Fargo Review: Raddoppiarlo (Season 4 Episode 3)

Fargo Season 4 Episode 3, “Raddoppiarlo,” focuses on the wild card characters introduced on Fargo Season 4 Episode 1, “Welcome to the Alternate Economy,” and Episode 2, “The Land of Taking and Killing.”

The result is an episode that feels like a disjointed tinderbox — but one that manages to come together at the very end.

While there are a few critical scenes that focus directly on the main Cannon and Fadda conflict, most of “Raddoppiarlo” centers on Oraetta, Zelmare and Swanee, and Gaetano — the three volatile variables introduced into the tense chess game that rival crime syndicates have been playing with each other since the turn of the century.

The most bizarre and unsettling of these variables, Oraetta Mayflower, has a comparatively mild episode after she starts the chain of events playing out now by killing Donatello Fadda on “Welcome to the Alternate Economy.”

Still, the small advances in her story made on “Raddoppiarlo” are bound to have some significant repercussions in the episodes to come. Oraetta now works for the hospital administrator Josto wants dead and is inching her way more and more into his life, which won’t end well for anyone.

Any scene with Oraetta is purposefully uncomfortable. Her oddness, especially knowing her murderous inclinations, is unsettling. We know how dangerous she is even if the characters around her are still in the dark.

That makes even her most mundane moments, like getting a job, and her most innocuous comments, like saying she has ten years of experience, feel sinister and ominous.

There is a danger that the series will go too big with quirkiness and make her more ridiculous than menacing, but so far, Oraetta is one of the more exciting parts of the season and continues to steal the scenes she’s in.

Oraetta, of course, isn’t Josto’s only distraction.

His obsession with Dr. Harvad is pulling his focus from his family business. He seems pretty removed from what’s happening on the business end of things and that’s leaving space for another new variable, his brother Gaetano, to cause some trouble.

Where Oraetta is an ominous danger who’s game is not quite clear yet, Gaetano is a giant lit fuse that anyone who has spent two minutes with knows is liable to explode at any moment.

When Gaetano is introduced, it’s clear there will be a power struggle between him and Josto. Perhaps one similar to that being played out between the Cannons and the Loys with Gaetano making moves to consolidate power and push out his brother.

Instead, he is just a brute force agent of chaos with no clear strategy, just impulse and emotion.

He is so obvious in his intentions and so blunt in his actions that Josto has no one to blame but himself for being so distracted as things start to get out of hand.

As disruptive a force as Gaetano is, though, he is one of the least interesting characters. He appears as the barely contained rage that we’ve seen plenty of times before in other stories. He’s a sort of necessary plot device but not terribly intriguing in his own right.

Not every character has to be mysterious to be interesting, but Gaetano would be such a better character with just a touch more subtly.

That brings things to the last set of wild cards, Zelmare and Swanee. These two characters came out of nowhere on “The Land of Taking and Killing” much like Oraetta did on “Welcome to the Alternate Economy,” and much like Oraetta, it is initially difficult to see where they will fit into the larger story.

Now that they have robbed the Cannon’s their part in the larger narrative is coming into focus a little more.

The characters of Zelmare and Swanee are great but their story on “Raddoppiarlo” falls a little flat. They feel like relics from the past even in the 1950s. They’re part western outlaw and part 1930s gangster. They also bring a lot of fun and fresh energy to the show.

They seem to mean well, at least when it comes to Zalmare’s family, but everything is still a game to them which makes them as dangerous and unpredictable as Oraetta and Gaetano, even if their hearts are in the right place.

Their story on “Raddoppiarlo” gets a little lost in everything else going on during the episode, though, and they lean too hard into the vomit and gas during the heist scene to the point that it becomes unpleasant.

Maybe it’s a result of high expectations but even though their scenes are basically solid, they’re still a let down given how fun the characters are and how well they both actors play them.

Despite a rather lackluster outing for them, I’m excited to see more of these two and learn about what has to be their pretty wild tale.

“Raddoppiarlo” feels disjointed and uneven but the show does manage to tie things together pretty satisfyingly at the end.

After the attempt on his oldest son’s life and being robbed by Zalmare and Swanee, Loy tries to make sense of what’s happening. He tries to find the meaning that he can respond to but there is none.

He is so intent on being three moves ahead that he can’t see the board is being flipped.

The tension between the families’ need for control and the new lack of order introduced by these 4 characters pulls “Raddoppiarlo” together and keeps it on track even if it’s not as successful as the first two episodes.

What did you think of this episode of Fargo? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Fargo airs Sundays at 10/9c on FX.

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