History Recap / FargoS02E10Palindrome

The Gerhardts are virtually wiped out, with the exception of Charlie, thus permanently ending their dynasty. During the pursuit, Hanzee shoots Ed as he and Peggy flee through an alley. The pair take shelter in the meat locker of a supermarket. Ed eventually succumbs to blood loss, causing Peggy to have a mental breakdown and hallucinate that Hanzee has set the supermarket ablaze to smoke them out. However, Hanzee has since fled. Lou arrives and arrests Peggy. The two converse about life and death on the trip back to Minnesota, with Peggy finally accepting her fate. Hanzee, now provided a new identity from a confidant, contemplates his future and is last seen rescuing a pair of young boys, one of whom is deaf, from a schoolyard bully.

Milligan is promoted after claiming responsibility for wiping out the Gerhardt family, but finds that he will be working in a small office in a corporate setting. Meanwhile, Betsy has recuperated from the side-effects of her experimental chemotherapy drugs. When Lou returns home, he, Betsy, and a recovered Hank gather as a family. No one can explain the mysterious UFO seen at that shootout. Betsy then asks Hank about the strange symbols in his home office, and he explains he was attempting to create a universal pictorial language to promote better global cooperation and understanding. The three ponder what the future holds for each of them and for the family.

** Creator/AllisonTolman, Creator/ColinHanks and Creator/JoeyKing appear very briefly in Betsy's dream about the future, reprising their roles from Season One. Creator/KeithCarradine also makes an appearance as the older Lou as seen in Season One.

* CrazySane: The doodles in Hank's house are an attempt to decipher and fix the challenges and obstacles he and everyone faces day after day. Although his plan to create an universal language sounds well-meaning but ridiculous, once you take into account all the damage caused by a few misunderstandings, it comes off as more rational.

* DistractedFromDeath: Peggy hallucinates Hanzee trying to smoke her and Ed out of their hiding place and starts rambling about how it mirrors the movie she was watching that morning. She concludes hopefully that they can still get out alive... only to realise that Ed has stopped moving and won't answer when she tries to rouse him.

* HiddenDepths: Ben Schmidt is certainly an cowardly asshole on the surface, but he rejoins Lou in his hunt for Hanzee immediately after regaining consciousness, mourns the loss of his boss and fellow officers after the Sioux Falls Massacre, and parts with Lou on amicable terms.

* LaserGuidedKarma: After everything Mike did to climb to the top of the Kansas City Crime Syndicate, he finds out the reward he'd coveted so much is his own personal version of hell. Mike had lusted for a position of power, to be a modern-day king in the style of Al Capone. But as he himself said, the future cannot be stopped and he's Kicked Upstairs to a tiny office and an accounting job. It's nicely ironic that he considered the Gerhardts to be 'the past' and was such a big believer in 'the future'...it's that future that dooms him to a life of mediocrity. No more tense showdowns, no shoot-outs with your enemies, no sleeping with Femme Fatales...just golf and a typewriter.

-->'''Peggy:''' It’s a lie, okay? That you can do it all. Be a wife, and a mother, and this self-made career woman like there’s 37 hours in a day. And when you can’t, they say it’s you. "You’re faulty," like… like you’re inferior somehow. And then… like… if you could just get your act together ''until your half mad--''

* AllThereInTheManual: Yes, those two kids speaking in sign language on the baseball field are a young Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers. The episode credits reveal their first names to be Wes and Grady Numbers.

** Creator/AllisonTolman and Colin Hanks appear very briefly in Betsy's dream about the future. Creator/KeithCarradine also makes an appearance as the older Lou as seen in season one.

** Peggy and Lou's confrontation in the police car as they drive away with Peggy under arrest is a gender-flipped echo of the ending of the film ''Film/{{Fargo}}'', with a decent law officer gently confronting a murderer with their actions.

* ShoutOut: Betsy's dream at the beginning of this episode is a direct ShoutOut to HI's dream towards the end of ''Film/RaisingArizona'', another Creator/CoenBrothers movie.

* PetTheDog: When Mike and Gale invade the Gerhardt's now almost entirely abandoned home, Mike lets the elderly housekeeper live. [[KickTheDog Ricky G on the other hand...]]

* ShutUpHannibal: Lou shuts down Peggy's defense of her own actions with just a few simple words.

'''Season 2, Episode 10'''
!!Palindrome
!!!Written by Noah Hawley

->'''Peggy:''' I wanted to choose, be my own me, not be defined by someone else’s expect... and then that guy--that stupid guy--walked out into the... why’d he have to do that?
->'''Lou:''' You mean the victim?
->'''Peggy:''' No, that’s not fair. I’m a victim, too--was a victim first, before him.

Betsy wakes up in her bed next to Molly. Noreen tells her that she had a bad reaction to her pills, and Betsy goes back to sleep, dreaming about a happy future where her daughter grows older and marries, with Lou close by. Lou, meanwhile, chases after Hanzee, who shoots Ed in the leg in his own pursuit. Peggy and Ed seek refuge in a grocery store freezer, while Hanzee follows the trail of blood Ed leaves behind. Ben Schmidt finds Lou, and together they continue after Hanzee.

Peggy lays her husband down against the wall of the freezer and tries comforting him, but Ed tells her that even if they make it out alive, they’re marriage probably won’t last. Mike and Gale Kitchen, meanwhile, encounter Ricky G at the Gearhardt household, who’s stealing things in the wake of the Sioux Falls Massacre. Gale shoots him in the chest with a shotgun, but Mike stops him from a second shot so that Ricky will painfully bleed out and die.

After several tugs on the freezer door, Peggy begins to see smoke coming through the air vents. She realizes that Ed has become unresponsive, and decides to open the door despite perceiving it as a trap set by Hanzee. On the other side, she finds that the building is not on fire, and Lou and Schmidt restrain her and realize that Ed has bled out and died. Lou loads Peggy into his car, consoles a shaken-up Ben Schmidt, and drives off to put this thing to bed once and for all.

Betsy wakes up and continues to wait on the arrival of her husband, who’s currently driving Peggy back to Luverne. She wonders if she can be tried federally so that she can be put into a California penitentiary, and he recounts a story about an incident near the end of the Vietnam War, saying he understands why Ed went to the extent he did to protect his family. Peggy begins stating how she was the victim and excusing her actions before Lou shuts her up by simply stating that people are dead.

Lou calls home via payphone and learns from Noreen that Betsy fell the previous night, but that everything turned out okay. Hanzee, meanwhile, sits at a baseball field and meets with a man who gives him his new ID--Moses Tripoli. Against his ally’s wishes, Hanzee plans to start a new crime empire and destroy the Kansas City Mafia. Mike, meanwhile, is reaping the benefits of taking credit for eliminating the Gerhardt threat. Hamish Broker informs him that the actual activities in Fargo will be overseen by a team of grunts, with Mike himself working in a small office from nine to five overseeing the affairs from far away.

In the evening at the Solverson residence, Hank stops by for dinner. Betsy asks him about his room filled with symbols, which he admits is his attempt to try and overcome miscommunication through a universal language. Lou tucks his daughter into bed that night and proposes they go fishing tomorrow. He joins Betsy in bed, and the two of them fall into a happy sleep.
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** Creator/AllisonTolman and Colin Hanks appear very briefly in Betsy's dream about the future. Creator/KeithKarradine also makes an appearance as the older Lou as seen in season one.

* ArcWords: As the page quote demonstrates, Peggy calls herself the victim similarly to Lester Nygaard over the course of the [[Series/FargoSeasonOne first season]].