The fourth season of Fargo premiered September 27, 2020. It tells the story of Loy Cannon (Chris Rock), an up-and-coming gangster in Kansas City in 1950. When his biggest rival, Donatello Fadda, is shot in a freak accident, Loy suddenly finds himself in the middle of a gang war. Caught in the middle is Ethelrida Pearl Smutney (E'myri Crutchfield), a teenage girl whose parents happen to owe debt to Loy.
The season also features Jason Schwartzman, Ben Whishaw, Jack Huston, Jessie Buckley and Timothy Olyphant.
This series contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Timothy Olyphant has played a U.S. Marshal.
- Always a Bigger Fish: The Faddas are beholden to Mafia bosses in New York City, and Josto has to seek their approval to be accepted as boss of Kansas City. When they tell him to make peace with Gaetano, Josto dares not to disobey them directly and instead has to use Loophole Abuse to get what he wants. In the end, the New York Mafia just absorbs both the Fadda and Cannon gangs into its national organization and appoints Violante as the boss of the new Kansas City Mafia.
- Artistic License – History:
- In the jazz club in episode 5, the house band is playing Bobby Timmons' "Moanin'". This serves as a Mythology Gag, since a vocal version of the song by Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross had been used for a montage in the season 3 premiere as Ray Stussy met with his parolees. However, the season takes place in 1950, and the song wasn't composed until 1958.
- Episode 2, "The Land of Taking and Killing" has Roger Miller's "You Can't Roller-Skate in a Buffalo Herd" playing during the opening. The season takes place in 1950, and the song wasn't released until 1965.
- Dedicated credit cards (such as gas cards) had existed for some time by 1950, so Winckle really ought to have been familiar with the concept. The show is accurate, however, that the first universal credit card (Diner's Club) debuted that year.
- Asshole Victim: Dr. David Harvard isn't a murderer or a criminal like the majority of the cast, but he's a racist, arrogant bastard who denies help to a man bleeding out the neck and his family just because they're Italian. Not many tears are shed when he ultimately dies.
- Audible Sharpness: Gaetano's knife makes metallic whooshing noises while just being idly swished through the air.
- Author Appeal: This is at least the third Noah Hawley production to feature a Native American character in a recurring role, after Legion (with Kerry Loudermilk) and Fargo: Season Two (with Ohanzee Dent).
- Bait-and-Switch:
- While the Faddas are stopped by a school crossing guard, Donatello goes pale and looks like he's about to have a heart attack. After a lengthy amount of suspense, he rips a giant fart instead.
- The Faddas suspect that several black men are about to open fire on them, but the men are just civilians. Then Don Fadda gets hit in the neck with a BB gun fired by some random kids.
- Best Served Cold: Violante invokes this when he tries to persuade Josto to postpone any further hits on Dr. Harvard. Killing the doctor now would bring too much police attention, so they should let the matter go for at least a year. By that time, the doctor would feel safe again and would resume his normal life. If Josto kills the doctor then, it will make the revenge more satisfying.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The closest thing the season has to a Malvo-esque central villain is Oraetta Mayflower, who both inadvertently incites the mob war with the power vacuum she opens in killing Donatello Fadda and serves as the arch-enemy of the season's token force of good, but she's largely uninvolved — and seemingly unaware — of the mob war itself for the season. Most of the season's actual bloodshed in the season is facilitated by the Fadda brothers Gaetano and Josto (who fight with each other just as much as they do their actual enemies for most of the season) feuding with Loy Cannon, who all serve equally as villain protagonists.
- The Big Guy: Gaetano, one of the middle children in the Fadda clan, is quite large.
- Been There, Shaped History:
- Gaetano claims that he and his gang were responsible for the capture and execution of Mussolini. He even has a tin can with a bunch of teeth that he claims belonged to Il Duce.
- Doctor Senator was an Army lawyer who interrogated Hermann Göring and gathered the evidence that got Göring convicted in the Nuremburg Trials.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Nurse Mayflower uses a whole lot of Minnesota Nice to disguise the fact that she's a frothing racist and a stone cold Serial Killer.
