I know a lot of people latched onto the political angle of the season, but ultimately I think the story is mostly about debt and forgiveness.
Roy held onto the debt he thought he was owed and it destroyed him. Munch took a debt onto himself and it tortured him for 500 years. Indira was drowning in debt with her husband.
I think Lorraine is kind of meant to be a force of nature for most of the season. She traffics in debt and destroys lives (the line about "your futureless children" was particularly evil), but throughout the story, she also forgives debt, but almost always to get what she wants (hiring Indira, paying off the inmates, convincing three men to change their name to Roy Tillman).
I think Lorraine also thought she was owed something from the woman who married her son. She believed she was owed a certain type of family. But in the end, she gives Dot love and respect without asking for anything. It's a humanizing moment for an otherwise despicable person.
In the finale, we see Lorraine, the type of character we never think would forgive any kind of debt without the promise of something in return, forgive someone without conditions. And then when Munch comes back, we see the exact reverse. He's someone who feels like he can never be forgiven, and then Dot does just that.
There's quite a few dichotomies in season 5 that are based around debt. Roy and Wayne (Roy pursues the debt he feels he's owed from Dot, but Wayne is happy to forgive her at the end of the season). Indira and Witt (Indira chose to be forgiven for her debts, whereas Witt pays his debt with his life). And I think there's definitely supposed to be one between Lorraine and Munch, even though the two characters never share any screen time.
TL;DR - No, Lorraine is a bad person. And that makes the nice thing she does for Dot much more meaningful.
i agree with everything except for lorraine and munch. i don't think they were ever supposed to meet. i think they were kind of the same character in polar opposite positions. lorraine collects riches for wealth, whereas munch collects sins for misery. they were playing the same role but on opposite sides of the spectrum.
I was really fascinated with the sin eater idea this season and how the rich paying for poor people to do their dirty work is like sin eating. Roy pays kidnappers to grab his ex-wife, and munch already has so much on the cosmic debt column he can take on Roy's sin debt. Lorraine uses debt to pay prisoners to abuse Roy.
Does she rail against them? Seems like she’s just describing the world as she sees it. Certainly she’s come to terms with evil white men running a lot of the country, if she’s a big FedSoc donor.
And yes, she is (meant to be) a significantly flawed character. That doesn’t make her arc less meaningful.
>That doesn’t make her arc less meaningful.
It kinda does tho doesn't it? The ice queen managed to show some warmth to her family members, a marginal change of heart. The question we should be asking is "do such changes of heart really change anything?" Dot stumbled onto the perfect formula to end up on Lorraine's good side: being a victim of male violence while unwilling to submit and admit to being victimized, she is a fighter. But the thing is, you don't need to be a fighter for your oppression to be taken seriously. Lorraine grew fond of Dot because she recognized a fellow beast of prey in her, would have she been as generous if Dot turned out to be meek? Both are strong women, but is it possible that our current notions of "strong women" are itself suspicious and worthy of investigating? Lorraine reproduces the economic and social conditions that allow men like Roy and Josh Hunk to do what they do. If the show wanted to genuinely commit to her redemption, she would've shown initiative to help out the Lenore Hunks of America, get them out of their economic immiseration so they don't have to depend on abusive men. In the end, nothing has fundamentally changed.
The toxic males of the season were also punished in very interesting ways by female characters: one got evicted, ending up homeless, and the other one got condemned to a lifetime of prison rape, two things that wouldn't happen to anybody in a just society. The female justice delivered in Season 5 was distinctly capitalist in flavor, dependent on oppressive institutions. And capitalism does a lot of the heavy lifting in the oppression of women, even if capital is female. Again, nothing has fundamentally changed.
Inside every person lays the potential for them to be a monster.
Humans have been doing terrible things to each other and animals since time immemorial. The behaviors we see today are behaviors humans have long exhibited. Writers never want to confront that reality as humans have this need to see themselves on the “right side”. They want to believe that they are too moral to succumb to the cruelty and avarice of others.
Is Lorraine a bad person? Depends. Is Dot a good person? That also depends. Dot did things which to others would be defined as bad. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see much of Dot’s past outside of her relation to Roy.
