Summary

• Dot’s connection to Sheriff Tillman is revealed – she was once married to him, but ran away to start a new life in Minnesota.
• Dot’s arrest leads Sheriff Tillman’s team to track her down after her fingerprints are put into a national database.
• Dot is hiding her dark past from her family, but her husband Wayne is starting to question her story and poke holes in it.

Fargo season 5 has gotten off to an exhilarating start with a two-episode premiere explaining Dot’s connection to Sheriff Roy Tillman, Ole Munch’s plan to exact revenge, and a few other exciting reveals. The latest season of the FX anthology series stars Juno Temple as Dot Lyon, a seemingly typical Midwestern housewife with a mysterious past, and Jon Hamm as Sheriff Tillman, the corrupt cop trying to track her down. The cast also includes Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dot’s ruthless, ultra-wealthy mother-in-law Lorraine, Sam Spruell as Dot’s unsuccessful kidnapper Ole Munch, and Joe Keery as Tillman’s steadfastly loyal son and right-hand man, Gator.

The season has kicked off with two episodes back-to-back – episode 1, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” and episode 2, “Trials and Tribulations” – that have introduced all the major characters and set the main plot in motion. The trailers had already revealed that the season takes place in Minnesota in 2019 (making it the most recent season of the show chronologically) and that Dot has a shady past that’s about to come back to haunt her, courtesy of Tillman. But the two-episode Fargo season 5 premiere has revealed what that past is, and why she’s so adamant to keep it a secret.

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8 Dot Was Married To Sheriff Roy Tillman

Tillman Refers To Dot As His Wife

While Sheriff Tillman was expressing his disappointment with the kidnapper who failed to bring Dot to him, he described Dot as his wife. This telling detail revealed how Dot is connected to Sheriff Tillman, and the past that she’s trying to run away from. At some point in the past, Dot was married to Tillman. But at a certain point in the marriage, Dot ran away to start a new life in Minnesota. It’s possible that she was scared of Tillman, because he’s a very intimidating guy, or she may have just disagreed with his antiquated views about a wife’s role in the household.

7 Dot’s Arrest Helps Sheriff Tillman’s Team Track Her Down

Dot’s Fingerprints Went Into The National Database

Dot’s attempts to run away from Tillman and start a fresh life for herself had been very successful until she accidentally tazed a cop. When a meeting of the town’s fall festival planning committee descended into widespread violence, Dot took out her Taser to keep herself and Scotty safe as they tried to get out of the building. After a cop grabbed her, Dot turned the Taser on him. By the time she realized she was tazing a police officer, it was too late, and she was promptly arrested. When she was processed, her fingerprints went into a national database that allowed Tillman’s crew to track her down.

6 Dot Manages To Escape Her Kidnapping (& Kills A Guy)

One Of The Kidnappers Didn’t Make It

Plot-wise, Fargo season 5 is the closest that the show has come to remaking the original Coen brothers movie. Like the movie, season 5 begins with two masked assailants breaking into a suburban home to kidnap a housewife. However, in the show, that housewife knows how to fight back. When the kidnappers’ car is pulled over by the cops, Dot flees to a nearby gas station, where she manages to kill one of them by covering the bathroom floor in ice cubes (causing him to slip and land head-first on a toilet bowl). The other kidnapper, Ole Munch, survived, but Dot was able to get back home.

5 Lorraine Thinks Dot Faked Her Kidnapping

Lorraine Thinks Dot Is After Her Money

Another similarity between Fargo season 5 and the original movie is that the rich in-laws refuse to pay a ransom to the kidnappers. The difference here is that the rich in-laws are the husband’s parents, not the wife’s, and they don’t even believe that the kidnapping took place. Lorraine believes that Dot faked her kidnapping and returned home because she got cold feet about the whole plot. Even before the kidnapping, Lorraine seemed distrustful of Dot, because Dot doesn’t come from money (so, naturally, Lorraine thinks she’s after hers). The confusion surrounding the kidnapping has only made those trust issues worse.

4 Sheriff Tillman Lives By His Own Laws

Tillman Ignores U.S. Legislation

Sheriff Tillman is the judge, jury, and executioner in his county. He ignores the actual U.S. legislation and plays by his own rules. Agents Joaquin and Meyer stop by Tillman’s ranch to ask him, while he’s taking a bath outside, why he hasn’t been enforcing any of the official American laws. Tillman pokes holes in the legislation, and points out some laws that don’t make sense, until the feds just give up and leave him be. He’s allowed to live by his own laws for now, but there’s surely a reckoning on its way from the federal government in the near future.

3 Gator Is Trying To Keep Deputy Farr & Olmstead From Dot

Gator Deletes Olmstead’s Photo Of Dot So Farr Can’t Identify Her

Deputy Indira Olmstead is a family friend of the Lyons’, investigating Dot’s kidnapping as a professional courtesy. Dot saves Deputy Witt Farr’s life during the standoff at the gas station. Farr and Olmstead are “everyman” cops in the mold of Marge Gunderson from the original film. Given their personal connection to Dot, they’re determined to help her – and Gator is determined to stop that from happening. Just as Farr is about to identify Dot for Olmstead, Gator deletes Dot’s mugshot from Olmstead’s phone (and plays it off as an accident). If Farr and Olmstead help Dot, the case will lead them right to Sheriff Tillman, which Gator wants to avoid.

2 Ole Munch Is Out For Revenge Against The Tillmans

Ole Munch Wants Tillman Blood

After Ole Munch failed to capture Dot, Sheriff Tillman sent Gator to execute him. But the execution didn’t exactly go to plan and Ole Munch managed to escape from the ranch – and it seems that he’s not willing to let bygones be bygones; he’s out for revenge against the Tillmans. When Gator and his partner pulled up to the gas station where Dot got away, Ole Munch appeared out of nowhere to kill the partner. He spared Gator’s life (for now), but Gator knows from the sight of his dead partner that he hasn’t seen the last of Ole Munch.

1 Dot Is Hiding Her Past From Her Family

But Wayne Is Starting To Poke Holes In Her Story

Dot isn’t just hiding her dark past from the police investigating her disappearance; she’s hiding it from her entire family, too. Her husband Wayne is starting to poke holes in her story after his mother sewed the seeds of doubt. The details of her story don’t add up: Dot claims she went out for a drive to clear her head, but the car was in the driveway the whole time. She doesn’t have ironclad reasons for the scorched hat in the bedroom or the blood in the foyer. As Fargo season 5 continues, the Lyons are in for some shocking revelations about Dot’s backstory.