- Bittersweet Ending: Heavy on the "bitter", but in contrast to the last season, the story ends on a definitive resolution: the mob war finally ends when Cannon Limited, unable to contend with the Faddas with the backing of a national outfit, are forced to placidly merge with the Faddas. Satchel Cannon manages to reunite with his family, but Loy is murdered by a vengeful Zelmare, destroying any chance Satchell has for a normal life and leaving him bereft of both father figures. On the sweeter side, Josto Fadda and Oraetta Mayflower meet their well-deserved ends side-by-side in an open grave, and the Smutneys earn their happy ending, now free of the pressure of the mob over their heads. The season makes it clear that a temporary peace has returned, but the sacrifice of most of those who made it possible won't be remembered — history is written by the victors, after all.
- Blood Oath: When Loy Cannon is about to shake hands with Donatello Fadda, he chooses not to spit in Donatello's hand before shaking it, and instead cuts his own hand. After a few moments, Donatello agrees to cut his own hand, and then the two men shake hands.
- Boom, Headshot!: Swanee is killed very suddenly and shockingly this way.
- Brains and Brawn: Josto is the brains and Geatano is the brawn. Gaetano eventually realizes that they work better together for this very reason.
- Call-Back:
- In episode 9, "East/West", one of the hotel guests at the dinner table tells one interpretation of Goldilocks, he tells how the story actually has a downer ending from the perspective of the titular character since she's left in the cold alone. In the first episode of the Season, Rabbi's father forces him to execute Moskowitz's son after telling him that the kid "ate on his plate and slept on his bed", ultimately mirroring Goldilocks's sad fate with Rabbi's.
- In the final scene, Satchel is seen reading Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, which was recommended to him by the aluminum siding salesman in Kansas.
- Call-Forward: Loy Cannon says to Deafy the same examination of Minnesota Nice that Mike Milligan makes to Lou Solverson in season 2, using similar language, foreshadowing that Mike is Loy's son.
- Cain and Abel: Josto and Gaetano Fadda are brothers competing to become the new boss of the Fadda Family. Josto inherited the position as the eldest but Gaetano thinks that Josto is weak and wants to be boss instead. The only reason one does not kill the other is because they are brothers. However, it soon becomes clear that neither one will back down and one is going to take the other out. Josto even describes Gaetano as Cain and himself as Abel when trying to justify why Gaetano must die.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You:
- When Loy catches up to Zelmare and Swanee, he declines to kill them because he is going to need them in his war with the Faddas.
- Loy wants revenge but realizes that he cannot kill Gaetano. With Gaetano dead, Josto will solidify his position and boss and then wipe out Cannon Limited. With Gaetano in play, the Faddas will be divided and fighting amongst each other.
- Continuity Nod:
- One of Loy Cannon's partners is Mort Kellerman, the Fargo crime boss who will be usurped by Otto Gerhardt in 1951.
- The Faddas have to answer to Joe Bulo, at this point in time a crime boss based out of New York.
- Darker and Edgier: Although Fargo has always been pretty dark, bloody, ruthless and consistently in touch with heavy subject matter such as misogyny, greed-induced tragedy, existential dread, bigotry, and human depravation in general — not to mention that Season 2 still holds the higher body count — Season 4 addresses more directly racial segregation in America during the 50's and it's practically the main theme of this fourth installment. Unlike the movie and previous seasons, there's no Big Good represented by the "nice cop" character. There's no Marge Gunderson, Molly Solverson, Lou Solverson/Hank Larsson, or Gloria Burgle here; instead we have only Odis Weff, who is allied with the mafia, while Deafy Wickware is a bigoted US Marshal. And the rest of the Kansas City police force in general is shown to be brutal, racist to the bone, and represented almost as a villainous entity. The show always showed a little bit of light and hope represented by at least one character in pursuit of justice, determined to do the right thing and find the truth. There's almost none of that here. The closest to a force of good is Ethelrida, and she's a 17-year-old black girl who attends a horribly bigoted school and there's very little she can do about all this. Still, by the end of the series, Ethelrida's intelligence and research abilities played a crucial role to help Loy to win the war, with the sole purpose of helping her family and ultimately, fullfiling the role of said benign force. See Deconstructed Trope below. There is also the fact that the only Minnesota Nice character, Nurse Mayflower, is a not quite nice Serial Killer. Leaving us with what could be the most bitter season so far.Noah Hawley: In Fargo you have a Marge Gunderson, and you have a Peter Stormare, and one is so clearly all good, and the other is so clearly evil, [...] And for better or worse, the last three seasons, that "all good" role has been filled by a cop. But if you're telling a story about Black people and immigrants, that is not necessarily their experience of the moral spectrum.