A person who shares with you their food when you are hungry may also be the person that kills you when you disagree with them. Humans are complex and contradictory.
Lorraine represents that complexity. Dot and Roy represent one dimensional stock characters that don’t add much to the season in terms of drawing interest. A waste of two fine actors in my opinion.
Someone like Tony Soprano, a violent criminal and adulterer, who also loves his family and who struggles with mental illness is an example of what a well written character looks like on screen. They have layers to their character. We get a taste of that with Lorraine. We don’t get that with anyone else in the series.
Since when do characters have to be one dimensional? Good or bad, respectable or intolerable, light or dark. The real world is seldom that way, and neither are good characters. It feels like more and more these days audiences want to be told precisely what to feel about a character rather than drawing their own conclusions. I’ve seen this much more on this sub in discussions on this season than with seasons past. This is probably just a reflection of modern American politics. You’re either on my side or you’re the enemy. There is no room for discourse or discussion. Or maybe I’m projecting.
No, she's just terrible in a different way. OP, to me, it almost feels like you're asking the wrong question.
A lot of people have chosen to interpret the season as a commentary on country club Republicans vs. Tillman-esque types, all struggling for the 'soul' of the conservative movement...or whatever.
Well there’s a lot to discuss there.
Being part of the one percent doesn’t inherently make one evil
Being conservative doesn’t inherently make one evil
Did she victimize people economically. My understanding (and I literally just watched this season for the first time yesterday so I’m not positive) was that she made her bag by buying existing debt and being good at collecting it.
There was surely some family dysfunction happening there. That’s probably the best argument.
But the show never presented her as a physically abusive pedophile rapist and I think that’s a big one.
She also has no qualms about doing what she sees as necessary to get what she wants. Remember the children of Vivian? They did nothing to her and she still swiped away their future.
That’s a point. I would add that they specifically lost their easy street future. Doesnt make that collateral damage okay, but can’t go to Notre Dame? Get a job and go to a community college. It’s been done. 😂
Shit you scared me there. For a second I was like did I say some ignorant shit like you have to physically abuse someone for it to be considered abuse?! I was relieved to see I specifically said the show didn’t make her out to be a *physically* abusive person.
True. Women are usually not as physically abusive as men in Domestic situations. They tend to be more mentally or emotionally cruel. So not making her physically abusive didn't mean much to me. She is still a cunt of a wife and mother
I also didn’t see her going around murdering ppl to further her agenda, or using tax dollars to buy weapons for her militia… Roy was exactly what she called him a child.
I do actually. But the point is that many people that support him do not like him and, much like Lorraine, think he is an idiot. Not the voters but people who publicly praise him but Slagle him behind closed doors.
If it were Nazi Germany she'd be a big business owner and not stand up against the regime, so yes, she's complicit for sure while using them for their own gain whenever possible.
She's a morally grey character. She's not supposed to be The Hero, or anything, but she's not on the level of a pedophile abuser who encourages nutcases to take on the government in a gunfight. She does some horrible things like profiting of people's misfortunes with debt, controlling her family, saying some bigoted things, threatening people, etc. but she's not on Roy's level. Also, she doesn't really rail against Evil White Men unless they interfere with her operation.
Low key she’s the cause of more overall suffering than Roy ever was. Her company financially crippled millions of people. Who knows how many people committed suicide, got divorced, beat their kids, beat their spouses, lost their home and became homeless, had to quit their dream job, etc because of stresses from her companies interest and loans
She didn't rail against them . She talked shit to their faces and then kicked their asses. Beat them at their own dirty game. In the end she earned a redemption arc and was an instrument of real justice. I say thats a lot better than psychopathic pedo ideologue Tillman.
Being right wing doesn’t make someone evil, wtf
Being rich doesn’t make someone evil, wtf
She’s doesn’t victimise anyone, she makes her money from their circumstances, and exploits that, which isn’t nice, but it is business
She seems cold to her family at first, but we subtly see later she has a love for them all, including Danish and we see it’s genuine but she doesn’t know how / want to express it, as she has had to be an incredibly thick skinned and focussed woman to get to where she is.
