So What's The Deal With The Lindas? Explaining The Confusing Fargo S5 Arc
Was the seventh episode necessary for the Fargo Season 5 plot?
Summary
- Fargo Season 5 ended last month, leaving viewers praising the new, well-written and executed story.
- However, there is one plot line that left many viewers confused.
- Episode 7, titled Linda, blurred the line between dream and reality and left people asking questions.
- Here we answer the most burning of them.
Fargo Season 5 has come and gone, leaving us with another great story to watch and rewatch for years to come. There's a lot to think about in the story of the confrontation between the tiger housewife Dot Lyon and the villainous sheriff Roy Tillman. And there are some parts that leave you scratching your head.
In particular, Episode 7, titled Linda, left many viewers confused and asking questions. Was everything that happened in this episode real or just a dream? What exactly is Camp Utopia? When did Linda Tillman die? Let's take them one at a time.
Accident Triggered Vision
What makes the Linda episode so profound and rewatchable is that it is almost entirely a dream created by the tired and tortured mind of Dot as she prepared to confront Roy, the main monster of her life. Once you know that, on the rewatch, you see a lot of little things that connect real life and the vision.
When exactly did the dream begin?
Many viewers think that Dot drifted off while sitting in the diner waiting for her pancakes. But there is another theory.
Earlier, we see Dot almost falling asleep on the road. And fans theorized that she actually crashed and ended up in the hospital. So everything between her driving off the road and waking up in the hospital bed was an accident-triggered vision, including the diner and the truck hitting her car.
Much Needed Arc & Therapy
The episode Linda is the least praised episode of Season 5. It has an IMDb score of 7.7/10, while other episodes of the chapter don't go lower than 8.0/10. Of course, this is partly because many viewers were confused about what was a dream and what was reality. And partly because they didn't see why the Camp Utopia arc was so necessary for the main plot.
However, if you think about it, you'll see that this storyline is the most important in introducing the protagonist and the main theme of the show: domestic abuse. The writers needed to tell Dot's story in a unique Fargo way, without being too lighthearted or too dark.
That's how the dream arc came about. Dot took everything she was afraid to remember and worked through it in her vision, culminating with the puppet show. This is how we learn the horrifying truth and she can finally face her demons and prepare to confront Roy.
Camp Utopia, a shelter for women who have suffered domestic violence, symbolizes the locked box in Dot's mind where she buried her years with Roy. All the Lindas who live there are actually versions of her. And the founder of the camp, Linda Tillman, Roy's first wife, is a kind of villain, the part of Dot she blames for her trauma and eventually forgives.
In reality, Linda was killed by Roy years ago when he decided the teenage Dot would be his new wife. He buried Linda under the farm windmill with his other victims, which Dot knew but blocked from her mind. It is no coincidence that in the dream the protagonist finds the Camp Utopia postcard hidden under a windmill.
If the creators had chosen any other way than a dream puppet show to present this devastating story, it could have easily ruined the whole black comedy vibe of Fargo.