- Deadly Doctor: Oraetta kills Donatello Fadda in the premiere.
- Deconstructed Trope: The Big Good force and "common decency" represented by a cop. In this season, Noah Hawley deliberately took this trope and placed it in Ethelrida, a highly gifted teenager without any tools other than her intelligence, who contributed to the ultimate resolution in a Rear Window-esque fashion, without the law or police enforcement on her side, unlike the previous seasons' — and the movie's — protagonists/deuteragonists. Also, Ethelrida puts herself in a highly dangerous situation with all the odds against her for a fairly less ambitious — if not more realistic — goal; help her family out. Of course, that doesn't make her less of a truth seeker.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- Many of the characters are casually racist in ways that are really jarring to a modern audience.
- A WASP-only hospital refuses to admit a patient bleeding out on their doorstop and has him and his family escorted from the premises by armed security. Dr. Harvard feels justified in doing so because the victim was Italian.
- When Marshal Deafy Wickware gets too self-righteous, the police chief reminds him that Missouri still has a law on the books that allows people to shoot Mormons on sight.
- Dirty Cop: Odis Weff, the KCPD homicide detective, is on the Fadda family's payroll.
- The Dog Bites Back: After spending the whole season being The Chew Toy for everyone else, Odis finally snaps in "The Nadir", killing Deafy and Swanee in cold blood, and only failing to kill Zelmare because she charges him and his shot goes wide.
- Doomed by Canon: As we can see in Season 2, 29 years later after the events depicted here, the Kansas City Mafia is not a family business anymore. Safe to assume that both the Cannons and the Faddas are going to meet their end once the season is over and we're probably witnessing the last traditional confrontation between families to make way for the corporation the Kansas City Mafia is today.
- Although the newer, business-oriented Kansas City Mafia will eventually expand by wiping out the Gerhardt crime family, they eventually will be deposed by a new syndicate led by Moses Tripoli (AKA Hanzee Dent).
- Fargo crime boss Mort Kellerman will eventually be killed by someone very unexpected: Otto Gerhardt's young son, Dodd.
- Eiffel Tower Effect: Averted. Outside of the mention of the neighborhoods of Mission Hills and Leawood in the first episode, and a few notable landmarks (including the Western Auto sign)shown in montage in the last episode, if the show didn't say it was set in Kansas City, there's no way you'd be able to tell. No attempt is made in most episodes to include any recognizable geography or landmarks (the show mostly using Chicago neighborhoods with period appropriate architecture), and no genuine local history is referenced.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For decades, the underworld in Kansas City has maintained treaties by exchanging one son from the head of each family. In theory, the families wouldn't go into open war if one of their own was embedded in the other side. In practice, the peace only lasted until one side figured out how they could destroy the other without their hostage getting killed.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Loy's mother is very much a part of his life, even if she isn't involved in his criminal activities. The Fadda boys are also shown to love their mother.
- Evil Power Vacuum: Donatello Fadda's death creates a vacuum at the top of Kansas City's organized crime structure. Josto tries to take over, but his brother Gaetano comes back from Italy and wants the job for himself. As the Faddas start to blunder, Loy Cannon maneuvers to exploit their current weaknesses.
- Face Death with Dignity: Oraetta puts on some lipstick and doesn't make a fuss before Bulo executes her.
- Failed a Spot Check:
- When the cops search the mortuary for Zelmare and Swanee, they open the body drawers and discover corpses waiting for embalming. They get so nauseated that they excuse themselves to vomit outside and completely miss that there was one more drawer that they did not search. Zelmare and Swanee are hiding in that last drawer.
