The radical women of Fargo

Among cop dramas, Fargo has always been unique in its focus on female protagonists. The protagonist of the movie, set in 1996, is a woman. The protagonist of the first season, set in 2006, is a woman. The second season, set in 1979, seems to break the trend by pivoting to focus on Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson), a brilliant and compelling protagonist (and moral pillar) in his own right.

And yet, as Fargo's second season unfolds, it's clear that pretty much all the most interesting characters — and when it comes down to it, the ones with the real power — are women.

Floyd Gerhardt (Jean Smart)

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In a cast that's absolutely stacked with commanding performances, Jean Smart's Floyd Gerhardt belongs at the top of the list.

For decades, her husband Otto was the leader of a massive crime family — a reign that began with bloodshed in 1950, as we learn in the flashback that opens this week's episode. But Floyd has been determined to make sure the Gerhardt family can avoid as much violence as possible during a similar transition in 1979. Otto's untimely stroke has thrust Floyd into an unexpected leadership role — and from the very beginning, it's been a a job fraught with tension. Her hot-headed son Dodd (Jeffrey Donovan) insisted that he should be in charge, and has spent the episodes since doing plenty to undermine her authority. Even if everyone was in line, Floyd is dealing with what might be the worst existential threat ever faced by the Gerhardt family: a crime syndicate from Kansas City bent on either buying the Gerhardts out or wiping them out — whichever turns out to be cheaper.

Floyd was given 48 hours to contemplate Kansas City's buyout offer, and she gives her answer — a compromise that would enlist Kansas City in a partnership without ceding complete control — at a Godfather-style sitdown with plenty of muscle on both sides. The centerpiece of this week's episode is Floyd's extraordinary speech to Joe Bulo (Brad Garrett), the no-nonsense representative of the Kansas City syndicate. "Maybe, when you look at me, you see an old woman," she tells him. "And I am 61. I've borne six children. Had three miscarriages. Two of my sons are here today. Two were stillborn."

The key to this speech isn't just Floyd's strength. It's her feminine strength. Motherhood has brought hardships of multiple types: the children she lost in the womb, and the death of her eldest son during his service in the Korean War. "The point is: Don't assume, just because I'm an old woman, that my back is weak and my stomach's not strong," she continues. "I make this deal because a counter is always better than war. But make no mistake. We'll fight to keep what's ours 'til the last man."

It's a powerful speech, but it falls on deaf ears. The Kansas City syndicate has already made its move, ambushing Otto in the parking lot outside of the hospital where he's receiving treatment. They kill Otto's bodyguards, but leave him alive — both to send a message and to avoid reaching a level of hostility that would spark an open war. Joe turns down Floyd's offer, but comments that he wishes he could have met Otto. She replies that Otto would have killed him outright the first time they met.

As fearsome a reputation as Otto has earned, it's Floyd who demonstrates the restraint of true leadership — avoiding violence both because it's bad for business and for its own sake. When she and Otto are reunited, they lie in bed together — he unable to speak, and she choosing not to. When she kisses him and gets out of bed, she's true to the speech she gave Joe Bulo. "It's war," she says, mournfully but unflinchingly.

Simone Gerhardt (Rachel Keller)

How did the Kansas City syndicate know where to ambush Otto? That's where the second underestimated woman in the Gerhardt clan comes in: Simone, Dodd's willowy young daughter. Abused both verbally and physically by her father, Simone has more ice water in her veins than anyone seems to realize. She's been hooking up with Mike Milligan, the Kansas City syndicate's most dangerous killer. When he plugs her for information, she mentions that her father would likely die before he rolled over. When Mike asks Simone if Dodd's death would bother her, she shrugs.

I love how casually Fargo reveals that Simone is the mole in the Gerhardt family's ranks, and how much it shifts the power balance between the two sides. Until now, both the Gerhardts and the Kansas City syndicate have been driving all over, fruitlessly looking for Rye. But while Simone played a pivotal role in tracking down the typewriter salesman who represented the family's biggest lead — a man Dodd subsequently killed — she also provided the information that gave Joe Bulo all the leverage he needed to pull off his big play against Floyd. Simone is a true wild card — and the fact that she's underestimated at best, and ignored outright at worst, only makes her more dangerous.

