy Tillman: You made a vow.

Dot Lyon: I was a child.

Roy Tillman: Oh, please. You had your hair, you had your menses...

Dot Lyon: And you had a wife and a son, almost my age, which was 15.

Roy Tillman: I don't care. You made a mistake when you left me. That means everything after that is a mistake, too.

Dot Lyon: My daughter is not a mistake.

Roy Tillman: Fruit of the poison tree. That's a legal way of saying "Two wrongs don't make a right." You belong to me.

Dot Lyon: Do you know how crazy you sound? The way you see things, your mind. But you believe it's the world that's gone mad. I have to go.

Roy Tillman: I tell you what, Nadine. I'll promise you - hand to God - I'll promise to let you go just as soon as you beg me to let you stay and mean it.

Dot Lyon: You want a promise? I'll make you a promise: I'm gonna kill you.

Roy Tillman: As sheriff, my first priority is the safety of the community. That means preparedness and defense.

Roy Andrew Tillman: Safety of the community.

Roy Chester Tillman: That means preparedness and defense.

Roy Floyd Tillman: Preparedness and defense.

Roy Tillman: Uh, sorry, fellas, I'm still talking here.

Roy Andrew Tillman: I'm still talking.

Roy Chester Tillman: I'm still talking.

Roy Floyd Tillman: I'm still talking.

Roy Tillman: Alright, that's a good joke.

Roy Andrew Tillman: Good joke.

Roy Chester Tillman: Good joke.

Roy Floyd Tillman: Good joke.

Roy Tillman: Cut it out!

Roy Andrew Tillman: Cut it out.

Roy Chester Tillman: Out.

Roy Floyd Tillman: Out.

Roy Tillman: Alright, you know what? This is bullshit.

Roy Andrew Tillman: Bullshit.

Roy Chester Tillman: Bullshit.

Roy Floyd Tillman: Bullshit.

Witt Farr: I know you don't think they're coming. Consequences. But they're almost here.

Danish Graves: My client is prepared to deliver this election to you in exchange for the immediate return of her daughter-in-law. That's a good deal, Roy. It's smart, and you'd be smart to take it while it's still on the table.

Roy Tillman: Here's a question: if you're so smart...[Roy shoots Danish]...then why are you so dead?

The Useless Hand [5.09]

Ole Munch: A rabbit screams because a rabbit is caught. Knows only that it wants to live.

Gator Tillman: Try again in fucking English, bro! [Munch reveals a heated blade] Fuck. Shit! Help! Help! Help! Help!

Ole Munch: An old woman watches young men play a game. She drinks.

Gator Tillman: What?

Ole Munch: She drinks because her own son has spit the nipple from his mouth. She bothers no one.

Gator Tillman: What are you talking-?

Ole Munch: Yet you killed her.

Gator Tillman: I...

Ole Munch: Yes. Eye. Your eyes.

Gator Tillman: No.

Ole Munch: As the Bible says, what is taken must be given. This for that.

Gator Tillman: No...No, wait...

Ole Munch: Shh. Quiet, rabbit.

Lorraine Lyon: [on phone] Honestly, what's the point of being a billionaire if I can't have somebody killed?

Indira Olmstead: [picking up her ringing phone] Olmstead.

Dot Lyon: Indira, it's me. It's Dorothy.

Indira Olmstead: [to Lorraine] It's Dorothy.

Lorraine Lyon: Bill, I'm gonna have to call you back. [Lorraine hangs up] Let me talk to her. [Lorraine takes Indira's phone] Dorothy?

Dot Lyon: What?

Lorraine Lyon: Where's Danish? Have you seen him?

Dot Lyon: Killed. Roy killed him.

Lorraine Lyon: What was he even doing there?

Dot Lyon: For me. He came to save me.

Lorraine Lyon: Are you safe?

Dot Lyon: For now, but like a fish on the floor.