- Subverted. When Thurman brings in the money to pay back Loy, Loy is so happy to get the money that he fails to realize that it is the money that Zelmare and Swanee stole from him. However, after Thurman leaves, Loy gets a chance to smell the money and immediately realizes what happened.
- Forgotten Birthday: Satchel spends his birthday hiding out with Rabbi, who probably never knew the exact date of his birth until he said something.
- Foreshadowing:
- Gaetano slips on some ice and falls down earlier in the season. This gets called back at the end of the season when he slips on ice and accidentally blows his head off.
- Ethelrita first meets Oraetta when she's sitting by herself at a funeral. Her parents recall seeing her at previous funerals. It's later established that she's a serial killer who attends her victims' funerals.
- Generic Ethnic Crime Gang: The premiere features a succession of ethnic gangs, starting with the Moskowitz Syndicate (Jewish), then the Milligan Concern (Irish), then the Fadda Family (Italian), and finally the Cannon Limited (black).
- Great Offscreen War: We only see the aftermath of Swanee and Zelmare's epic shootout at Union Station.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Josto has a really bad temper and flies off the handle easily.
- Hate Sink: With no real Malvo-esque Big Bad driving the conflict of this season and every central character having at least some sympathetic or tragic trait to them no matter their place on the spectrum of Black-and-Gray Morality, there's only two minor characters in this season who serve purely unsympathetic roles in the narrative:
- Dr. Harvard isn't a criminal like the majority of the season's cast, but he's a racist hospital director who denies help to a man bleeding out of the neck purely because the man is Italian. This goes on to start a series of dominoes that causes the inevitable mob war. Everyone hates Dr. Harvard and his smug, uppity demeanor; even Oraetta eventually loses patience with him and finds it's more convenient to try and murder him.
- Owney "Yiddles" Milligan, Rabbi's father and the leader of the Irish mob that ruled Kansas City before the Faddas came along. He has more screentime than his own predecessor Liev Moskowitz, who's nearly a non-entity, yet not enough to demonstrate the sympathetic qualities of any of the Faddas or the Cannons. Subsequently, Owney is made as vile as possible to preserve sympathy for his son for killing him and to make the Faddas A Lighter Shade of Black compared to him; Owney is a mass murderer, a horrendously abusive parent, and a pedophile whose shadow still hangs over Rabbi and Josto.
- Hereditary Curse: The ghost who keeps appearing around Zelmare and Ethelrida is the result of a curse placed on their ancestor: Ethelrida's great-great grandfather killed Theodore Roach, the captain of a slave ship, during a storm. Incensed at being killed by a slave, Roach vowed to haunt the man and his family for all eternity.
- History Repeats: The history of organized crime in Kansas City tends to go in cycles. A new wave of immigration brings in a population of poor people who are discriminated against. Some of this group turn to organized crime to get by, and form a gang. As they gain control of the city's rackets, the next wave of immigrants arrives and forms a competing gang. The gangs agree to a peace and try to share the criminal underworld. However, the older gang becomes complacent and softer, and the new gang massacres them in a surprise attack. The new gang becomes the top dogs until another wave of immigrants brings more competition and the cycle repeats. This is subverted in the show's present, as Donatello Fadda's death threatens to end the current short-lived peace and bring on a Mob War before Cannon Limited has grown strong enough to win it in a single stroke.
- Holier Than Thou: Deafy Wickware is a Deacon of the Latter-Day Saints, and enjoys lecturing others about their supposed moral failings.
- Hufflepuff House: Besides Josto, Gaetano, and Zero, Donatello Fadda had at least two daughters, Maxia and Naneeda, and left behind a widow, Chianna, but they don't get much attention in the series.
- Innocently Insensitive: In the premiere, Oraetta Mayflower examines Ethelrida's hands and starts rambling out her theories about miscegenation and the distribution of melanin in mixed-race children, entirely oblivious to how Ethelrida might feel about being studied by a white woman. Subverted when it turns out that there's nothing innocent about her insensitivity, and she's actually deeply racist and has unsettling murderous tendencies.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: Local Serial Killer Oraetta Mayflower violently chokes Josto while having sex with him.