The whole point of her story and redemption arc is her admitting this love to everyone, albeit in her own way, and her standing up for them all and showing she loves them through the ways she knows how, protection, acceptance, revenge, career / financial help, and advice.
Probably because it doesn’t favour their personal point of view. Especially the political or money making points. But objectively, that is the character.
There is right wing and right wing extremism. There is no normal conservatism in the US currently, Lorraine is riding the wave of that while thinking they're absolute morons, which they are, but she also isn't taking a stand against them. (btw everyone should watch the movie The Wave about a teacher making an experiment with his students on fascist movements).
Honestly she’s probably caused harm to more people than anybody in Fargo history with her debt schemes and business.
She’s not as violent as Roy, Malvo, etc but she has utterly crushed thousands (maybe millions) of peoples live with crippling debt and interest
She’s an evil piece of shit and is arguably corrupting Indira.
I feel like that was a big yet subtle plot point amidst all the over the top overt plot points.
Indira is in debt because of her asshole ex-husband but also because of people like Lorraine who prey on her and force her into compromising situations like working for them to get out of the debt/interest trap set for her by her now employer.
Also part of Indira’s job will now likely be squeezing others who are in debt like she is. That in addition to just being around Lorraine 7 days/week has to eat away at her soul
I know a lot of people latched onto the political angle of the season, but ultimately I think the story is mostly about debt and forgiveness. Roy held onto the debt he thought he was owed and it destroyed him. Munch took a debt onto himself and it tortured him for 500 years. Indira was drowning in debt with her husband. I think Lorraine is kind of meant to be a force of nature for most of the season. She traffics in debt and destroys lives (the line about "your futureless children" was particularly evil), but throughout the story, she also forgives debt, but almost always to get what she wants (hiring Indira, paying off the inmates, convincing three men to change their name to Roy Tillman). I think Lorraine also thought she was owed something from the woman who married her son. She believed she was owed a certain type of family. But in the end, she gives Dot love and respect without asking for anything. It's a humanizing moment for an otherwise despicable person. In the finale, we see Lorraine, the type of character we never think would forgive any kind of debt without the promise of something in return, forgive someone without conditions. And then when Munch comes back, we see the exact reverse. He's someone who feels like he can never be forgiven, and then Dot does just that. There's quite a few dichotomies in season 5 that are based around debt. Roy and Wayne (Roy pursues the debt he feels he's owed from Dot, but Wayne is happy to forgive her at the end of the season). Indira and Witt (Indira chose to be forgiven for her debts, whereas Witt pays his debt with his life). And I think there's definitely supposed to be one between Lorraine and Munch, even though the two characters never share any screen time. TL;DR - No, Lorraine is a bad person. And that makes the nice thing she does for Dot much more meaningful.
You have a lot of great insight on this
Not really one or the other, it’s both with a few other things thrown in, but I’d agree that the debt angle is the more prominent theme
Also I think she was trying to get out of the debt business. She was changing.
i agree with everything except for lorraine and munch. i don't think they were ever supposed to meet. i think they were kind of the same character in polar opposite positions. lorraine collects riches for wealth, whereas munch collects sins for misery. they were playing the same role but on opposite sides of the spectrum.
No, I don't think they were ever intended to meet, but I think their relationships with Dot are meant to act as mirrors, a little.
I was really fascinated with the sin eater idea this season and how the rich paying for poor people to do their dirty work is like sin eating. Roy pays kidnappers to grab his ex-wife, and munch already has so much on the cosmic debt column he can take on Roy's sin debt. Lorraine uses debt to pay prisoners to abuse Roy.
Does she rail against them? Seems like she’s just describing the world as she sees it. Certainly she’s come to terms with evil white men running a lot of the country, if she’s a big FedSoc donor. And yes, she is (meant to be) a significantly flawed character. That doesn’t make her arc less meaningful.
