Watch the clock. Now what did Varga say “In five minutes…” then we see what, like a hour go by? Varga is fucked.
We do? I’ll have to watch that again.
No, the clock didn’t move.
Here’s something we know. Burgle isn’t naive. She knows the IRS investigation was quashed by someone high up. She knows people in authority can’t always be trusted or relied upon and that the system doesn’t always work.
When Varga tells her what he says will happen, she had (as TruCelt pointed out) a moment of doubt. She wondered if he knew something she didn’t. And she heard what he had to say. And she considered it. And she wondered. And the doubt faded.
Surmise: She knew something he didn’t.
Now, maybe all she knew was that “Jesus wins in the end.” But we have pretty strong indications that, Jesus or no, Ha Shem has a message for Mr. Varga, and I doubt He let Nikki’s failure prevent that message from being delivered in the end.
Is this the end?
I can see the story having another act, but since we won’t see it, I think it’s fair to say this is the end as far as we’re concerned. Maybe Burgle has to do battle with “a man [she] can’t argue with.” I think she’s prepared. Powerful people don’t like the light shining too close to them and Gloria Burgle shines like the fucking sun. I think she knows that about herself now. Varga is right. He won’t go to Rikers. He will vanish from the earth. But it will not be because he won.
Mere surmise.
Indeed it does. It is hard to see the minute hand but you can see the sweep second hand moving and after five minutes that’s when Gloria smiles.
I just watched the scene again. The good Dr. is correct, the clock hands move.
Tonight I will sleep happy in the knowledge that Officer Burgle’s world is just.
Lucky her.
Im assuming that had the show-makers wished us to see Varga’s ultimate downfall they would have included it. It’s not as if it was a hard scene to film. We can therefore interpret it as we wish. Varga got away scot free in my universe.
It reminds me of the Sopranos finale. I read some very detailed accounts that Tony died. We were told of numerous hints and interpretations of a death foretold. In reality I suspect the Sopranos inconclusive end was merely an artistic insurance policy drawn up by David Chase.
Just watched the finale, and meh. A disappointing end to the season, and perhaps the series.
Still not quite sure how the 1988 East German scene that opened the season fits in. A man wrongly accused by a foolish dictatorship who will be punished for a crime he didn’t commit, contrasted with Varga in the final scene, a man correctly accused by an ineffectual democracy who will (maybe) not be punished for crimes he did commit? Hmm. The last scene is meant to be ambiguous, I’m sure, but if five minutes really do pass on the clock, why does the light over Varga go dark?
Favorite lines:
“He’s a kitten now… in case you were wondering.”
“Are you familiar with the Russian saying, ‘The past is unpredictable’?”
“I’m pretty sure you made that up.”
Nice touch to have Emmit drop the stamp on the driveway so casually, given how important it’d been to him (and the plot) earlier.
Pretty irresponsible of Nikki and Wrench to recruit a little boy to lead Varga and his mooks into harm’s way.
What really became of the $200 million, do you think? Was that what Nikki left for Wrench in the metal briefcase? Or is it sloshing around in Goldfarb’s or Varga’s offshore accounts somewhere?
Nice. The five-year jump near the end from 2011 to 2016 fits well that way.
Very unlikely, I think, although there’s no reason Varga couldn’t appear in S4 or thereafter (and Meemo, too - last we saw him, he’s shot but not dead).
Agreed.
Also agreed.
Well put, and consistent with the Coen Brothers’ body of work, all in all.
Some great interviews there - thanks! The one with Olivia Sandoval (who played Ptl. Winnie Lopez) was particularly interesting, I thought.
BTW, the Wiki article on S3 says comedian Jim Gaffigan was going to play the pudgy deputy threatened by Yuri in the police station, but was unable to take part due to a scheduling conflict. Hope they get him in a future season.
I noticed in the end credits that the logo for The Littlefield Co. shows the snow-covered fence from the movie Fargo with Steve Buscemi’s voice (or what sounds an awful lot like it) saying, “Oh, jeez.”
The metal briefcase contained the two million bucks that Nikki received from Varga (in exchange for the data she and Mr Wrench stole from the semi).
No, he’s wrong. The drab lighting doesn’t help, but the second hand is the only thing we see move. There is no time jump. This is also borne out of the fact that no reviews have mentioned a time jump (none that I’ve read anyway, please point to one that does if you can) and that Noah Hawley has commented that he purposefully made an ambiguous ending that allows the viewers to decide for themselves what will happen next.
Yes, the second hand moves, and it is hard to see the minute hands. But Varga said “5 Minutes”, time passes, and Burgle smiles.
It’s still ambiguous- just because Varga isnt rescued in five minutes doesnt mean he’s going to Prison.
Sure, time passes on that first shot of the clock- about 10-15 seconds.
It’s ambiguous because we cut away before that 5 minutes.
The only time that passed was the time we spent watching the clock.
Thanks for the confirmation that the minute hand doesn’t move (beyond what would be expected.) I watched it twice and that was what I saw, but my streaming app is acting up and I can’t check again right now.
I see a lot of people saying they were disappointed in this season and the ending specifically. I’ve loved every season, but I think this is the most satisfying ending so far. Despite my surmise about what happened, I actually think it was beautifully ambiguous, and that this fits the story better than any other ending. The first season ending actually bugged me because of how conventional it felt for Malcolm to be defeated in a violent one-on-one confrontation with a good guy, given how many other narrative tropes had been avoided or inverted. I liked season two even better, and found the ending less conventional, but the thing with Hanzee becoming Tripoli seemed like a stretch to tie everything together. I didn’t get as emotionally involved with the protagonists of this season as I did with season two, so I can’t rate it quite as highly, but it was still better than season one, I thought, which was itself excellent.
The ending I was hoping for was to have someone come in and release Varga as he said, and have Varga give Burgle a snotty little lecture on justice and how it doesn’t exist without power or violence or something.
Then have him walk out of the buillding and be immediately shot by Mr. Wrench. Leave it to the viewer to contemplate the nature of justice after that.
Would have been better if Mr. Wrench came in to pick him up and then Burgle said - “an interrogation room, is that what you see?”
That’d be good.
Ooo, that’d be better.
Lord of War must have been Varga’s in-flight movie.
Channeling Nicholas Cage (as a guy named Yuri)…
I guess it is ambiguous by definition but what does Varga gain by lying about what was going to happen in five minutes?
It would be better if he thought that was going to happen and we had reason to believe that it might not…ie a higher level TSA person being removed for corruption or something.