Follow TV Tropes

Following

Characters / Fargo (Series): Other Criminals

Go To

Click here to go back to the main page. Click here to go back to the character page.

    open/close all folders 

Season 1

    Lorne Malvo 

Lorne Malvo

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/malvo_lorne.jpg

Played By: Billy Bob Thornton

"There are no saints in the animal kingdom. Only breakfast and dinner."

Some might call him a drifter, others a gun for hire, others still a spirit or trickster, or devil. Lorne Malvo moves from place to place turning people's lives upside down. Sometimes he does it for money, sometimes for fun. He has killed many people, but he is not a serial killer. He has stolen sums large and small, but he is not a thief. The fact that there is no crime he won't commit, doesn't mean he's a criminal by any definition you'd understand. The truth is, he is fascinated by the search to find the weakness in everybody that he can exploit, to see what it takes to turn a civilized person into an animal.


  • Above Good and Evil: He sees himself as such, as someone who has more in common with an animal and whose morality has evolved beyond what normal people have.
  • Actor Allusion: In the scene where Malvo confronts Rundle demanding to know who was sent to kill him, he tells Rundle that one phone calls an ambulance, another a hearse, depending on his answer. The ambulance vs. hearse is a clear reference to Karl's (Billy Bob Thornton) last conversation with Doyle in Sling Blade.
  • Ambiguously Human: He at the very least implies that he's literally Satan in human form.
  • Animal Motifs: Wolves and canines in general, such as his insistence that the world is already "dog eat dog" just one scene before he kills Milos' dog, his horrifying story about a woman being raped by a dog, and the wolf that hangs outside his hideout in the finale. In the same episode, wolves were a frequent sign of his appearance, by either a physical appearance or by howling. Fittingly, it's Gus, who primarily worked animal control, who finally kills him.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: During the pilot, he dismantles all of Lester's arguments about why he shouldn't retaliate against his abusers by simply and repeatedly asking him "Why?".
  • Ax-Crazy: Calm and charismatic he may be, make no mistake. Deep down, he's a totally sadistic psychopath ready to ruin and/or kill anyone just to ease his boredom.
  • Badass Longcoat: Brings the tough guy mystique back to leather dusters. He's also the most dangerous individual of the season. Lorne Malvo has nerves of solid steel, is capable of killing dozens of people by himself, and quickly takes control of any situation no matter how dangerous it is. Malvo is so downright unstoppable it borders on inhuman. An early example is in the second episode: he's sitting in his motel room when Stavros's head of security Wally Semenko barges into his room and angrily threatens him, ordering him to get out of town and drop the business of the blackmail letter. Semenko is a lot bigger than Malvo, but not only does Malvo not seem threatened, he doesn't even say anything; he just goes into the bathroom, drops his pants, sits on the toilet, and takes a dump in front of Semenko, as if to demonstrate that he regards Semenko as no more intimidating or important than a fly or a cockroach.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: In relation to Lester, at least. Malvo succeeds completely in corrupting him and destroying his life, resulting in Lester's death.
  • Bad Samaritan: His entire character. He will come into your life when you're at a low point, offering support and encouragement and you will end up wishing you'd never spoken to him.
  • Beard of Evil: Sports one of these.
  • Big Bad: The events of Season 1 can be traced back to his actions.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He's quite fond of pretending to be a harmless, good-natured old man to cover the monstrous sociopath he truly is.
  • Boom, Headshot!: His preferred method of executing targets and how he himself is ultimately killed.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: The sociopathic Malvo does not operate like a normal human being. Although he is absolutely 100% evil and willing to ruin or take lives at the drop of a hat, he does show respect to those who willingly take him on. Just ask Mr. Wrench.
  • Can't Get Away with Nuthin': He never gets caught for any of his crimes, but he never seems to profit from them, either. Malvo doesn't seem to mind, however. His pleasure seems to come from the hunt.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: He literally implies to Lou that he's the Devil in human form while enjoying a slice of pie.
  • The Chessmaster: The man loves to toy with others and he is exceptionally talented at it. Malvo treats regular people, law enforcement, and fellow criminals as pawns to play against each other for his own twisted amusement.
  • The Comically Serious: Sometimes. Even in front of the most embarrassing situation, he keeps a cool expression. His sarcasm probably helps, too.
  • Consummate Liar: He is an absolutely flawless liar, easily adopting the persona of a nebbishy minister when questioned by police.
  • The Corrupter: In the course of a single episode, he turns the sons of Sam Hess against each other, convinces a young man to urinate in his employer's gas tank then informs the employer, and gives Lester the courage to kill his wife. Malvo takes great pleasure in corrupting others. It's shown that at some point in the past, he convinced another man to get into a similar situation to Lester's, causing the man to kill himself. Taken up to eleven in the first season finale, when it's shown that he has an entire suitcase full of taped conversations with people like Lester that he has corrupted.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: It's a bad idea to trust him. Milos, Don, Mr. Rundle, the people who hired him to kill the dentist's brother, the damned Fargo Crime Syndicate… he betrays them all.
  • Cop Killer: He murders Vern in cold blood.
  • Crazy-Prepared: He spent six months learning dentistry to pursue a mark.
  • Create Your Own Villain: Malvo manipulates and corrupts people to ruin their lives for fun. Unfortunately, his corruption of Lester winds up creating a just as manipulative and ruthless opponent with a vested interest in killing Malvo.
  • Creepy Souvenir: He keeps tape recordings of people he's manipulated toward chaotic, messy ends, including Lester. Chillingly, he's seen listening back to the tapes during his leisure time, relishing the lives he's destroyed through manipulation alone.
  • Deadpan Snarker: One of his few emotions beyond annoyance and amusement.
  • Devil Complex: He stylises himself as the devil and is an amoral psychopath who manipulates the downtrodden into ruining their own lives. He tries to scare Lou by comparing his apple pie to the forbidden fruit from the garden of Eden.
  • Devil in Disguise: A comment he makes to Lou in his diner would indicate that if he's not, he certainly thinks he is.
    I tell ya, that's the best pie I've had since the Garden of Eden.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: The embodiment of this. Malvo's modus operandi is to show up in people's lives and gradually ruin their lives out of sadism, before moving on and starting over.
  • Didn't See That Coming: Lester's bear trap and Gus hiding in wait to kill him.
  • Dies Wide Open: His eyes stare lifelessly forward after Gus puts a bullet in his head.
