Varga launders his criminal money through a shell company called Narwhal. Narwhals have been theorised as a possible origin for the myth of the Unicorn, whose horn is supposedly inspired by the Narwhal's spiraling tooth. When introduced, Varga muses that Emmit and Sy never thought to question Narwhal lending them $1M with no strings attached - a situation so lucky as to be comparable with meeting a mythical beast - and in coming episodes, much focus is given to Varga's own malformed teeth...
During his interrogation of Nikki, Moe Dammik claims the world is simple by using the analogy "Mash a potato, know what you get? Mashed Potatoes." This seems like just the setup of a Brick Joke later in the episode, until one realizes that the analogy is wrong... to make mashed potatoes, one has to boil them first, and ordinarily add other ingredients. Even in his figures of speech, things are more complicated than Sheriff Dammik realizes they are.
Varga's bulimia actually reveals a great deal about his character. If it was only because he hated fat people, then why gorge on food rather than, say, abstain from it? Well, he leaves no leftovers or anything to be trashed. What he eats ends up purged in the toilet. Varga is so obsessed with possession that he'd binge and purge rather than risk anyone grabbing food from under his nose whether it be a homeless person dumpster-diving behind the restaurant or a bus boy grazing upon the remains before clearing the table.
Reinforcing the theme of wanton, predatory consumerism: anytime a fridge is left open in this season, someone dies soon after.
Nikki becoming the messenger on behalf of Paul (who is implied is the Wandering Jew) is underlined when Gloria hears from the IRS (based on Nikki's tip off). When Gloria gets the call, she's holding a Wandering Jew plant.
Among the many references to the Torah and/or the Old Testament, Emmit signposts the parallels between the Stussy brothers and the story of Jacob and Esau when he confesses to Gloria. Ray Stussy has a mustache and long hair, and as a young man his high tennis socks thinned out his leg hair - like Esau, he was "a hairy man". Emmit, smoother of face, traded his car for Ray's stamps - like Jacob getting Esau's birthright for a bowl of stew.
Later, when Emmit tries to give back the stamp, the pattern holds - like Esau, Ray refuses his humble gift. Unlike the Biblical story, the incident ends in one brother's death. Even this still has its roots in the text, though - Ray is stabbed by a piece of glass in his neck. In Genesis 33:4, when Esau sees Jacob again, the scripture says he "fell on his neck".
The ambiguity of the final scene is a paradox created by the nature of the TV show's story structure. Typical Coen Brothers films such as No Country for Old Men demonstrate that law enforcement officers are prejudiced, lazy and incompetent (save for a plucky minority), demonstrating the overall corruption of the institutions they represent; the entirety of Fargo, from film to TV show, demonstrates that evildoers are always punished and the world always returns to a quiet simplicity. V. M. Varga ought to be punished; but at the same time, he can't be, because Homeland Security is just another component in a corrupt system. Whatever happens, it will be true to the spirit of Fargo.
This all then reflects on the lesson of the opening scene of the first episode - in certain cases, for the individual to be correct, the State would have to be incorrect, and here, it's vice versa. Morality doesn't come into it: the system is binary.
Season 3 is rife with settings in which multiple characters have been murdered in previous seasons - elevators, public toilets, quiet motels - only to subvert the frightening expectations that these settings create for the viewer.
In the opening scene of Episode 1, a German man named Jakob Ungerleider is told that he is being arrested under the name Yuri Gurka, for the murder of Helga Albracht, Yuri's girlfriend. Jakob has lived in his apartment for only six months, but the registered occupant is Yuri, so that must be him, and he must be culpable for Yuri's crimes. Jakob insists that Yuri is not his name and that he has murdered no-one, but the police insist that for him to be right, the State would have to be wrong, which is unthinkable. What Jakob has is "a Story" and what the State has is "Truth". The scene is a summarisation of the core components of Fargo: This Is A True Story, one in which the establishment will always prefer the tidier, convenient version of events than the mess which actually happened.
This is echoed in Emmit Stussy's final scene. When Emmit looks at the photos on the fridge, five years after escaping death at the hands of Nikki Swango, he is telling himself a Story: the story of a kind, successful family man, who got himself in some trouble a while back after making a bad deal but ultimately triumphed and got his life back together. Immediately after, he is shot in the head by Mr. Wrench, because he cannot escape the Truth: that he is a spineless embezzler and culpable in multiple murders. To underline this link, the same haunting choral version of the show's theme can be heard as both scenes end.
And as though to underline it further: in the final scene, Gloria Burgle tells V. M. Varga that he's to be thrown in jail for his crimes, while she takes her son to the State Fair, and things will work out as they are meant to. Varga's opinion is different:
Those final four words - delivered with emphatic stubbornness from David Thewliss as Varga - are a hidden clue. The phrase "So Help You God" is used as part of the oath, in American courtrooms, to get a defendant to tell the truth. Whatever the case in reality, Varga at least believes that his version of events is the Truth, and Gloria's is a Story.
Wrench and Nikki's brilliant plan to rob Varga starts with her throwing a grenade into his van which doesn't blow up - when Meemo examines it, it turns out to be a paperweight. Only a few episodes earlier, Varga had told the apocryphal story of the second attempted assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, and WWI. The initial attempt failed because of a grenade which didn't blow up...
Paul Marrane's message, passed to Nikki - "Though thou exalt thyself as the Eagles, though thou make thy nest among the stars" - makes more sense when you notice that behind them are the stars and stripes. The 'wicked' Paul is referring to is not just Emmit - it's everyone whose crimes have been covered up by the machine of American bureaucracy.
When Yuri Gurka is given the "message" from Helga Albrecht and the Rabbi Nachman, Yuri has a vision of Helga, leading the many victims of his ancestors, the cossacks. When we last see Yuri, blood is flowing from a wound at his ear down to his throat - reflecting the fact that he strangled Helga to death. When we see his vision, Helga is wearing the same outfit she had on at her moment of her death (as established by the photo shown in the prologue).
The man imprisoned by the state under Yuri's name does not appear, perhaps implying that twenty-two years later he is still rotting in a jail cell for a crime he did not commit.
Emmit Stussy's death later in the show mirrors Yuri's - we see his face framed in the camera, followed by black-and-white images of those he has loved and wronged, after which he dies thanks to wounds inflicted by Mr. Wrench.
Varga's final offered aphorism - "If there's one thing I cannot abide, it's waste" - seems a strange philosophy for a bulimic. But it chimes perfectly with his conception of waste - resources expended on those who would not exploit it, usually anyone other than himself. He'd rather eat more than he can comfortably digest, then vomit it up, than let anyone else enjoy it; he'd prefer to live a Spartan lifestyle in the back of a truck than pay rent or mortgages; his sole interest in Stussy Lots is to bleed it of all its resources then sell it on for cheap instead of letting it continue to function.
This also, like Ayn Rand (whose last name he borrows as an alias), makes him a hypocrite. He is opposed to anyone lower than himself wasting resources but is happy to throw away food, resources, human beings in order to save his own neck.
Expanding on the above point regarding the ambiguous ending, it can be argued that Gloria Burgle - and by extension, law enforcement in general - doesn't deserve to win. Varga states in the penultimate episode that "The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?". Within his mercenary look at the world, 'good' people are mere meddlers and peasants getting in the way of progress.
