- Molly begins to suspect that Lester is involved in the murders, but her boss points her in a different direction. Meanwhile, Malvo investigates the plot against a man known as the Supermarket King.
- "Fargo" - "The Rooster Prince" - April 22, 2014
Two men drive down the highway with the snowy expanse on either side. They are stoic. One is bearded, the other clean-shaven with sideburns. They meet up with Max Gold at Sam Hess's trucking company. They say they're from Fargo but don't give names. Sideburns appears deaf and communicates with beard with sign language. Sideburns is sad that Bemidji has no library. Max agrees. Beard says Fargo wants to know what happened to Sam. Max reports he was stabbed in the back of the head at a strip club. The two men exchange a lot of sign language. They wonder if the killing was tied to the business. Max tells them about the visit from Lorne Malvo (although he doesn't know his name). He describes him, vaguely. They gesture again to one another. Max says Sam was his friend. Yes, he was a jerk but deep down he was Max's friend and he asks if they're going to find who did it. Sideburns gestures with the slashing throat move and Beard says they'll find him.
At the post-funeral gathering for Pearl at Kitty and Chaz's, Chaz invites Lester to stay and talks about selling the house. Lester wonders why he'd sell the house. Chaz says he doesn't have to but he should stay a few days while the cops clean up the messy crime scene. Lester flashes back to the shooting of Vern.
Later, Lester returns home and sees the crime scene himself including Vern and Pearl's pools of blood.
Molly visits Vern's grave.
At Vern's house his widow Ida takes care of the company that has come to comfort her. Molly does the dishes. Ida recalls a story Vern told about a boss he had who was killed by an errant hailstone. Molly talks about when her dad got shot during a traffic stop and how they came to tell her at school and that he was okay, even though he limps now. Bill comes in and tells him that they have a whole team of people worked out to come by and take care of Ida and help on the day of the delivery.
Molly says she wants to talk to Lester again about the whole Vern situation. Bill tries to put her off saying Lester already gave his statement. She says Vern was going over to talk about Hess and how Lester was maybe involved. Bill says Lester was a fainter in high school and he thinks the Hess murder is about the cutthroat world of regional trucking. He thinks it's a coincidence that Hess was murdered and then the massacre the next day at Lester's. Bill thinks it was a home invasion by a drifter. Molly and Ida convince him he should still talk to Lester but he says he's going to do all the talking.
Lester is still wandering through his house. He goes to Pearl's closet and smells her clothes and begins to wail with grief and remorse. Just then, Molly and Bill show up. He pulls himself together to answer their questions at his kitchen table. He mostly says he was concussed and has double vision and doesn't remember much. (He does, however, remember the grape gum they chewed as kids: Hubba Bubba.) He remembers his wife being dead on the floor, didn't hear the guy, and then he was attacked so he didn't remember Vern coming to the house. She mentions that Vern was there to talk to him about a man he met in the ER the day before. He says he doesn't remember this. Bill jogs his memory that Sam bullied him in high school. Molly is interested in this. Lester says he wasn't talking about Sam in the ER and the nurse must've mistook it when he said "My face is a mess" which sounds like Hess. She asks him to describe the guy. Lester says it's fuzzy. Bill shares his drifter theory and thinks it might be the guy from the hospital followed him home. Lester reiterates that he's fuzzy. Bill says he's satisfied. Molly says she has more questions but Bill drags her out. Lester says Pearl was a good wife and he keeps asking himself, who could've done a thing like this.
Lorne goes to a post office and quietly menaces the clerk into giving him a package without signing for it or giving his name or showing ID. It's a hardcover book called "American Phoenix: The Stavros Milos Story." This must be his new target. There is also a wallet inside with a fake ID that makes him a minister. He tells the clerk to have a blessed day.
Stavros Milos is the supermarket king of Minnesota. Lorne goes to see him. Milos has someone blackmailing him or a very specific amount of money: $43,613. He doesn't care why he just wants Lorne to find him. As they talk, Milos' security guy Semenko-- a big, older linebacker-type guy-- gives Lorne the stink-eye. He wanted to take care of the problem himself and not farm it out to Lorne. While they're talking Milos' adult son who appears developmentally disabled enters to tell a joke: "What's a karate expert's favorite beverage? Kara-tea. Get it?" Milos kicks him out. Lorne says he can find the guy and wants to know what Milos wants done with him. Milos wants to have Lorne "send 'em packing." He says to start with his soon-to-be-ex-wife who is suing him for half of his empire. Lorne asks Milos to sign his copy of the book. He then leaves and promptly steals a car someone left running as they brought their cart back to the store.
We see Gus Grimly in a police briefing at the Duluth Police Department. The briefing is on the Vern Thurman/Pearl Nygaard murders. The chief is saying they told Bimidji they'd let them know if they heard anything. Gus looks at the ticket that he didn't give Lorne that night. Later he wrestles with a dog, he's subbing on animal control duty.