  • Dragon Ascendant: Lorne appears to work as a contract killer for some mysterious organization that loans its services to various crime families. Once Lorne feels threatened, suspecting his superior sold him out to the Fargo mob, he wastes no time traveling to his location and killing him.
  • The Dreaded: Absolutely everyone is utterly terrified of Malvo, and with good reason.
  • Enigmatic Minion: He tends to insert himself into people's lives in a subordinate role, and everything about Malvo is shrouded in mystery. It's clear he finds ruining lives fun, but nothing else about him is elaborated on, and the only hints he gives are quite possibly lies. If Malvo is to be believed, he may even be the Devil himself.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: In the scene where Malvo wants to set up Don Chumpf to be killed by a SWAT team, he initially aims his rifle sights at some pedestrian bystanders, then reconsiders and decides that shooting up a car would be enough to achieve his aims. This suggests that while Malvo enjoys killing or harming his hits, enemies and anyone who gets in his way (or just irritates him), he takes no particular pleasure in killing innocent, anonymous by-standers.
  • Evil Mentor: To Lester. Under Malvo's guidance, Lester ends up killing his wife and weaving an elaborate web of lies to avoid being indicted and prosecuted for his crimes, caring not at all about how many lives he ruins in the process. This backfires terribly, as Lester grows devious enough to outsmart Lorne himself, directly leading to his death.
  • Expy:
    • With his weird haircut and stoical sadism, he brings to mind Anton Chigurgh. Malvo, on the other hand, is a little more expressive and takes joy in things... awful things, sure, but he takes joy in them.
    • He's also one to Gaear Grimsrud from the film; a stoic, merciless sociopath who has no qualms about shooting you in the back of the head if you've inconvenienced him in any way. Though Malvo is a lot smarter and more manipulative than the thuggish Grimsrud.
  • Evil Sounds Raspy: His voice is gravelly cold.
  • Face Death with Dignity: He's oddly calm about the fact that Gus is going to kill him. He's also quite complimentary towards both Wrench and Don when they make their attempts.
  • Failed a Spot Check: As cunning and competent as he is, it probably didn't occur to Malvo when he arrived at Lester's hideout to kill him that Lester may have laid a trap underneath the piles of clothes on the floor. He also didn't expect Gus to be lying in wait back at his cabin; to be fair to him, his leg had just been crushed by a bear trap and that threw him off a tad.
  • False Friend: His modus operandi. He'll pretend to be your friend and utterly destroy you before you see his true nature.
  • Fatal Flaw: His fixation with the animal kingdom and Social Darwinism completely blindsides him to the possibility that Lester, AKA Mr. Extreme Doormat, could possibly outsmart him.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Like any great manipulator, he can turn on the charm with ease and is fully capable of tricking people into thinking he's their friend. But Malvo is nobody's friend.
  • For the Evulz: This seems to be his sole motivation for most of what he does and he seems to have little interest in anything like money or power. He was supposed to make $100,000 for killing the dentist's brother, but he gives up the job because he decides it's more fun to mess with Lester. Malvo just wants to watch the world burn.
  • Freudian Excuse: It's implied through dialogue that he may have had an abusive father, but he could have just been doing his usual thing of commenting on the darker, hidden side of human nature.
  • Hate Sink: Malvo is a manipulative, sadistic, treacherous murderer who ruins people's lives for shits and giggles while murdering anyone who get in his way. His icy demeanor and professionalism only masks a heartless bastard who you'll be rooting to get his comeuppance.
  • Hero Killer: He murders the kindly Vern Thurman in cold blood in the pilot episode.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Possibly. He hints to Lou that he's literally the Devil in human form, and given the series's use of Magical Realism, it's possible that Malvo is telling the truth. However, nothing Malvo does indicates he is anything beyond an unusually skilled but ultimately ordinary man, and it certainly wouldn't be out of character for Lorne - who lives his life around being The Corrupter - to have a Devil Complex.
  • It Amused Me: When he's not killing professionally, Lorne is entertaining himself by causing chaos in general.
  • Jerkass: When he isn't actively manipulating people, he's terse, rude, and makes no effort to hide his disdain for everyone he encounters.
  • Karmic Death: Malvo considers himself an animal, a predator outside of the human race. After being injured by an animal trap, he is killed by Gus, who worked in animal control — put down like a dangerous animal. It should also be noted that his downfall was brought about by Gus and Lester, two otherwise harmless people whose lives he changed.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: Lorne shakes the authorities at every turn, but after running into Lester after the Time Skip, both of them end up getting their comeuppances.
  • Kick the Dog: While trying to track down Lester, he takes a moment out of his day to terrify two children for absolutely no reason beyond his own amusement.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: Part of what keeps Malvo alive is that he is not afraid to abandon everything and run when things go downhill. He completely ditches his blackmail plot when Numbers and Wrench come after him, and he flees Lester's house after getting his leg caught in a bear trap.
    • When confronted by a neighborhood man when staking out Gus's place and, after a brief conversation, finds that said neighborhood man, unlike most people, isn't intimidated by his cryptic speech and idle threats, he quickly leaves.
  • Lack of Empathy: It's obvious that Malvo couldn't care less about anyone who gets hurt in his schemes or the destruction he leaves in his wake. In fact, he seems outright proud of it.
  • Laughably Evil: A rare mix of this and The Comically Serious. Malvo is completely stoic and rarely betrays an emotion beyond a sense of wry amusement, but his sarcasm, wit, and tendency to remain calm in even the most embarrassing situations make him quite funny.
  • Louis Cypher: Never confirmed, but a throwaway comment ("I haven't had pie that good since the Garden of Eden") certainly seems to be implying that Malvo is literally The Devil. He is also called "se'irim" ("hairy being", a kind of demon) by Ari. Furthermore, his name is (two letters off from) an anagram of "malevolent".
  • Made of Iron: It takes five bullets at point-blank range before he's down for good.
  • Manipulative Bastard: With a few well-placed words and a charismatic air, Lorne Malvo plays people against each other quite easily. Lester, Stavros, Don, and countless others are nothing but pawns to him.
  • Master Actor: He can adopt and discard new personas with ease and is capable of fooling people for months at a time.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: There are multiple hints that imply that Malvo is actually the Devil himself, but it could just as easily be that Malvo is simply a remarkably intelligent and manipulative sociopath with a Devil Complex. Word of God is that Malvo is just an ordinary man.
  • Meaningful Name: Malvo is malevolent. He also shares his sur-and-forenames with famous murderers — beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo and Connecticut spree killer and arsonist Lorne J. Acquin.