Lorraine Lyon: Listen to me. An army's coming, I called in some favors. State and federal. You need to get somewhere safe. Hide.

Dot Lyon: Why?

Lorraine Lyon: What do you mean "why"?

Dot Lyon: Why help now?

Lorraine Lyon: Don't get maudlin.

Dot Lyon: I need to know.

Lorraine Lyon: Because this busybody made me.

Dot Lyon: Oh, please. Nobody can make you do anything. If I don't make it back-

Lorraine Lyon: Quiet now. No daughter of mine is going down on the one-yard line. So put your big girl pants on and fight, you hear me?

Dot Lyon: Thank you.

[Indira takes the phone]

Indira Olmstead: Dorothy, don't get in the fight.

Roy Tillman: Well, you don't get it, do you? This is the path I'm on. Starts at birth and it ends here. This isn't a trip to Starbucks on the way to the office. This isn't an idea. God cuts our names into bone and that's who we become. He blows His holy trumpet and the walls fall down. You all came here to find Lot's wife, but she's already a pillar of salt and she ain't turning back. So, go and live, or stay and die. It's up to you.

[Munch reveals a blinded Gator to Roy]

Ole Munch: A son is unable to comply. He has sold his right to be a man. What disappointment the father must feel.

Roy Tillman: What's going on with his eyes?

Ole Munch: Forfeit. It tells a lot about a man, the words he uses to describe a double cross. We have heard it all. To Welsh. To Gyp. To Jew. As if to steal is a man's lineage, what a man is.

Roy Tillman: What did you do?

Gator Tillman: [crying] I'm sorry. You said to let it go, but I couldn't.

Ole Munch: When a man gives with one hand and takes with the other, he breaks his promise. He must be taught. The hand he steals with must be cleaved from him and returned. Still a hand, but now without function. Here is your hand.

[Munch pushes Gator into Roy then vanishes]

Gator Tillman: Daddy...

Roy Tillman: Quiet.

Gator Tillman: Daddy, I'm scared.

Roy Tillman: I said shut up. If there ever was a point to you, it's gone now.

Ole Munch: The tiger can come out now. To fight a tiger in a cage is not a fair fight. [Munch helps Dorothy out of the hole and hands back her rifle] Now the tiger is free.

Bisquik [5.10]

Gator Tillman: Nadine?

Dot Lyon: Gator...

Gator Tillman: Nadine. I'm sorry.

Dot Lyon: It's OK. It's over now.

[Dot and Gator hug]

Gator Tillman: Did you really see my mom?

Dot Lyon: No, hon. I thought I did, but she was just a beautiful angel in a dream.

Gator Tillman: Would you...come visit me in jail?

Dot Lyon: With cookies. You still like oatmeal raisin?

Lorraine Lyon: I love that color on you.

Roy Tillman: You know what I'd love to see on you? A noose.

Indira Olmstead: Hey! Watch your mouth, convict.

Roy Tillman: She wouldn't last five minutes in here, that one. Too many principles. But you? You'd be Queen Shit.

Lorraine Lyon: I saw you filed for an appeal. That was a mistake.

Roy Tillman: Please. That whole thing was rigged, your so-called trial.

Lorraine Lyon: You should know I'm the single largest donor to the Federalist Society.

Roy Tillman: Oh yeah? What do they do? Something with books?

Lorraine Lyon: They control the courts, selecting judges all the way up to the Supreme Court with the president's blessing. So, buy a throw pillow is my advice. You're gonna be here a while.

Roy Tillman: It's funny. Prison is the way the world should be. The natural order. No apology. Men separated by race, races stacked with the strong on top, you fuck the weak, you kill your rivals, sleep with one eye open.

Lorraine Lyon: Yes, well, I just came by to say I hope you're settled in because now your real punishment will begin.

Roy Tillman: My what?

Lorraine Lyon: [to Indira] Wait outside, please.

Indira Olmstead: Are you sure?