Peggy Blumquist (Kirsten Dunst)

Speaking of wild cards: What do we make of Peggy Blumquist? Since striking Rye with her car in the series premiere — and driving off with his body embedded in her windshield — she's been the driving force behind a cover-up that threatens to destroy both her life and her husband Ed's (Jesse Plemons). Peggy's curious lack of empathy has been alarming from the very beginning, and every effort to escape consequences for her actions has only made things worse.

In last week's episode, Peggy attempted to explain away the damage to the car by convincing Ed to crash it into a tree. Unfortunately, through a twist of fate, the car fishtailed, resulting in an additional dent. It's this discrepancy between the story and the reality of the situation that leads both the Gerhardts and Lou Solverson to Peggy and Ed's door.

Lou, being a talented investigator, has already figured out everything that happened, and he delivers his longest speech of the season when he pushes the couple to come clean. "Now's the time to say," he offers, after laying out exactly what happened. "Right now. Cause we can still fix this. But if I'm right, that window's closing, and you may already be dead."

Ed is ready to crack — but Peggy talks over him. She maintains the lie, knowing Lou knows it's a lie, and tells him to leave. Ed backs her up, and Lou has no choice but to take off until he can come back with some concrete proof.

The Rye Gerhardt situation has pushed Peggy to new extremes — but even in some parallel universe where she'd never crashed into Rye, she'd be fundamentally unsatisfied with her life. Ed is clearly desperate to have a family. "Can you imagine: You, me, and a baby?" he rhapsodizes shortly after they have sex. "I'll buy the shop and we'll live like three pigs in a blanket."

But she's already left the room. Peggy's dreams are narrower: She wants to be the best person she can be, and she doesn't really care whose life gets steamrolled along the way: a stranger like Rye, or a loved one like her husband. (If we eventually learn that Peggy has been taking birth control all along, I won't be a bit surprised.) To be clear, Peggy's outsized goals for herself don't make her a bad person. In a different person, in a different situation, they'd probably be admirable. She just happens to be a total sociopath.

Betsy Solverson (Cristin Milioti)

And that leads us to the parallel young couple in Fargo's second season: Lou and Betsy Solverson. The daughter of one policeman and the husband to another, Betsy is arguably more gifted than both of them, tracking down key evidence and figuring out what happened to Rye Gerhardt a full episode before her husband pieces it together. You can see the seeds of the policewoman her daughter Molly will eventually become.

Though an older version of Lou (played by Keith Carradine) appeared in Fargo's first season, his wife didn't — an omission the show never explained. Betsy's cancer, which continues to spread, seems the most obvious culprit — but one way or another, we know that she won't be a part of Lou or Molly's life in the decades ahead.

And the end may be much sooner than that. The episode includes a scene that recalls the Coen brothers' fixation on inscrutable authority figures, as Betsy's doctor invites her to join an experimental trial that will randomly assign her either a potentially life-saving drug or a placebo. When Lou asks if what she'll be taking will actually help her, the doctor shrugs. "That, I can't say. Shall I sign ya up?"

Betsy's story is much less flashy than the sprawling central narrative of Fargo's second season — but in the face of so much violence and evil, the tenderness of her tale is unbearably poignant. In a particularly heartrending moment following their visit to the doctor, Betsy gently reminds Lou to feed their daughter something more than beef jerky on their upcoming camping trip. "She's six, and she's a girl, and she's gonna have to learn this stuff," Betsy says, her voice quivering a little, as she trails off before the obvious ending to her sentence: after I'm dead.

Read more Fargo recaps:

• The myth of Sisyphus
• The truth is out there: The UFOs and aliens on FX's Fargo, explained
• Minnesota Nice vs. Evil: The moral universe of FX's remarkable Fargo