  • Mysterious Past: Lorne has no ties to anyone or any place. Where he even came from or the events that led to him being the way he is are both left ambiguous.
  • Noodle Incident: Lorne’s many anecdotes are extremely bizarre, morbid and disturbing. Then again, he might just be making them up to psych people out.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: After killing Sheriff Thurman, Malvo walks down into Lester's basement. When Lester follows him down to kill him, he finds that Malvo has vanished into thin air.
  • One-Man Army: Lorne manages to slaughter the entire Fargo crime syndicate in their headquarters in under the course of a minute, all while two hapless FBI agents sit outside, totally unaware.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Malvo doesn't really care who he kills or screws over, but a lot of his targets tend to be criminals or otherwise unpleasant people. It's more about enjoyment and self-preservation, and Malvo has no compunction about murdering innocent people if it benefits him somehow... or if he feels like it.
  • Playing Both Sides: Malvo greatly enjoys making people battle one another while he oversees the chaos from afar. He does this most notably with Stavros Milos and Don Chumph.
  • Playing Possum: When Gus shoots him three times, he seems to try to fake dead, but then he starts coughing up blood, which prompts Gus to finish him off. Though it's also possible he genuinely did die for a second before snapping back to life.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Malvo is undeniably a sadist, but he won't kill needlessly if it doesn't benefit him or his plans. He chooses to just threaten Gus into backing off rather than kill him at the end of the pilot, but shows no hesitation about killing Vern, likely because he planned to ruin Lester's life... and what better way to do so than to frame him for killing a cop?
  • Professional Killer/Psycho for Hire: He seems to be a freelance killer for hire, but also seems to be doing what he does just for the fun and challenge of it, having no issue with dropping an deep-cover assignment he spent six months of preparation on if a more interesting target arises.
  • Reminiscing About Your Victims: He's seen privately listening to an audio tape of a man whose life he helped destroy as he shoots himself and he has a brief case full of tapes, presumably of similar incidents with other people he corrupted.
  • Sadist: Malvo is only able to derive joy from hurting people, and specifically manipulating people so they hurt each other. The fact that he gets paid for his job as a hitman seems to just be a bonus point.
    Malvo: 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 bounty down the toilet...still. The look on his face when I pulled the gun? Classic, huh?
  • Satanic Archetype: He is immensely, if falsely, charming, completely untrustworthy, and an expert manipulator who looks for weak, frustrated people at low points in their life and pretends to be their friend or to care about them in order to tempt them into doing awful things and abandon their morality and sense of restraint, ruining their lives. In the season finale, he even claims to be The Devil, or at least is aware of the similarities, and takes a great deal of pride in them.
  • Serial Killer: When he's not being hired to kill people, he ruins lives just for fun or to mess with people. He even likes collecting mementos in the form of audio tapes of the people he helped ruin and we see him listening one in private. He's technically more of a serial corrupter, but the men he corrupts always wind up dead anyway.
  • Silver Fox: He becomes strangely attractive after the timeskip, with the white hair to match. At any rate, he's able to attract a gorgeous younger blonde. It probably helps that he got rid of his ridiculous fringe.
  • Slasher Smile: He shows one before being killed by Gus. For a guy who was stone-faced most of the time, this is quite unnerving.
  • The Sociopath: While it was fairly clear from the start he was probably this, it's no longer up for debate when, on one of his jobs, he spends about six months setting up a fake life. Within this life, he becomes close friends with a dentist, who thinks of him as a brother, and even gets engaged to a young woman who loves him. Later, he guns down both his fiancé and the dentist (along with the dentist's wife) with zero hesitation after Lester kind of blows his cover. He expresses no feelings beyond amusement about how terrified "the fat one" (the dentist) was when he pulled out the gun.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: He never raises his voice for the whole Season. Not even when he's visibly, genuinely angry. He always talks in a raspy, smooth, and cold voice.
  • The Spook: Nothing concrete is known about him, and it's unlikely "Lorne Malvo" is even his real name. His personal history and origin is never revealed. In essence, he's a ghost.
  • The Stoic: He generally doesn't have a wide range of emotions beyond irritation and amusement, and remains perpetually calm.
  • Troll: Malvo really likes to fuck with people; even his pursuit of money seems to be for the purpose of fueling his "hobbies".
  • The Unfettered: When Malvo wants something, he'll do anything to get it, regardless of how many people he backstabs or kills in the process. Nobody is safe from Malvo, and he never shows the slightest spark of remorse or uncertainty. Even when Gus’s neighbor Ari does not kowtow to him, Malvo nevertheless gets the last word and manages to leave with a smile on his face while Ari is left feeling disturbed.
  • Villain Has a Point: While it's all part of a plan to corrupt Lester, Lorne accurately critiques his Extreme Doormat personality and how it's ruined his life. His advice about Lester needing to become more assertive would be quite helpful if he weren't advising him to murder the people he hates at the same time.
  • Villainous Valor: Malvo might be a vicious bastard, but he does have respect for those who take him on willingly.
    • He visits Mr. Wrench in the hospital to congratulate him on coming so close to killing him, and even gives him the key to his handcuffs so he can come looking for revenge when he heals up.
    • He is genuinely stunned when Lester bashes him over the head after the Vegas elevator murders. After recovering from the hit, he doesn't attempt to shoot Lester while he runs away, merely replying with an ominous "see you soon".
    • Malvo seems proud of Gus for confronting him at the end of the season, after he had given in to Malvo's intimidation back when he was working as a police officer. He doesn't try to escape or shoot Gus (granted, he had just gotten his leg caught in a bear trap), and finally dies with a big smile on his face after Gus shoots him.
  • Wild Card: Malvo's only real motivation is to ruin lives for the sheer enjoyment of it, which means he'll betray people at the drop of a hat if it means making them suffer. Notably, he betrays pretty much everyone he works with at one point or another.
  • Withholding Their Name: Given his occupation as a hit man, Malvo often switches aliases and identities and does not often use his real name. It’s debatable whether Malvo even is his real name, considering he only identifies himself as such on his first visit to Bemidji.
  • Worthy Opponent: Tied into the Villainous Valor. The only reason he doesn't off Wrench like he did Numbers is because he came close to killing him.
    Malvo: You came close. Closer than anyone.