- The Irish Mob: The Milligan Concern was an Irish gang that ran organized crime in Kansas City after the defeat of the Moskowitz Syndicate. Rabbi is the last surviving son of their leader, Oweny "Yiddles" Milligan, while Josto Fadda was fostered by them.
- Ironic Death:
- Dr. Harvard, the racist hospital director who turned the Faddas out of his door because they were Italian. Not only does Harvard nearly die after one of his perishingly few Pet the Dog moments when he's brought to admit Oraetta's poisoned macaroons are "extraordinary", the macaroons are Italian.
- Gaetano's death counts as well. His status as The Dreaded, relentless nature, and position of power makes him a really hard piece to take down for the Cannon Limited, and as a viewer, you're thrilled to see how Loy is gonna wipe him out, if he ever gets the chance… only to see Gaetano meeting his end in the most slapstick fashion by slipping on the floor and accidentally shooting his own head out. And, for a sadistic brute unable to hold back, the show made a unexpected case of Hoist by His Own Petard, since in "The Birthplace of Civilization", the guy killed two innocent people in a bar just for laughing because he slipped on the ice on the entrance.
- Ironic Nickname: Patrick "Rabbi" Mulligan is not a rabbi or even a Jew. He was briefly fostered by the Kosher Nostra and betrayed them for his father's Irish gang.
- It's All About Me: When Oraetta Mayflower spots Josto in the hospital parking lot, she immediately assumes that he is there to ask her out. Josto is there stalking Dr. Harvard and has little interest in Oraetta up to this point.
- It Will Never Catch On: Mr. Winckle, the head of the third-largest bank in Missouri, is incredulous at Loy's proposition that his credit card would be successful, because Mr. Winckle can't conceive of the idea of people spending money they don't have just to appear rich, and certainly can't foresee banks charging high interest rates to people who can't afford it. Later, we see that the Diner's Club card has stolen his idea.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Det. Odis Weff gets stuck assisting Marshal Deafy Wickware in his search for Swanee and Zelmare. Besides being inconvenienced by being pulled off of his efforts to cover up the Faddas' crimes, Weff does not enjoy having to take orders from the pompous, uptight Deafy. At one point, he even tries to conjure up a fake eyewitness to convince Deafy that Swanee and Zelmare are headed to Chicago with hopes that this will get Deafy to leave town… only for Deafy to reveal that he'll be staying, since the Marshals have an office there that can handle this lead. The friction resolves itself through Odis murdering Deafy at the end of the Kansas City Union Station massacre.
- Karma Houdini: Zelmare gets away scot-free after murdering dozens of people in Union Station alone.
- Kick the Dog:
- The mistreatment of the Fadda family towards Satchel. They consider him, literally, a hostage. They don't let him sit at the family table, he's isolated in the attic, and it is implied that the Faddas are not feeding him right. The only one who treats Satchel like a human being is Rabbi, because he empathizes with the suffering of being "the traded kid". The only reason why he's being somewhat fed, kept up-to-date with his homework, and taken care of (thanks only to Rabbi and no one else) is due to the tradition of exchanging the kids between families. Other than that, he's pretty much treated like a burden. Doesn't help that the members of the Fadda family are, even with their experiences dealing with American xenophobia, quite racist.
- Oraetta's first scene has her bluntly note that Ethelrida is "the product of miscegenation," establishing right from the start that as intelligent and eccentric as she is, she's not a good person.
- Kosher Nostra: The first gang to operate in Kansas City was the Moskowitz Syndicate, a Jewish gang who operated out of Joplin's Department Store. Patrick "Rabbi" Mulligan was fostered by their leader, Liev Moskowitz, which led to his nickname. Ironically, we know from season two that the Kansas City mob will evolve into an Ambiguously Jewish business within 30 years.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: Ethelrida's parents try to keep their interracial family a secret for the sake of their business.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: This season's example is a recurring specter of death that menaces various characters at critical moments. It's unclear if these are hallucinations or a real ghost.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Rabbi Milligan betrayed the Milligans because his father chose him as the Faddas' hostage, whereas tradition dictated that it should have been his younger brother.