Lorraine Lyon: Oh, we'll be fine, won't we, Roy?

Roy Tillman: Peachy.

[Indira exits]

Lorraine Lyon: You're right. She does have principles. Where was I? Oh, yes, punishment. Did you know that 85% of all prisoners are in debt? Hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, interest accruing, their families put out on the street. Well, I've started a fund to help certain prisoners free themselves from this burden. A private fund. Plus a little fresh cash each month in their commissary accounts. Vaseline, Vienna sausages, that kind of thing.

Roy Tillman: Which prisoners?

Lorraine Lyon: Oh...that one, I think. And him over there with the scars. Oh, and all of the men in cell block D. And B. And A.

Roy Tillman: Well, that's mighty Christian of you.

Lorraine Lyon: Oh, no, this has nothing to do with that book. It's an older text, written on stone tablets in the Age of the Skull Fuckers.

Roy Tillman: Did Nadine put you up to this?

Lorraine Lyon: Please. She's a girl scout. I fight my own battles and you need to pay for what you've taken.

Roy Tillman: So you want me dead.

Lorraine Lyon: No, I want you alive for a very, very long time. But while you live, I want you to feel everything your wives felt. Every blow, each humiliation. Fear.

Roy Tillman: I'm not afraid of you.

Lorraine Lyon: It's not me you need to be afraid of. [Lorraine passes Roy a pack of cigarettes] These might come in handy.

Ole Munch: We will finish our engagement now.

Dot Lyon: I thought we were done. You said.

Ole Munch: The debt must be paid. A man's flesh was taken. Now a pound is required in return.

Wayne Lyon: [handing Munch a soda] There you go.

Ole Munch: [confused] A man is grateful.

Wayne Lyon: So, are you from, uh, you from around here?

Ole Munch: Across the sea, but here a long time. From the age of the carrier pigeon and the 600 tribes. The Arapaho, the Cree, and the Tonkawa. A man comes, never having seen a mountain. He cannot remember the year of his birth. He is paid to soldier. But one night, he wanders from his post, drawn by the songs of the river.

Wayne Lyon: Well, Scotty's grandfather took us to the Vermillion last year. My dad Wink, well, he's a big fly fisherman. Remember that, hon?

Scotty Lyon: I caught a cold.

Wayne Lyon: Yeah. Yeah, she did. It's kind of funny.

Dot Lyon: [to Munch] Why? Why must debt be paid? I understand keeping a promise, but people always say debt must be paid. Except what if you can't? If you're too poor or you lose your job. Maybe there's a death in the family. Isn't the better thing - the more humane thing - to say the debt should be forgiven? Isn't that who we should be?

Wayne Lyon: Oh, game's on at seven. Probably time to make the biscuits.

Dot Lyon: You know what? You're right. It's not chili without biscuits.

Wayne Lyon: No.

Dot Lyon: How about you two go set the table, huh?

Wayne Lyon: Oh, well, I was thinking chopsticks.

Scotty Lyon: For chili?

Wayne Lyon: Come on.

Dot Lyon: [to Munch] Whatever it is you think you came here for, we're halfway to supper and it's a school night. So either you wash your hands and you help, or we do this another time.

Ole Munch: A man-

Wayne Lyon: Y'know, I was thinking...

Ole Munch: -has a code.

Wayne Lyon: ...I might have a beer. What do you think?

Dot Lyon: Let's do it.

Ole Munch: He has a code, and the code-

Scotty Lyon: [tapping Munch] You're in the way.

Ole Munch: [sighs and steps aside] The code is ev-

Wayne Lyon: [handing Munch and Dot beers] Here you go.

Dot Lyon: Thanks, hon.

Wayne Lyon: Yah.

Dot Lyon: Ok, so I'm gonna tell you a little secret. It says to use water, but I use milk. Even better, buttermilk. So, go ahead and measure out a cup.