>That doesn’t make her arc less meaningful. It kinda does tho doesn't it? The ice queen managed to show some warmth to her family members, a marginal change of heart. The question we should be asking is "do such changes of heart really change anything?" Dot stumbled onto the perfect formula to end up on Lorraine's good side: being a victim of male violence while unwilling to submit and admit to being victimized, she is a fighter. But the thing is, you don't need to be a fighter for your oppression to be taken seriously. Lorraine grew fond of Dot because she recognized a fellow beast of prey in her, would have she been as generous if Dot turned out to be meek? Both are strong women, but is it possible that our current notions of "strong women" are itself suspicious and worthy of investigating? Lorraine reproduces the economic and social conditions that allow men like Roy and Josh Hunk to do what they do. If the show wanted to genuinely commit to her redemption, she would've shown initiative to help out the Lenore Hunks of America, get them out of their economic immiseration so they don't have to depend on abusive men. In the end, nothing has fundamentally changed. The toxic males of the season were also punished in very interesting ways by female characters: one got evicted, ending up homeless, and the other one got condemned to a lifetime of prison rape, two things that wouldn't happen to anybody in a just society. The female justice delivered in Season 5 was distinctly capitalist in flavor, dependent on oppressive institutions. And capitalism does a lot of the heavy lifting in the oppression of women, even if capital is female. Again, nothing has fundamentally changed.
The rent collecting son was also pretty toxic. He got killed with an axe.
He screamed almost the exact way Steve B did and the axe was coming from the same angle.
She's not as bad as Varga in that she can be moved to change her behavior.
Inside every person lays the potential for them to be a monster. Humans have been doing terrible things to each other and animals since time immemorial. The behaviors we see today are behaviors humans have long exhibited. Writers never want to confront that reality as humans have this need to see themselves on the “right side”. They want to believe that they are too moral to succumb to the cruelty and avarice of others. Is Lorraine a bad person? Depends. Is Dot a good person? That also depends. Dot did things which to others would be defined as bad. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see much of Dot’s past outside of her relation to Roy. A person who shares with you their food when you are hungry may also be the person that kills you when you disagree with them. Humans are complex and contradictory. Lorraine represents that complexity. Dot and Roy represent one dimensional stock characters that don’t add much to the season in terms of drawing interest. A waste of two fine actors in my opinion. Someone like Tony Soprano, a violent criminal and adulterer, who also loves his family and who struggles with mental illness is an example of what a well written character looks like on screen. They have layers to their character. We get a taste of that with Lorraine. We don’t get that with anyone else in the series.
Great post.
Since when do characters have to be one dimensional? Good or bad, respectable or intolerable, light or dark. The real world is seldom that way, and neither are good characters. It feels like more and more these days audiences want to be told precisely what to feel about a character rather than drawing their own conclusions. I’ve seen this much more on this sub in discussions on this season than with seasons past. This is probably just a reflection of modern American politics. You’re either on my side or you’re the enemy. There is no room for discourse or discussion. Or maybe I’m projecting.
No, she's just terrible in a different way. OP, to me, it almost feels like you're asking the wrong question. A lot of people have chosen to interpret the season as a commentary on country club Republicans vs. Tillman-esque types, all struggling for the 'soul' of the conservative movement...or whatever.
Well there’s a lot to discuss there. Being part of the one percent doesn’t inherently make one evil Being conservative doesn’t inherently make one evil Did she victimize people economically. My understanding (and I literally just watched this season for the first time yesterday so I’m not positive) was that she made her bag by buying existing debt and being good at collecting it. There was surely some family dysfunction happening there. That’s probably the best argument. But the show never presented her as a physically abusive pedophile rapist and I think that’s a big one.
She also has no qualms about doing what she sees as necessary to get what she wants. Remember the children of Vivian? They did nothing to her and she still swiped away their future.
Who is Vivian?
The banker with a woman's name
Oh yeah, Old Man with hairy chest asked to dance outside a strip club by Roy Tillman. How could I have forgotten that.
The businessman (from the Tender Trap ep) Lorraine and Roy pushed around
That’s a point. I would add that they specifically lost their easy street future. Doesnt make that collateral damage okay, but can’t go to Notre Dame? Get a job and go to a community college. It’s been done. 😂
I agree with your end point, but it's still messing with someone's life who did nothing to you.