He heads home and has dinner with his daughter. Burgers and chicken nuggets. As he changes out of his uniform he sees the woman across the street also changing her clothes. She sees him through the window and gives him an eyeful of herself in her lingerie, intentionally. He turns away and heads back to eat with his daughter. (The woman is having dinner with her family across the way: husband and children.) She reports they had an assembly on bullying at school. She says she asked what to do if the bully was bigger than you or had a knife and she was told to tell an adult. Gus agrees. She says she would do something to stop the bully anyway and assumes he would too since he's a cop. He says sometimes there's more than one right thing and that other considerations come into play when you're confronting danger, like he thinks about how he's responsible for her and if he's in a dangerous situation he could die or worse and then there would be no one to take care of her. She says it's his job. He says his more important job is taking care of her. She still says she'd do something.
Beard and Sideburns go to the strip club and are tipped off that a regular guy at the bar named Lenny may have been the killer. They kidnap the guy and bring him to Max Gold in their car trunk. Max confirms that this is not the guy.
Lorne goes to see Milos' wife, who is working out with her trainer who is covered in bronzer which he gets on Lorne when they shake hands. Lorne claims to be a man named Frank Peterson who works for her lawyer Mike. They want to get her the best settlement possible and says they estimate Milos' worth at $10 million. She says it is far north of that figure. He asks if she can confirm that Milos started the business from an inheritance from an uncle like he says in the book. She says one uncle died as a child and the other was a drunk. Just then Milos' son enters and Lorne/Frank distracts him with a joke: What kind of bone would a dog never eat? A trombone. He likes this and says his dad will like that one. She trash talks Milos and the son says he's his dad and she's his mom and everything is going to work out and she hugs him to her breast.
At his motel, Lorne listens to the call he taped of Lester calling him and telling him about his dead wife. He also looks at the ransom note and notices it's got bronzer on it, so it's probably the work of the trainer. Semenko bangs on his door and comes in and tells him it's time for him to butt out and Semenko will take care of Milos' problems. Lorne promptly goes into the restroom and sits down, door open, and takes a poop. Semenko is understandably disgusted. Lorne says nothing. He grabs Milos' book and starts reading. Semenko says he's on to him and that he warned him. He leaves, leaving the door open so anyone walking by can see Lorne pooping.
Bill calls Molly into his office, which used to be Vern's. Bill says he wants to make sure they're on the same page, that Lester isn't their guy and to call to other towns and see if there have been similar break-ins or state troopers and see if there were any suspicious stops. He tells her to leave poor Lester alone. She turns and sees office workers peeling Vern's name off the door to replace it with Bill's.
Lester goes in his basement and recovers the murder weapon, which he hid in the back of the washing machine. He then heads to Chaz and Kitty's agreeing that maybe it is a good idea for him to come stay with them. They put him in Gordon's room. In the closet, Lester finds one of the jars of urine that Chaz mentioned in the pilot that Chaz keeps there, for reasons unknown.
They all watch TV and eat dinner on TV trays, with them all complimenting Kitty. Chaz invites Lester to go hunting. Kitty says maybe Lester doesn't feel like being around guns and violence right now. Lester says he's been thinking he may sell the house and get a fresh start. Chaz says his buddy says it's a hot market. Kitty agrees saying there's bad memories in the house.
Lester goes to the pharmacy to get a topical ointment for his wound on his hand. Molly shows up and wants to ask more questions. She asks again about the ER and his broken nose. He says he just remembered something and leaves and tells Molly he's feeling harassed. He says she should be out looking for the animal that killed his wife. She notes that Pearl wasn't the only victim and her friend is dead too and it's just odd that a witness said he was talking about Sam Hess the day he died and then his wife and Vern and that Lester had differences with Sam in the past. Lester says he told her that he hadn't seen Sam since high school. She stops him as he's trying to get in Pearl's car-- his is in the shop-- and he tells her to ask Bill, her boss, who says he was satisfied. He points out his wife is dead and she's harassing him. She says she's not. He says it was a break-in and drives off.
Molly chats with her dad the next day at his coffee shop. She fills him in on the Lester/Hess connection but says Bill is putting her off. Lou says Bill has no common sense but plenty of self-esteem. She tells him Bill's drifter theory. Lou says Bill's chief so he sets the agenda. She says she knows but she goes through the timeline from the car accident to the ER to Lester's wife and Vern. He reminds her of the time when she was 5 when she was put under gas to get her teeth fixed. He calls her a soft little girl in a hard world. She says she's 31 and carries a gun. He talks about how a schoolteacher wouldn't have to deal with these problems and police work is one thing but this thing she's dealing with is likely savagery. He says if she gets married and has kids one day she needs to look in their eyes and see innocence. She says he talks a lot. Bill enters and tells him Lester called him upset and Bill says he thought they were clear that they were focusing on the drifter angle. He tells her that he's the chief and that they all have to fall in line behind him and she's off the case. But, he says it could be good for her because he's making her lead on the dead frozen guy from the accident. She leaves. Lou says he'll see her for dinner.
Sideburns and Beard let the wronged suspect out of the trunk. They knock him unconscious. They drag him onto a frozen lake. They drill a hole in the ice and dump him in it. He weakly protests, "No, wait." They head back to the car.
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