'Fargo' recap: Kiss my grits

Every week on "Aw Jeez: A 'Fargo' podcast," hosts Tracy Mumford and Jay Gabler recap the latest episode, and interview experts about the mayhem, the mob and the Minnesota moments in season two of "Fargo." Listen to the audio for more analysis and speculation on last night's goings on.

Let's dive into "Rhinoceros." Continuing the existentialist theme, the episode title comes from a 1950s French play — a prime example of the Theater of the Absurd. In the play, one character clings to his sanity as everyone around him turns into rhinoceroses — a cautionary tale about the dangers of groupthink.

Is Lou Solverson our sane hero in the midst of a menagerie? We'll have to see how it plays out.

"Rhinoceros" picks up right where "Gift of the Magi" left off: The law has come for the Blumquists. Lou leads Ed away in handcuffs as Hank is left to wrangle Peggy — magazines, delusions and all.

Peggy's still got a full social calendar, ya know, because despite watching her husband be packed into the back of a cruiser, she's dead set on heading to the Lifespring seminar in Sioux Falls the next morning. (Knowing what we know from season one, we wouldn't go anywhere near Sioux Falls.)

Hank can't quite wrap his head around Peggy's big dreaming — "You're a little touched, aren't ya?" — but he brings her back to earth when he lays some forensic science on her. Fancy techs from the Twin Cities are going to come to town and search her little blue Corvair for Rye Gerhardt's blood, and they don't need her permission, since she impulsively sold the car to Sonny.

Keep California dreamin', Peggy. The Gerhardts are about to stomp all over your plans.

Up in Fargo, Bear's spoon-feeding Otto and reminiscing about the true eldest Gerhardt brother: Elrod. Elrod, we learned earlier, was killed in the Korean War, leaving Dodd as the oldest by default. Just another reason to question his questionable authority.

Bear and Dodd come to blows when Bear finds out that Dodd sent Charlie down to Luverne to dispatch Ed — Bear, remember, wants his son as far away from the family business as possible. Charlie somehow survived the butcher shop inferno, but he's calling from behind bars at the Luverne sheriff's station.

Just when Dodd's about to use the belt on Bear — usurping the role of father — Floyd steps in to pull her sons apart. "You'll kill us all, you split this family apart!" She sends them all down to Luverne instead: Bear to retrieve Charlie, Dodd to finish the business with "Butcher of Luverne," a.k.a Ed.

That leaves just the Gerhardt ladies at home — which Simone can't wait to tell Milligan. She dials him up at the Pearl Hotel to let him know that all the men are headed to Luverne, and that she'd like him to kill her father, if that's not too much trouble.

She wants the last words he hears to be "Kiss my grits," a shout-out to the sitcom "Alice." Milligan picks up the "Alice" thread, reciting Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" poem with his signature sing-song menace. Milligan has plans of his own.

At the beleaguered Blumquist home, Dodd and his heavies have arrived just as Peggy was starting to share her domestic malaise with Hank. (Nevermind the four-hour trip it actually takes to get from Fargo to Luverne.) Hank tries to take a stand on the porch, but he forgets the first rule of "Fargo" season two: Always ask where Hanzee is. Hanzeee takes Hank out with a rifle butt to the forehead, and Dodd and his men search the house.

Peggy's hoarding habit finally comes in handy, giving her plenty of places to hide in her labyrinthine collection of "Better Homes and Gardens." And Dodd should really learn not to underestimate the women in his life: Peggy takes out one henchman with a bathroom sink. Dodd accidentally shoots another.

That leaves just two to tango. Peggy manages to get a hold of Dodd's beloved cattle prod and she zaps him with it hard enough for him to sizzle. Twice.

Down at the sheriff's station, Lou's not having much luck with Ed, who has defied all odds by remaining alive. In the interrogation room, Lou lays it out straight: "There was a cleaver in the man's head, son." But Ed maintains he's a victim — and he wants a lawyer.

Lucky for viewers, bearded conspiracy theorist Karl Weathers, played by a gleefully unhinged Nick Offerman, is Luverne's finest — and only — laywer. He's six beers deep at the VFW, and busy explaining the Watergate scandal, but he can't resist the call of justice. ("Great Caesar's ghost!)

The inebriated esquire, valeted by a slightly-more-sober Sonny, arrives at the station spewing a Shakespearean monologue of civil rights.

"Out of my way, tool of the state!" Karl tells trooper Lou. But as enthusiastic as the audience might be about Karl, Ed is not — and that's even before the little "death penalty snafu."

Karl storms off again to wake the judge, rouse the defenders of justice, free Ed — but he runs right into Bear and his Gerhardt henchmen. They want two things: Charlie. And Ed.

Under siege at the station, Lou has to make a plan. All signs point to a full prairie shoot-out, but "this is the kind of thing that didn't work in Westerns and it's not going to work tonight," Lou says. He opts for brains — or blabber — over brawn, and sends out the best man they have: Karl, Charlie's newly-appointed lawyer (whether he knows it or not).

Karl, after a stiff cup of coffee, actually manages to talk Bear down, pulling on the heart strings. He convinces Papa Bear that if he leaves Charlie here, the boy will get a reduced sentence, on account that he's a minor. If he busts him free, however, Charlie will be a fugitive for life. Oh, and he can't take Ed either, because that would fall on Charlie's head too.

While Bear buys into Karl's surprisingly logical plan, Lou and Ed make a run for it out the back, escaping into the woods — but with Hanzee on their trail. (Never forget the first rule!) The night's not over yet.

Up in Fargo, Simone's plan backfires in the most bullet-ridden way possible. In the middle of a talk about family loyalty between Simone and Floyd, Milligan and the remaining Kitchen brother, along with the rest of Kansas City, show up at the compound guns ablazin'.

Their bullets rip the Gerhardt kitchen to shreds — not even the "Home Sweet Home" fruit bowl makes it out alive. Floyd and Simone hit the deck, but last we saw Otto he was just sitting in the kitchen — and post-stroke, he can't duck.

We may have seen the last of the Gerhardt patriarch.

Back in Luverne, Lou and Ed rendezvous with a questionably conscious Hank, who's driving his squad car very slowly and seeing double from his head wound. But Ed is a slave to his misguided little heart: He takes off running, presumably toward home and Peggy. Lou and Ed just watch him bolt — they know where he's going.

And so does Hanzee.

"Rhinceros" ends with a '70s disco-style cover of "Man of Constant Sorrow" playing as Hanzee stalks down the road after Ed.

To hear the full recap, including an interview with the real Rock County Sheriff Evan Verbrugge, use the audio player above or download the podcast.