    Don Chumph 

Don Chumph

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chumph_don_4056.jpg
"I'm gonna start a Turkish bath."

Played By: Glenn Howerton

A bit dim-witted by nature, Don Chumph is the personal trainer and eye candy to many of the middle-aged women in Duluth's local gym. Despite his low IQ, however, Don has bigger goals in mind... goals that may not be entirely legal.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: He was a ditzy crook, sure, but he didn't deserve the senselessly cruel death he got.
  • Batman Gambit: He poorly attempts one on Stavros with the blackmail letter, and becomes the victim of one through his death.
  • Big "NO!": Or Big WAIT!, right before a grenade explodes in his living room.
  • Blackmail: He attempts this on Stavros, even though he doesn't have any blackmail material. Chumph 'reasons' that someone as rich as Stavros must have some skeletons in his closet. Malvo quickly hijacks his plan. He also inexplicably asks for an incredibly specific amount of money, the exact amount he calculates he'd need to found the business he wants to start.
  • Character Death: Malvo sets Don up to be gunned down by the police.
  • The Ditz: Case in point: Used self-bronzer before sending out a blackmail note. It's how Malvo tracks him down.
  • Expy: Of Chad Feldheimer from Burn After Reading — a dim-witted personal trainer who, ahem, overestimates his skill at extortion.
  • Manchild: He gives off this impression due to his idiocy, uncertainty, poor planning, and trusting nature.
  • Meaningful Name: His name is literally 'Chump'... with an H, but still.
  • Stupid Crooks: Not exactly a criminal mastermind.
  • Suicide by Cop: Unintentional on his part, Malvo just sets it up to look like he's firing at the squad and he gets blasted to smithereens.
  • Too Dumb to Live: By far the least intelligent character the show has to offer. He manages to beat out Bill Oswalt and the Hess brothers for sheer idiocy.
  • Walking Spoiler: Giving away a lot of his character would give away part of the impact of Buridan's Ass.

    Mr. Rundle 

Mr. Rundle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/can_i_sit_or_did_you_want_to_kill_me_standing1_8.jpg

Played By: Brian Jensen

"But you gotta understand, this is a business of relationships... It's not my position professionally to get involved in squabbles. Especially not of a private nature."

A Reno-based handler of hitmen, including Lorne Malvo.


  • Awful Wedded Life: He used to be married to a Korean woman named Georgia who spat at him during sex. He despises anything that reminds him of her, to the point where he refuses to do business in the state of Georgia despite having operatives in all of the other 49 states.
  • Consummate Professional: He wishes to avoid getting personally involved in any problems that may arise from the nature of his business.
  • Face Death with Dignity: When confronted by Malvo, he responds with withering sarcasm.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: He handles not only Malvo, but a number of other Professional Killers who are presumably almost as dangerous.
  • The Handler: He's the one who tells Malvo who to kill.
  • Murder, Inc.: He manages one that has operatives in every state but Georgia.
  • Non-Action Big Bad: Despite the sort of people he has in his employ, Rundle is decidedly not combat capable.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: He's the one who dispatched Malvo to murder Phil McCormick in the first place, which led to the accident that caused him to meet Lester Nygaard, setting the plot in motion. He's also the one who tells Malvo where to find the Fargo syndicate, leading to the destruction of the organization.
  • Uncertain Doom: It's unclear whether Malvo killed him or merely wounded him, as he threatened to do either. Lorne goes straight to the Fargo mob HQ afterwards, which implies Rundle cooperated with his demands and was allowed to live.

    Phil Mc Cormick 

Phil McCormick

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/phil1.png
"Please. For the love... I got kids."

Played By: Dave Trimble

"T-tell him... t-tell him I-I'll pay it all back, I-I swear."

An accountant with gambling problems.


  • The Gambling Addict: He has unpaid debts from gambling losses. When he is unable to pay, his debtees hire Malvo to kill him.
  • Hope Spot: He manages to get out of Malvo's trunk and run away, only to freeze to death.
  • I Have a Family: He begs Malvo for mercy by invoking his children, to no avail.
  • Kill It with Ice: Freezes to death after escaping from Malvo's trunk.
  • Mistaken for Pedophile: One of his coworkers believes he slept with a 13-year-old girl.
  • Undignified Death: Dragged out of his office by his tie, stripped down to his underwear, thrown in a trunk, then dies of hypothermia in the woods.

Season 2

    Skip Sprang 

Skip Sprang

Played By: Mike Bradecich

A down-on-his-luck typewriter salesman who gets in over his head when he makes a deal with Rye Gerhardt to convince a judge to unfreeze his bank accounts so he can buy a new model of typewriters.


