‘Fargo’ Season 4 Episode 6: Was Loy Cannon right to capture Gaetano Fadda? Dead or alive, Gaetano spells doom
Spoilers for ‘Fargo’ Season 4 Episode 6 ‘Camp Elegance’
The storms of war were already brewing in Episode 5 of Season 4 of Noah Hawley’s epic anthology series ‘Fargo’. But Episode 6 saw an all-out escalation. It was of course triggered by Gaetano and Constant killing Doctor Senator, one of Loy Cannon’s most trusted men (and arguably one of this season’s better characters). So, retaliation was in order. And that’s exactly what went down.
In what was the shortest episode this season so far, ‘Camp Elegance’ sees a lot happening. Loy’s first move is to get Odis. The cop with the nervous tick is caught between the deep sea and the devil right now. On the one hand, Loy is as dangerous an enemy as it gets. On the other hand, the Fadda crime family is also not to be messed around with. So, when Loy tasks Odis with getting Satchel back, he has no idea what to do.
But the well-being of Satchel is only one part of Loy’s plan, for he has also captured Gaetano -- with the help of two begrudging allies, Zelmare and Swanee. In the meanwhile, Ebal returns from New York just as Josto learns that his brother has been taken. While he is visibly pleased that Gaetano is out of his way, his happiness is soured immediately by the fact that for the New York family to recognize him as the boss, he’d have to make peace with his brother. So, Josto now has a choice to make and he makes the bad one. He orders Antoon to bring him Rabbi Milligan, Satchel’s guardian, and when he’s not around, for Antoon to kill him.
When Josto tells Rabbi that the boy is now going to be out of the picture, things take a turn for the worse. We know that Rabbi would do anything to protect Satchel. Whatever his reasons -- whether it was because he too knew what it felt like to be a hostage as a child or whether his abuse as a child instilled a sense of empathy for kids in him -- Rabbi acts to protect Satchel. And even though Antoon is ultimately unable to shoot Satchel, he becomes the victim of Rabbi’s protectionism and gets killed.
Beyond the ramifications of Rabbi’s actions -- and there will be ramifications -- the bigger problem right now is Loy. The man has made a questionable decision when it comes to capturing Gaetano. For one, in the event Gaetano escapes, he will wreak havoc on Loy and his men. And that will most likely spell doom for a lot of them. But even in the unlikely event that Gaetano ends up dead in Loy’s custody, what chance can there ever be of peace between his gang and the Faddas?
Capturing Gaetano was obviously a reaction to the murder of Doctor Senator and that is an understandable one. But is it a move that has been calculated well enough? Loy is a man who does not make rash decisions. And he knows that Gaetano would be a hell of a bargaining chip (not to mention a mode for vendetta) when “world war three” breaks out between the two crime families in Kansas City. But even we have to admit that a lot of his brains came from Doctor Senator, a man who is no longer there. Can we then be assured of this move having received enough thought?
Josto does not like Gaetano but he cannot obviously take a slight to his family lightly. In either scenario, with Gaetano dead or alive, Loy seems to have triggered a chain of events that will lead to no good at all.
‘Fargo’ Season 4 airs every Sunday at 9 pm ET on FX.