There’s an old concept of a ‘sin eater’. By eating that meal next to the corpse, he took on the dead man’s sins. The dead man was presumably a wealthy nobleman who could afford to pay off somebody to do that. There’s the implication he’s trapped in a form of purgatory until he’s sufficiently expiated those sins.
The show seems to tie this to the concept of debt. People, often otherwise good people, still get trapped in a cycle of debt they can’t get themselves out of, to the benefit of the wealthy.
In the case of Munch, he’s trapped in a similar debt spiral but one of sin rather than money. Or at least that’s how I read it
So, he was in monetary debt for whatever reason, and clearly very poor and hungry. In payment of his financial debt he agreed to take on a spiritual one, by symbolically eating the sins of the deceased man.
Sin-eaters were real, but I’ve never heard any lore that they became immortal, or lived extended lives because of it. The idea was that they would serve out the term in purgatory that would otherwise have been served by the deceased. Kind of like paying someone else to go to jail for you. The Cohen Brothers have this one serving out his term on Earth, I guess.
Noah Hawley, anyway. The Coens are producers and clearly creative inspirations, but he’s been the one running the show. It’s also not the first time he’s put a mild supernatural spin on things. Since it’s already Season 5, probably best to just accept it and roll with it
It’s never clear how mild-mannered Dorothy became such an expert at survival. Surely Roy Tillman didn’t teach her how to turn a can of hairspray into a flamethrower, or how to pick locks, or improvise booby traps, but she does all that and lots more. She might have picked some of that up through osmosis, being in proximity to Roy’s Patriotic War-Scouts, but they wouldn’t have allowed her to take part in their fun and games, seriously.
Perhaps she just kept her eyes and ears open as she served them lemonade. But she would have had to practice, and I doubt she got to have a lot of alone time in that nuthouse.
The other sign of Roy’s weakness in the ninth episode was when his wife’s father ripped into him about being ineffective. Roy could say nothing to contradict him, but just had to say that there were sandwiches for his father-in-law’s men.
When I think about sin eating, I think about a movie I saw once. A movie about a 10-year-old girl who has a secret adult male friend in the woods who teaches her that the moral values of her community are wrong. Of course, it wasn’t trying for a pedo vibe, he was just telling her how their tradition of sin eaters was silly superstition and what she really needed was Jesus.
To follow up on my earlier post: I had been accustomed to downloading subtitles after seeing the episodes, since I always missed some of the dialogue because lines were mumbled or too quiet. So this time, I was able to watch and knowing what was said (though not always who said it) ahead of time, that wasn’t a problem. And it really enhanced it for me. My favorite moment that I wasn’t prepared for was the look on Roy’s face after his visitor spelled out what was in store for him. Not so tough now, eh?
Now how the subtitles got out ahead of time is a mystery, but I’m glad I took the opportunity. Try it sometime if you have a chance. Look at it this way: once you’ve seen an episode you are no longer a “virgin”, and this way I got to enjoy it twice - first as a rough outline, and again with all the subtle parts put back in.
Minor nitpick, but that thigh bone had to have come from a much older Tillman victim (Linda?). Danish’s corpse would have been too fresh to yank out his femur, without some butchering tools and a fair amount of effort.
I stopped readinng new posts once I realized they were commenting on the final episode-- I’ve been catching Fargo on Hulu, which is a day behind. Looking forward to watching it tonight!
Great misdirection having the round cover of the underground bunker back in place as Roy emerged. Here I was thinking “continuity error! Gator left that thing wide open after he got out!”
I was surprised as Roy by the ambush.
After Dot shot Roy and he was stumbling around between buildings, I thought he was going to get caught in the cross-fire between his militia and the government. Getting accidentally shot by one of his own would be poetic justice of a sort.
She survived on the streets for a while before Linda found her and she had multiple escape attempts before she finally got free. It was very clear to me.
To your earlier comment, why not watch the episode with closed captioning on?
Me too. That was great.
There were two (minor) things that I thought were errors.
First, the season started in the Fall of 2019 and mostly went for a month or so. The ending was one year later so Fall of 2020. They would have all been wearing masks in the Federal prison.
Ole (and I love how we have all been pronouncing his last name wrong) indicated that he came to the US before Columbus and said that he was riding horses before the muskets came. There wouldn’t have been horses in the new world at that time.
I don’t think he was saying before Columbus. He said he was hired as a soldier. The Revolutionary war was mostly fought with foreign mercenaries.
But it is true that there were Viking settlements in northern Canada before Columbus, and there are rune stones that indicate exploration down the East coast and the Mississippi at that time. None of it is settled science at this point though. (youtube the Kensington runestone.)
I wonder if this season will go down in history as the ultimate masterpiece of product placement? IMHO it beats out the Stay-Puft marshmallow man.
Good point. Maybe he was off in the interior for a while before he encountered other Europeans.
There is an AMA on reddit right now from a guy who was an extra on set as one of the FBI guys. He said that there was a huge fire fight that was filmed that ended up being cut. One FBI agent was shot and then they destroyed the militia.
I’m disappointed they used the promise of prison rape as part of Lorraine’s revenge on Roy. Not that she wouldn’t have used it. But this allusion, meant to please the audience as fitting payback, is like an old Norm Macdonald punchline that isn’t funny anymore. Let’s not go there, huh?
>She survived on the streets for a while before Linda found her and she had multiple escape attempts before she finally got free. It was very clear to me.
To your earlier comment, why not watch the episode with closed captioning on?
1). She had specialized skills you wouldn’t have likely learned “on the streets”. But I guess we’ll never know.
2) Didn’t have that option.