  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He once again over-reaches when he tells Dodd he could cut a deal with him and Mike Milligan for Rye because he has "capital". Predictably, it doesn't work (in fairness, he was out of his mind with fear at that point).
  • Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: He gets the attention of Mike because he was drunkenly bragging about having a Gerhardt working for him.
  • Buried Alive: How Dodd ultimately kills him, mainly because Skip was the main witness to Rye's crimes.
  • Everyone Has Standards: As unscrupulous as he may be, even he is freaked out when he hears that Rye killed the Judge and two other people.
  • Expy: To Jerry Lundegaard. Skip is also an overly ambitious and cowardly businessman who overestimates his importance in the grand scheme of things, and gets in over his head when he turns to criminals to try to expand his capital. The main difference is that Skip is not quite as ruthless as Jerry.
  • The Fool: Somehow Skip manages to evade death at the hands of Mike Milligan or capture by the police out of sheer mercy/luck. His luck runs out, however, when Dodd buries him alive.
  • The Gambling Addict: Why he's in debt in the fist place.
  • Guilt-Ridden Accomplice: Downplayed, but he's freaked out enough about the Waffle house shootings that he nearly confesses to the police what happened, but chickens out at the last second.
  • Nervous Wreck: He's sure one squirrely fella.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: Had Skip not asked Rye to cut a deal with and/or intimidate the Judge, things would have worked out very differently.
  • Talking Your Way Out: His usual M.O. While he has some luck with Mike and Rye, he comes to a dead end when confronted with Dodd.
  • Trapped by Gambling Debts: Why he starts business with the Gerhardts.
  • Work Off the Debt: He's now in debt with the Gerhardts, and as such, now works for them.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Dodd kills him after he extracts any potential useful information from him.

    Richard Armbruster 

Richard Armbruster

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/armbruster.PNG
"Watch and learn, Joe. Watch and learn."

Played By: Jeff Clarke

"Joe, there's not a politician in this state wouldn't take my call in the middle of dinner."

The Fargo Zoning Commissioner who allies with the Kansas City syndicate.


    Mort Kellerman 

Mort Kellerman

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/s02e04_13.jpg

Played By: Kai Lennox

"Hey, kill the king, be the king."

A 50s-era gangster who killed Dieter Gerhardt.


  • The Don: Of the Fargo underworld, briefly.
  • Faux Affably Evil: In his dealing with the Cannons, his attempt at cordiality are painfully fake.
  • In the Back: Stabbed in the back of the head by a young Dodd Gerhardt.
  • The Kingslayer: He killed the man who controlled the Fargo underworld.
  • Posthumous Character: He's been dead for 28 years during the events of Season 2.
  • Smug Snake: He seems to have a rather high opinion of himself.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Shot Dieter Gerhardt in the head 19 times. It might not be overkill, considering just how monumentally dangerous the Gerhardts are.
  • The Usurper: Otto Gerhardt believes Kellerman usurped his rightful place as king of the Fargo underworld.
  • Unexpected Character: He shows back up for a minor role in Season 4 antagonizing The Cannons.l
  • Would Hit a Girl: He open fire on the Fadda household, despite it being full of civilians, killing two women.

Season 3

    Maurice Le Fay 

Maurice LeFay

Played By: Scoot McNairy

"I mean here I am, I'm trying, you know. Not hurting anybody, anymore."

A dim-witted drug addict on parole who is tasked with stealing Emmit's stamps by Ray.


  • Affably Evil: He may have violently murdered an old man, but he never seemed like an unpleasant fella.
  • Bait the Dog: In the same vein as Rye Gerhardt from the previous season, Maurice's scenes run the gamut of silly, pitiable, and brutal. In one moment, he's strung out on drugs, then he's trying to get self-help via a counseling session over a cell phone, then he's tortured and killed an old man, and then he's back at Nikki's place flip-flopping between dangerous and incompetent.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: He seems like a goofy ditz up until he murders Ennis after breaking into his home. Though there is some doubt that he actually did it.
  • Death from Above: Nikki drops an AC on his head while he is standing outside of a building.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Attempts to invoke this by criticizing Ray for attempting to steal from his brother. Given that he'd just seemingly tortured and killed an innocent old man on the attempted robbery, it falls flat.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: He's dead by the end of the first episode, but his actions are the catalyst for everything else that happens in the season.
  • Stupid Crooks: On a show where one of the main points is that amateur criminals are often desperate, panicky, and dim, Maurice manages to stand out as a true idiot.
    • 1. Despite being on parole and having to perform a standard urine test, Maurice turns to drugs seemingly without even thinking about trying to trick the test.
    • 2. While getting high and driving to the theft he's been hired to commit, he loses the directions.
    • 3. He assaults a gas station clerk while tearing a page out of the phone book (and later tells Ray he "covered his tracks").
    • 4. The above happening after he drives 75 miles to the wrong town.
    • 5. After getting to the wrong address thanks to the phone book, he somehow mistakes a man in his late 70s/early 80s for Ray's brother, whom he then kills. Then he brings Ray a set of normal stamps, which is not what he asked for even remotely.
    • 6. He tries to blackmail his parole officer, which would involve turning himself in.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Dead by the end of the first episode.

Season 4

    Oraetta Mayflower 

Oraetta Mayflower

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oraetta_mayflower.jpg
"How does it feel to be so right and know that nobody cares?"

Played By: Jessie Buckley

"The Devil's got a special place in Hell for small minds who betray their better's trust."

An eccentric, racist nurse. Her fetish for killing patients inadvertently sets the main events of the season in motion after she murders Donatello Fadda, the local crime boss.