- Mob War: When a full gang war erupts between the Faddas and Cannon Limited, it is brutal and bloody. Both sides have men who fought in World War 2 and they have access to black market military grade small arms. Loy has 27 of his men killed and the Faddas sustain similar casualties.
- Naturalized Name: Don Fadda's youngest son is Zirominu Guglielmo Fadda. For the sake of convenience, everyone calls him "Zero" for short.
- Non-Indicative Name: Doctor Senator is not a doctor. That's his name, though he does have a degree from a black university.
- No Honor Among Thieves:
- Gaetano and his fellow mafioso were more than happy to make money working for the fascists and killing anyone who opposed Mussolini. As soon as the war turned against the fascists, Gaetano switched sides and started killing his former employers to curry favor with the Allies.
- Loy is allied with Happy Halloway, a black gang leader from Texas. When things get bad, Loy calls Happy for assistance, and he reluctantly agrees to send a bunch of his men to Kansas City to make it look like Loy is getting serious reinforcements. However, Happy then turns around and cuts a deal with Josto to take over Loy's operations.
- Nothing Nice About Sugar and Spice: Subverted by Zelmare Roulette and Swanee Capps, two Ax-Crazy outlaw lovers. Swanee dresses in masculine cowboy clothes while Zelmare is the more feminine one in a dress and fur coat; however, over the season her clothes get progressively rattier as she has no interest in maintaining them. In one episode they enter an enemy house disguised as prostitutes, but since neither is particularly good at playing feminine they start shooting up the place immediately.
- Nothing Personal: The season charts the start of the Kansas City mob's journey from a family-run Mafia branch to a business-oriented and impersonal organization.
- Now or Never Kiss: In "The Nadir", Zelmare and Swanee kiss just before going on a shoot-out with Deafy and the KCPD that ends with Deafy and Swanee dead.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse:
- In "Birthplace of Civilization", the various members of the Smutney family all receive these in short order. First, Loy extorts Thurman into giving over his business to Loy and giving up where Zelmare and Swanee are hiding. At the same time, Deafy threatens to have Ethelrida expelled from school if she does not give up Zelmare and Swanee to him. When Loy subsequently tracks down and finds Zelmare and Swanee, he offers not to kill them if they work for him against the Faddas.
- Ethelrida manages to give one of these to Loy. She wants Loy to consider her parents' debts fully worked off with them not owing any further obligations to Loy. In exchange, she offers him a way to win his war with the Faddas.
- In the end, Loy receives one from Ebal Violante turning his success in the Mob War into a Pyrrhic Victory.
- Origins Episode: The entire season acts as one for the Kansas City Mafia (which would eventually become the Fargo Syndicate), but it's also the origin story for Satchel Cannon, aka Mike Milligan, and explores the awful string of events that would shape him into affable, Wicked Cultured but ultimately cynical and broken man he would become.
- Pet the Dog: Loy says he's willing to do anything to win the war and he even contemplated the idea of hurting the Faddas' kid after the failed attack on Lemuel. Having said that, Loy is notably kind to Zero Fadda and in general the treatment the Cannons give to Zero is human and respectful. They let him eat at the family table, hang out with the other kids, and Loy shows more than once a decent treatment of someone who's truly taking care of him, and he even warns Zero about how the Faddas, even if they're his own blood, can still be disrespectful and not trustworthy. The same way the Milligans treated Rabbi, the same way the Faddas treat him, as not a member of the family but a mere soldier, and definitively, the same way they are treating Satchel right now, as illustrated above.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- In the pilot, Josto lets slip to Oraetta that it's hard for him seeing his father suffer, and asks her to "take care" of him. Oraetta, being a serial killer, misconstrues his request as a request to kill the old man.
