The first scene of the season. A German officer in East Berlin in 1988 arrests an innocent man named Jakob Ungerleider for a murder committed by Yuri Gurka. Despite the fact that Jakob has the wrong name, is the wrong age, is the wrong nationality, and has a wife who's very much alive and can vouch that Jakob is not Yuri Gurka, the officer in charge doesn't care. The government has a record of Yuri living in the apartment that Jakob is now living in, and rather than admit that the government's records aren't up-to-date, the officer finds it more convenient to destroy the life of an innocent man rather than act on the truth. It also sets the stage perfectly for the third season's themes of how the systems of power people rely on can be fallible and corrupt.
We see every second of the air conditioner crushing Maurice. The only saving grace is that we see it from a distance.
The Principle of Restricted Choice
A Google search of Varga's name will only result in a download that will brick your computer, but not before it sends your picture to him so his henchmen will soon be arriving to deal with you. The whole thing is one hell of a Paranoia Fuel.
Varga making clear just how much power he has over Emmit by signaling for his henchmen to abruptly wheel in several dollies of Banker's boxes to the unoccupied wing of Emmit's office space. And while leaving, he nonchalantly admits to killing Irv:
Varga: Now, you may not see much of me for a couple of days, brutal nation states and all, but Yuri and Meemo will be here to make sure everything runs smoothly. [opens the door] And, oh, yes, condolences on your attorney. What makes it so tragic is how avoidable it was. But you understand, I can't have people out there investigating things.
The Law of Non-Contradiction
The Narrow Escape Problem
V.M. Varga's creepy, understated visit with Emmit which makes it very clear just who's in charge.
The hole that the air conditioner left on Maurice's head is not a pretty sight to look at, even in the detached environment of a morgue.
The House of Special Purpose
Sy's penalty for talking to Winnie Lopez about his hit-and-run is that Varga rubs his penis inside Sy's World's Best Dad mug, then makes him drink some water from it at gunpoint. Sy manages to keep himself composed for a meeting with Ruby Goldfarb, but he completely loses it when he goes to talk to Emmit about the matter.
Varga's henchmen assaulting Nikki at the parking lot. It's off-screen but Sy's horrified expression and Nikki's screams of pain growing weaker until complete silence make it seem like they've brutally murdered her with Sy quickly driving off, with her only painfully getting back up at the last moment.
The Lord of No Mercy
The Law of Inevitability
The attempted murder of Nikki in her jail cell, while she's completely helpless handcuffed to the door and would have been doomed if Gloria hadn't finally gotten into the room.
Who Rules the Land of Denial?
The first 18 minutes of "Who Rules the Land of Denial?" are some of the bloodiest in the show's history. Highlights include:
Meemo then chasing down a couple who were passing by the same way Gaer did in the movie. Later in the episode, we see the couple's corpses lying in the snow. He killed them execution style.
Yuri killing some hunters who mistook him for a wolf off-screen and taking their arrows. One of whom is visibly a teenager.
Paul Marrane establishing himself both as a case of Beware the Nice Ones and Creepy Good. When Yuri shows up at a bowling alley in search of Nikki and Wrench, Paul is sitting next to him. Without Yuri saying a word to him, he turns and tells Yuri that he has a message from the girlfriend Yuri murdered and the thousands of Jews killed by Cossacks in the pogroms. Yuri's expression shifts and he stares off into space. Suddenly there's a black-and-white shot of his girlfriend and hundreds of Jews standing behind her, looking at him in judgement. After the Time Skip, Yuri is said to have disappeared.
Meanwhile, Varga nonchalantly poisons Sy by feeding him tea spiked with cyanide. The cyanide is on time release, not kicking in until Sy reaches the office, at which point he begins sweating, then vomits out his stomach contents, and collapses, rendered comatose.
Aporia
Just to illustrate how eager he is to stay on top, Varga does some damage control to keep Emmitt from ratting him out. He has Meemo go out and kill two random people with the last name "Stussy", recreating the M.O.s of Ennis's and Ray's murders to make those deaths look like the work of a very unusual serial killer. He even has a willing Fall Guy ready to go to prison as the fictional serial killer, all to nullify Emmitt's confession.
Gloria tries to press Emmitt on Varga's involvement. He hesitates, and we see the grinning mouth of Varga - filled with diseased teeth - superimposed over his head.
Somebody to Love
Emmitt's tiredness is explained by Varga as "the smaller animal going limp in jaws of the bigger". An image that is hauntingly similar to Varga's own haws closing around Emmitt an episode before...
The five year Time Skip that closes Emmit's story. He may have lost his company, but he's still rich, has only faced two years of probation for his involvement with Varga, his family has reconciled, and even Sy is awake from his coma, brain-damaged, but seemingly in good spirits. It appears that Emmit will finally have his happy ending, and he gets up from his Christmas Dinner with his loved ones to go to the kitchen... He's then casually shot in the back of the head with a silenced pistol by Mr. Wrench to avenge Nikki's death.
Possibly the final scene of the season, depending on how you interpret it. Varga's been captured and detained by Gloria who's now a member of Homeland Security. Gloria tells him that in a few minutes guards will walk through that door and take Varga to prison to pay for his crimes. Varga shakes her confidence by having a different theory. That in five minutes a man who Gloria can't argue with will walk through the door, tell Gloria to let Varga go, and Varga will disappear out into the world, to resume his reign of terror. The light over Varga's face darkens, leaving him completely in shadow as he sings quietly to himself, utterly confident that he'll escape justice. Gloria nervously watches the clock, and waits to see which of them is proven right. The audience never finds out.
, then makes him drink some water from it at gunpoint. Sy manages to keep himself composed for a meeting with Ruby Goldfarb, but he completely loses it when he goes to talk to Emmit about the matter.Yuri: [seating him down in the chair] Sit down my friend, you have shock...