  • Abusive Parents: It's heavily implied that her mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy and was intentionally making her sick throughout her childhood.
  • Bondage Is Bad: She likes to tie up and choke her sexual partners, which is presented as an extension of her pathologically violent nature.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Oraetta is a laundry list of eccentricities evident to anyone who talks to her for more than five seconds, from her odd and precise manner of speaking to her penchant for talking in the third person and her strange beliefs and tangents. This is a rare example that's played for drama; Oraetta's bizarre way of thinking is anything but harmless and ends up facilitating much of the season's conflict, directly and indirectly.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To all three of the prior seasons' primary villains. Lorne Malvo, Hanzee Dent, and V.M. Varga were all implacable, Chigurh-esque forces of evil with wide-ranging, nebulous schemes who drive the plots of their seasons in motion with nearly every action they do. Oraetta differs in a number of ways; firstly, she's female, making her her predecessors' Distaff Counterpart, and she represents a quieter — if no less wicked — form of evil than them. Oraetta has no major plans besides covering up the existence of her own serial killings, is far from implacable (her own undoing happens ultimately because she wasn't thorough enough in disposing of one of her victims), and while she is still responsible for facilitating the events of the season through the murder of Donatello Fadda, it's in more of an Unwitting Instigator of Doom type of way, the consequences of which not rounding back to her until the last episode.
  • Creepy Souvenir: Collects items from her victims.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Warped as it is, Oraetta still continues to speak fondly of her equally-insane mother in the present day, affectionately referring to her as her "patron saint".
  • Face Death with Dignity: In the finale, she realizes that she's going to be killed for murdering Don Fadda, but declines to beg for her life, instead resolving to put on some makeup. Her only request before dying is that Bulo kill Josto first so that she can watch.
  • Freudian Excuse: A lot of Oraetta's psychosis seems rooted to her mother being a woman with Munchausen-by-proxy, who deliberately kept Oraetta "sick" and bedridden with imaginary diseases all throughout her childhood. Oraetta's comments in the present day seem to confirm she came out of the ordeal so psychologically warped that she still believes her mother had nothing but good intentions for her.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: She's able to get away with her crimes until she tries and fails to kill Dr. Harvard. After that, everything starts to catch up with her. Her subsequent attempt to kill Ethelrida also backfires badly, drawing her into the Smutney family's weirdness. And then the Faddas get ahold of her.
  • Minnesota Nice: She has a charming Midewestern facade that hides her racism and cruelty.
  • Outside-Context Problem: The last thing either side of the Mob War expected was for the boss of the Fadda Family to be smothered in his bed by a random nurse.
  • Refuge in Audacity:
    • Caught red-handed attempting to kill a patient, she blatantly lies her ass off, claiming that she's being set up by incompetent doctors. She raises enough of a stink that her boss agrees to give her an extraordinarily generous severance package, including two months' wages and a letter of recommendation.
    • Finally at the end of her rope and staring down the barrel of the Faddas' gun side-by-side with her erstwhile sexual partner Josto, Oraetta's only request before dying is a casual "oh, can you shoot him first so I can watch?" — to which she is granted, much to her delight.
  • Sadist: Downplayed compared to other psychos like Malvo or Varga and hidden under her cheery Minnesota Nice act, but the depth of Oraetta's fetish for murdering people becomes increasingly obvious as the season goes on. She has a closet full of trophies picked from the infirm patients she's murdered, she opts to keep murdering people even when rehired with a clean record at another, more prestigious hospital, and she stops to watch Harvard choking on one of her poisoned macaroons with a long grin before going to rifle through his cabinet.
  • Serial Killer: Oraetta has a hard-on for killing bedridden patients, describing herself as their "Angel of Mercy." Though we only see her murder Donatello, she's interrupted in the process of trying to kill another old man and her records make it clear that she's been in the business for a long time.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: She uses a lot of very elaborate words, ostensibly so that nobody will misunderstand her.
  • Starcrossed Lovers: A very twisted version with Josto. He is also completely unaware of just what a dangerous and disturbed woman Oraetta is until she reveals she killed his father before both are executed by the Kansas City Mafia.
  • Technically a Smile: She twists a side of mouth more than the other, giving the impression of an unsettling smirk.
  • Third-Person Person: Oraetta Mayflower does refer to Oraetta Mayflower in the third person sometimes.
  • Villain Takes an Interest: She's fascinated by Ethelrida's intelligence.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Nurse Mayflower has almost nothing to do with the overarching Fadda/Cannon gang war, nor does she even seem aware of it for most of the season despite entertaining an affair with Josto Fadda, but none of the season's bloodshed would have occurred had a bedridden Donatello Fadda not been placed into Oraetta's "care".

    Owney "Yiddles" Milligan 

Yiddles Milligan

Played By: Ira Amyx

The long-deceased head of the Irish criminal outfit the Milligan Concern, and Rabbi's father.


  • Abusive Parents: Yiddles used his own son Rabbi as a bartering chip, not once but twice, trading him off to his rival criminals for years on end while still expecting Rabbi to kill for the family. It's very little wonder Rabbi decided to betray his old man and ultimately kill him.
  • Depraved Homosexual: Yiddles' mugshot lists some of his offenses as "buggery" and "perversion," and it's disturbingly indicated that he's an outright pedophile when Josto brings up that Owney "did things you shouldn't ever do to children" during his time in Yiddles' care.
  • Dying Curse: His final words to his own son, who betrayed him in favor of the Faddas, is to pronounce a curse on him and his children. This curse metaphorically passes in episode 9: Rabbi is seemingly killed by a tornado, Satchel is left alone, and a bandaged figure heavily implied to be Yiddles himself appears before Satchel not long after the fact.
  • Hate Sink: He has more screentime than his own predecessor Liev Moskowitz, who's nearly a non-entity, yet not enough to demonstrate the sympathetic qualities of any of the Faddas or the Cannons. Subsequently, Owney is made as vile as possible to preserve sympathy for his son for killing him and to make the Faddas A Lighter Shade of Black compared to him; Owney is a mass murderer, a horrendously abusive parent, and a pedophile whose shadow still hangs over Rabbi and Josto.
  • Not Quite Dead: In episode 9, a creepy bandaged man played by Ira Amyx in the East/West hotel appears to Satchel shortly after Rabbi's apparent death in order to tempt the young boy into coming closer to him. Given the highly metaphorical nature of the scene, it's impossible for this to be the real Yiddles, but the show seems to imply his ghost or some other aspect of him stuck around long enough to see his curse on his son through. Notably, among many other maladies, the biggest wound this "ghost" is nursing is a has a thick layer of bandage around his forehead, approximate to where his son shot him.
  • Would Hurt a Child: One of the perishingly few onscreen child murderers in the series when he has his own young son Rabbi murder the youngest son of the Moskowitz syndicate. Making him extra loathsome is the heavy implication he sexually abused a young Josto for three years during his time among the Milligans.

