'Fargo' Season 4 Episode 4 Review: Will there be war between Cannon and Faddas? Past links make it inevitable
Spoilers for ‘Fargo’ Season 4 Episode 4, ‘The Pretend War’
The fourth episode of ‘Fargo’ Season 4 started on a tense note. In the previous episode, we saw Josto’s (Jason Schwartzman) fresh-off-the-boat brother Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito), order Constant Calamita (Gaetano Bruno) to take Rabbi Milligan (Ben Whishaw) and kill Loy Cannon’s (Chris Rock) son Lemuel (Matthew Elam), as an act of aggression after Cannon and his men took over the slaughterhouse. Rabbi realizes en route that the hit was not ordered by Josto, moments before it was supposed to happen. He hesitates, leading to Constant attempting to finish the job. But Rabbi stops him from hitting his mark and takes his gun from him, with a warning that should he do anything, Josto would hear about this.
Episode 4 started with Loy’s men robbing Calamita of 300 semi-automatic guns. All the contentious factions on the show are seen gaining a greater understanding of the motives and machinations of their rivals, neighbors. In a classic ‘Fargo’ moment, Ebal Violante (Francesco Acquaroli) explains to Doctor Senator (Glynn Turman) what he understands of “American values” — slavery, smallpox in blankets, the theft of Native American land.
Later, we see Loy tell Doctor to sell 200 of the guns to Mort Kellerman (Kai Lennox) in Fargo, in what is possibly the first definitive connection between this season and earlier series installments. Kellerman, afterall, was the crime boss from Season 2 who took a knife in the back of the head from young Dodd Gerhardt in the movie theater, as payback for Kellerman killing Dodd’s grandfather Dieter and trying to assassinate his dad, Otto.
In another classic moment, we see Oraetta and Josto have sex, which is fairly displeasing to look at. Later, Rabbi informs Josto of the botched hit on Lemuel. Josto confronts Gaetano which escalates their rivalry. Gaetano raises a blade, and Josto sticks a gun in his brother’s crotch. To cool things off, Ebal instructs Weff (Jack Huston) to let Loy know that a war would mean fighting not only the Faddas but the police and city hall. Josto orders Ebal to visit their mafia superiors in New York. He wants Ebal to assure them that everything is under control, and to get more men.
Outside a grocery store, Rabbi is greeted by Loy, who slashes his hand and asks about the hit on Lemuel. Rabbi assures Loy that he protected his son and that he’s still protecting Satchel. Loy informs Rabbi that he knows about his father-murdering treachery, and contends that Rabbi isn’t respected by the Faddas because he’s not one of them. But Rabbi is not one to be turned. Without a doubt, this is one of the better characters this season.
Episode 4, more than anything else, tempers the tension between the two factions, predicting carnage that is soon to come. In ‘Fargo’, nothing is clean and things always get bloody. Of course, the question always is: when.
‘Fargo’ Season 4 airs every Sunday at 9 pm ET, only on FX.