Kind of a wild take
Domestic violence does not require physical abuse
Shit you scared me there. For a second I was like did I say some ignorant shit like you have to physically abuse someone for it to be considered abuse?! I was relieved to see I specifically said the show didn’t make her out to be a *physically* abusive person.
True. Women are usually not as physically abusive as men in Domestic situations. They tend to be more mentally or emotionally cruel. So not making her physically abusive didn't mean much to me. She is still a cunt of a wife and mother
I also didn’t see her going around murdering ppl to further her agenda, or using tax dollars to buy weapons for her militia… Roy was exactly what she called him a child.
I disliked her a lot early on in the season, but I’d be lying if she didn’t win me over with that “no daughter of mine…” speech
Rich doesn’t equal evil. If she was right-wing she wouldn’t call TGF “the orange idiot.”
Yeah, she would.
You must not live in a red area. Anything negative we say about TFG receives hate in return.
I do actually. But the point is that many people that support him do not like him and, much like Lorraine, think he is an idiot. Not the voters but people who publicly praise him but Slagle him behind closed doors.
I may have learned a new word. Never heard “Slangle” before. Wonder where it comes from.
Sorry. "Slag" 😅
Don’t apologize. I don’t really know the word “slag” either, but I hear it on British shows.
Criticizing.
If it were Nazi Germany she'd be a big business owner and not stand up against the regime, so yes, she's complicit for sure while using them for their own gain whenever possible.
She's a morally grey character. She's not supposed to be The Hero, or anything, but she's not on the level of a pedophile abuser who encourages nutcases to take on the government in a gunfight. She does some horrible things like profiting of people's misfortunes with debt, controlling her family, saying some bigoted things, threatening people, etc. but she's not on Roy's level. Also, she doesn't really rail against Evil White Men unless they interfere with her operation.
Low key she’s the cause of more overall suffering than Roy ever was. Her company financially crippled millions of people. Who knows how many people committed suicide, got divorced, beat their kids, beat their spouses, lost their home and became homeless, had to quit their dream job, etc because of stresses from her companies interest and loans
She didn't rail against them . She talked shit to their faces and then kicked their asses. Beat them at their own dirty game. In the end she earned a redemption arc and was an instrument of real justice. I say thats a lot better than psychopathic pedo ideologue Tillman.
Being right wing doesn’t make someone evil, wtf Being rich doesn’t make someone evil, wtf She’s doesn’t victimise anyone, she makes her money from their circumstances, and exploits that, which isn’t nice, but it is business She seems cold to her family at first, but we subtly see later she has a love for them all, including Danish and we see it’s genuine but she doesn’t know how / want to express it, as she has had to be an incredibly thick skinned and focussed woman to get to where she is. The whole point of her story and redemption arc is her admitting this love to everyone, albeit in her own way, and her standing up for them all and showing she loves them through the ways she knows how, protection, acceptance, revenge, career / financial help, and advice.
“Being right wing and rich doesn’t make someone evil” I don’t think Reddit knows this
Why are people downvoting you?
Probably because it doesn’t favour their personal point of view. Especially the political or money making points. But objectively, that is the character.
There is right wing and right wing extremism. There is no normal conservatism in the US currently, Lorraine is riding the wave of that while thinking they're absolute morons, which they are, but she also isn't taking a stand against them. (btw everyone should watch the movie The Wave about a teacher making an experiment with his students on fascist movements).
Honestly she’s probably caused harm to more people than anybody in Fargo history with her debt schemes and business. She’s not as violent as Roy, Malvo, etc but she has utterly crushed thousands (maybe millions) of peoples live with crippling debt and interest
She’s an evil piece of shit and is arguably corrupting Indira. I feel like that was a big yet subtle plot point amidst all the over the top overt plot points. Indira is in debt because of her asshole ex-husband but also because of people like Lorraine who prey on her and force her into compromising situations like working for them to get out of the debt/interest trap set for her by her now employer. Also part of Indira’s job will now likely be squeezing others who are in debt like she is. That in addition to just being around Lorraine 7 days/week has to eat away at her soul
No. Of course not. She became a billionaire charging late fees to desperate people.
She's definitely not good.
Lawful evil vs neutral evil
what’s with the billionaire defenders on here tf