Season 5

    Ole Munch 

Ole Munch

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fargo_s5_ole_munch.png
"She could be found. Where people go, the thoughts they have, these are known to me. Instincts. Who flees, who fights. It's a question of price."

Played By: Sam Spruell

A thug hired by Roy Tillman to kidnap his former wife Dot Lyon.


  • Ambiguously Human: Either Munch had a distant relative 500 years earlier who looked exactly like him, or he has a previous job as a Welsh sin eater and has been lurking around ever since. It doesn't help that we see him performing a pagan ritual covered in goat blood.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Saves Dot from getting killed by Roy's thugs in episode 9.
  • Break-In Threat: He breaks into the Tillman home, entering the twins bedroom and drawing an occult symbol on the wall in blood from the guard. He does this all without waking the girls sleeping in the room meaning that whatever is meant by the symbol the threat to Roy and his family is clear.
  • The Comically Serious: While he's normally just plain terrifying, his grim, shamanic intensity is occasionally amusing when he's acting against dimwitted crooks like Gator Tillman. Crosses fully into this during his final scene, where he's completely at a loss amidst the Lyons' cheerful domestic life.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Lorne Malvo from the first season. Both are dangerous, highly ruthless Ambiguously Human criminals with similarly bad haircuts. The main difference between them is Lorne likes doing things For the Evulz and corrupting average people like Lester Nygaard. Ole, meanwhile, is a hired gun with a firm if somewhat opaque moral code, and his employer Roy Tillman is already thoroughly corrupt.
  • Cop Killer: He and Ireland wound Witt and kill Witt's partner when they get pulled over. Later on, he expresses his displeasure with Roy trying to have him executed for failing to bring in Dot by killing Gator's partner and pinning a message to the body written in blood.
  • Decoy Getaway: Knowing Gator is coming for him via a tracking device, he places the recently-murdered corpse of Irma’s son in a rocking chair, visible from the upstairs window, and rocks it back and forth from afar while he hides.
  • Ear Ache: Dot manages to partially sever his left ear with the blade from one of Scotty's ice skates. He's subsequently forced to sew it back on himself.
  • Enigmatic Minion: His motives for getting involved in the kidnapping in the first place are clearly financial, but everything else about him is enigmatic to say the least.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: When he arrives in Bismarck, ND, he begins squatting in the house of an elderly, alcoholic woman. Although she is clearly not his actual mother, he refers to her as "Mama" and treats her rather gently, even borrowing her coat and car to go out and threaten Roy. Later, he is outright devastated by her death and avenges her by humiliating and blinding Gator.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: After his centuries-ago immigration, Munch lived peacefully among the Native American tribes until they were conquered by European colonists, which still saddens him in the modern day.
  • Expy:
    • Of Gaear Grimsrud from the film. Both are quiet, Scandinavian-accented thugs hired to commit a kidnapping, who work with a dumber and chattier partner. Ole is slightly more talkative compared to Grimsrud, but not by much. The similarities are heightened when he murders Irma’s son with an axe from behind, in an identical way to Gaear murdering Carl.
    • He also has things in common with the Germans of The Big Lebowski, from his manner of dress to self-identifying as a nihilist, engaging in a kidnapping plot, and enjoying pancakes.
    • His attire, hairstyle and borderline-supernatural competence at times make him bear a resemblance to Anton Chigurh. His final confrontation with Dot is intended to mirror Chigurh's meeting with Carla Jean Moss — unlike Carla, Munch's intended victim triumphs over his principles and ends the conflict peacefully.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: According to him, he grew up so poor that he just needed to do whatever he could to survive everyday without thinking about any long term wants or desires. If he really was a Sin Eater, he was once so poor that he would condemn himself to ostracism and eventual damnation for just a piece of bread, a cup of wine and some coins. Now he is a terrifying, possibly supernatural hitman capable of waging a one-man war against a major militia and a gang of Killer Cops simultaneously.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: He breaks into the Tillman compound wearing nothing with only a covering of mud and goats blood smeared across his body. He manages to kill a guard possibly with his bare hands before escaping.
  • Heartbroken Badass: Munch is clearly distraught and furious after the death of his landlady Irma.
    Munch: An old woman watches young men play a game. She drinks. She drinks because her own son has spit the nipple from his mouth. She bothers no one. And yet, you killed her.
  • Heel–Face Turn: In the finale, Dot and her family's kindness convince Munch to give up his life as a killer, reform, and forgive himself.
  • Man in a Kilt: His anachronistic clothing includes a knee-length kilt, which is emphasized by repeated shots of his legs during the shootout at the Gas n' Go.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: He might be a 500+ year old Welsh Sin Eater or just the descendant of a sin eater who happens to resemble his ancestor. His goat sacrifice also falls under this, he might be supernaturally empowering himself through animal sacrifice and ritualistically anointing his body with blood and filth, or he might just be using the ritual to work himself into a frenzy and the blood filth to make him more intimidating. Overall characters seem unsure if he is some kind of vengeful spirit or just a very terrifying man. It's confirmed in the season finale by Munch himself that he is in fact a Sin Eater, his life extended by practicing this dark art.
  • Meaningful Name: In addition to sounding like a relatively normal Norwegian name, he's quite possibly 500 years old, which is about as "Ole" as it gets, and had to "Munch" on the sins of the deceased.
  • Mugging the Monster: He is on both ends of this trope.
    • When sent to kidnap Dot, he was told she was a housewife and went with limited preparation and Donald Ireland for backup. After she manages to partially chop off his ear with an ice skate and badly burn Ireland with a hairspray flamethrower, he starts treating as a more serious threat even before she escapes to the gas station.
    • After he returns to Tillman empty-handed and demanding payment plus pain and suffering, the sheriff tells Gator to kill him to avoid paying and hide their connection to the murders. Roy and Gator think that Munch is just an incompetent crook who couldn't handle a simple kidnapping, so they lure him to an out building on their property and have Gator and two associates ambush him. Despite being unarmed, he manages to disarm Gator, break his wrist, use him as a human shield, shoot both guards, then vanish.
  • Noble Demon: Munch is a merciless hired thug and Cop Killer, but he has a code of personal honor. He respects Dot for fighting her would-be kidnappers, and refuses to allow his landlady Irma to be abused by her junkie son. When Gator accidentally kills Irma, Munch takes revenge in her name, and eventually turns full Anti-Hero by rescuing Dot from Tillman's deputies.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: One of his many possibly supernatural powers. He can do things like ambush a man at a mostly deserted gas station in the middle of an empty field, write a message in his blood, then get away in less than a minute without being spotted. One scene even has the camera pan down a second floor hallway before panning back to show him calmly sitting on the bed in a room that was empty seconds ago.
    • In "The Useless Hand," he is able to transport Gator to an ice fishing shack in the middle of God knows where, then walk him back to the Tillman Ranch in less than a few hours (while also bypassing the militia Roy has summoned). When he kicks Gator back to Roy, Munch simply vanishes into the fog.
  • Outdated Outfit: His clothes are subtly old fashioned, consisting of an overcoat, shirt and kilt, all undyed and in coarse fabrics with large fasteners and buckles. It looks like an outfit that fits a medieval peasant farmer or New England pilgrim just as well as someone living in 2019. He later wears the furry longcoat of the elderly woman ("Mama") whose house he is squatting in.
  • Politically Correct Villain: In stark contrast to the Tillman family, Munch does not discriminate based on race, gender, or creed. After being bested by Dorothy, he is not offended at the thought of being bested by a woman and even develops a strong respect for her, but not enough of a respect to avoid hunting her again if the pay is good enough. Later, when Roy gives him an innuendo-riddled conversation about the virility of bull, Munch shuts him up with a simple "Meat is meat". Finally, after being betrayed by the Tillmans one too many times, he gives Munch's version of a lengthy speech rejecting their bigotry.
    Munch: 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.
  • The Quiet One: Munch gets several lengthy monologues but outside of those he mostly talks in short clipped sentences. When describing his long life to the Lyons in "Bisquik," Munch mentions that he once went a full century without speaking to anyone.
    Munch: A man has only so many words in his lifetime. For us, there are very few left.
  • Sackhead Slasher: While abducting Dot, he wears a sackcloth mask contrasting with Ireland's balaclava, making him appear both more old-fashioned and more threatening.
  • Screw the Money, This Is Personal!: Munch is primarily a killer for hire and is willing to forgive betrayal in exchange for a large enough payout. Once he has been pushed too far by Gator killing Irma while attempting to double cross him a second time, Munch refuses bribes of money, drugs, guns, or sex to get his revenge.
  • Self-Surgery: He sewed his own ear back on offscreen after Dot partially severed it.
  • Sin Eater: Munch or one of his ancestors was a Sin Eater in Wales all the way back in 1522. In the fifth season finale, Munch reveals this was indeed him, and that he turned to it because he was so poor it was his only option.
  • The Sleepless: Assuming his origin story is true, his sin-eater's curse prevents him from sleeping or dreaming.
  • Third-Person Person: Munch tends to refer to himself using “a man” or “Munch” rather than using “I” or “Me”.
  • Tragic Villain: He's a literal Sin Eater who can't sleep and age like any normal human being and never once felt happiness and love.
  • Vague Age: His official bio in supplementary materials says he “might be 30 or might be 60”. Flashbacks within the show add the possibility that he might be far older than 60.
  • When He Smiles: It's usually gloomy-looking and even sad at times. [[After Dot however makes him taste her biscuit which, as she said, was prepared with love he probably for the first time in his own life genuine smiles happily as he finally ate something which wasn't a sin.]]
  • Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Gator and Roy are unsure whether "Ole Munch" is a criminal alias or just a bizarre name. note 