[Munch stares confusedly at the measuring cup]

Scotty Lyon: [pointing at the line on the measuring cup] This one's a cup.

Ole Munch: Thank you.

Dot Lyon: Mmhmm. Pour it in there. [Munch pours in the buttermilk] OK, then, you add just a little honey. I'm assuming he paid you to come here - Roy - and do what you did. Maybe you're feeling sideways about it, 'cause of what it cost you. A partner. An ear. You go ahead, stir. [Munch stirs the batter] You took a job that had a risk to it. You got hurt. You can't be mad at the risk. That'd be like getting mad at the table you stubbed your toe on.

Wayne Lyon: I might have gone over the deep end on the spices.

Dot Lyon: I know you had a mom back there, across the sea. And she loved you. If someone came for her, don't you think she would've done whatever it took to get back to you?

Ole Munch: You say that as if life is a circle, but it's a line. Mother is the start. This is the other side.

Dot Lyon: Well, I don't know what that means. What I'm saying is it's a choice. You made a choice.

Wayne Lyon: Well, personally, I never been across the sea.

Dot Lyon: Nope.

Ole Munch: By long boat, we came. Three dozen men pulling at the oars, the rain so heavy some drown in their seats.

Wayne Lyon: Jeez.

Ole Munch: First in forest, then on grassland. The man's hair grew long. He rode the horse without saddle or reins, and the people of the plains were his people. But then came the cannon and the musket and he was alone once more. For a century he spoke to no one.

Wayne Lyon: Hmm. I don't know if I could go an hour without talking.

Scotty Lyon: Daddy does sales.

Wayne Lyon: Yeah.

Dot Lyon: Daddy likes talking.

Scotty Lyon: A lot.

Wayne Lyon: Yeah. You ever drive a Kia, Mr. Munch? It's like flying a cloud.

Dot Lyon: I think we should see how your biscuits turned out, huh?

Ole Munch: Before the boat, the man lived on the moors and ate fleas from the rats. He was frightened all the time. Then one day, a man comes on a wealthy horse and offers him two coins and a meal. But the food was not food.

Dot Lyon: What was it?

Ole Munch: It was sin. The sins of the rich. Greed, envy, disgust. They were bitter, the sins. But he ate them all for he was starving. From then on, the man does not sleep or grow old. He cannot die. He has no dreams. All that is left...is sin.

Dot Lyon: It feels like that, I know. What they do to us, make us swallow. Like it's our fault. But you want to know the cure? You got to eat something made with love and joy. [Dot hands Munch a biscuit] And be forgiven.

[Munch bites the biscuit, chews, smiles, and begins to sob]

Cast

Season One

Season Two

Season Three

Ewan McGregor - Emmit and Ray Stussy
Carrie Coon - Gloria Burgle
Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Nikki Swango
David Thewlis - V. M. Varga
Michael Stuhlbarg - Sy Feltz
Shea Whigham - Moe Dammick

Season Four

Chris Rock - Loy Cannon
Jessie Buckley - Oraetta Mayflower
E'myri Crutchfield - Ethelrida Pearl Smutny
Jason Schwartzman - Josto Fadda
Ben Whishaw - Rabbi Milligan
Jack Huston - Odis Weff
Salvatore Esposito - Gaetano Fadda
Karen Aldridge - Zelmare Roulette

Season Five

Juno Temple - Dorothy "Dot" Lyon
Jon Hamm - Roy Tillman
Jennifer Jason Leigh - Lorraine Lyon
David Rysdahl - Wayne Lyon
Sienna King - Scotty Lyon
Joe Keery - Gator Tillman
Lamorne Morris - Witt Farr
Richa Moorjani - Indira Olmstead
Dave Foley - Danish Graves
Sam Spruell - Ole Munch

External links

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has an article about:

Fargo (TV series)

Official website
Fargo (TV series) quotes at the Internet Movie Database
Fargo at Rotten Tomatoes