    Donald Ireland 

Donald Ireland

Played By: Devon Bostick

Another hired criminal who works with Ole Munch.


  • Camping a Crapper: Dot hits him in the face with a bag of ice as he tries to ambush her in the gas station bathroom, and he falls backwards and cracks his skull on the toilet bowl.
  • The Can Kicked Him: He dies slipping on ice and falling backwards into a toilet bowl shattering it with his head.
  • Open Heart Dentistry: After receiving serious burns to the left side of his face he becomes convinced that he needs medical treatment. He also insists that Munch needs to take him to a vet “like in the movies”.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: His disguise for the break-in/kidnapping at the Lyon house is a loose-fitting balaclava that leaves a lot of his face exposed, and a jacket over a work outfit including a name tag with his real first name on it.
  • Stupid Crooks: He is an incompetent criminal in general, showing up to a home invasion in a work shirt with a poorly concealed name tag, and takes off his mask while searching for Dot in her house for no reason other than he's sweaty. Later, his failure to disguise the stolen pickup truck before using it in the kidnapping causes him and Munch to get stopped by the police, setting off most of the events of the season and directly getting three people killed, including himself. Munch later says he would not have agreed to do the job with Ireland if he knew how dangerous Dot was and would have hired an associate who cost three times as much for the job.
  • Suspicious Ski Mask: His ill-fitting balaclava contrasts with Munch’s more intimidating sackcloth mask and helps establish him as the more incompetent of the pair.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Ireland is only featured in the first episode, and gets almost no characterization before his death at Dot's hands.

Top