- Upon learning about her sister's money troubles, Zelmare robs the Cannons to get them the money to pay off their debt. Unfortunately, she didn't know that debt is actually to the Cannons, and Thurman neglects to ask where the money came from, and even worse, Swanee threw up on it during the robbery, which can still be smelled, naturally giving Loy the impression that Thurman was behind the robbery to try to swindle him.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The other gangsters have no problem with Josto killing Dr. Harvard. However, it is a personal matter that should be postponed until it no longer brings unwanted attention to their business.
- Reckless Gun Usage: BB guns can be very dangerous if you don't pay attention where you are shooting at. Donatello Fadda is hit in the neck by a BB and almost bleeds out before he can get medical treatment.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech
- Josto gives one to the imprisoned Cannon gang members. He brags how American society will sooner or later accept him as one of their own and respect his criminal ways. The black criminals will never get respect and will always be treated as scum.
- Doctor Senator gives one to Calamita and Gaetano. He tells them that in America, respect has to be earned. He respected Ebal Violante and Donatello Fadda, but to him, Calamita and Gaetano are "just boys making a mess". Calamita kills him for this.
- Refuge in Audacity:
- In "The Land of Taking and Killing", Loy and Doctor Senator decide to test the Fadda family by stealing their slaughterhouse and claiming that Donatello personally offered it to them before his untimely death, just to see how the Faddas would react. They almost succeed, because Josto fears that his father might actually have promised the Cannon Limited the slaughterhouse, and because he doesn't want his little brother Gaetano to violently retake the slaughterhouse, which would make Gaetano look good and make Josto look weak.
- Deafy Wickware approaches Gaetano in front of the Joplin's Department Store and asks him what kind of illegal activity is going on inside. When Gaetano gets angry, Wickware tells him about the vigilante justice the Mormons inflicted on the last batch of Italian mobsters who tried to set up shop in Salt Lake City. Wickware does not even identify himself as a US Marshal. Gaetano clearly wants to kill Wickware right then and there, but backs down because he has no idea who the man insulting him is or what the consequences of attacking him might be.
- Right Hand Versus Left Hand: As the power struggle between Josto and Gaetano intensifies, the Fadda Family is left in disarray. Rank-and-file mobsters do not know whose orders they are supposed to follow and senior lieutenants like Violante lack the information to make proper decisions. Josto and Violante are not told of the aborted hit on Lemuel Cannon that Gaetano authorized, so they do not take extra precautions to secure an important weapons shipment against Loy's retaliation.
- "Rise and Fall" Gangster Arc:
- Loy Cannon is shown trying to overthrow the Fadda clan and take over the city with his Cannon Limited organization, eventually getting his enemies to turn on each other... only to find himself cornered and his business absorbed by the newly formed Kansas City mafia. For added irony, he's revealed to be Mike Milligan's father.
- The first episode opens with a brief history of organized crime in Kansas City. Liev Moskowitz and his Jewish gang start out as poor immigrants and grow wealthy after taking over the city's rackets. They are then taken out by The Irish Mob of Owney "Yiddles" Milligan. The Milligan gang then rise through the ranks, eventually being taken out by Donatello Fadda's Italians. The rise and fall of each gang is illustrated by their clothing change over the years. When the new gang is introduced, they are wearing street clothes. When the gang is about to fall they are wearing suits, furs and jewelry. When the season starts, the Faddas are now wearing expensive suits compared to those worn by the working class black gang of Cannon Limited.
- Ruthless Foreign Gangsters:
- The history of organized crime in Kansas City is dominated by these. Each new wave of immigration brings in ethnic minorities that are discriminated against and who often have to turn to crime to survive. These new gangs are hungry for money, power and respect and become top dogs by massacring the ethnic gang who run the rackets before them but has lost its edge.
- Gaetano Fadda is a special example within the Fadda Family. The Faddas have been in America for decades and have Americanized pretty well, but Gaetano spent most of his life in Italy and is an old school Italian mafioso. He intends to use that mindset to grab power in Kansas City, even if he has to go against his own brother Josto.
- Rabbi warns Josto that if he does not get rid of Gaetano, more Sicilian mobsters are going to arrive in Kansas City to back Gaetano up and there will be little Josto or Rabbi will be able to do about them.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Dr. David Harvard is a villainous example. He refuses a lot of money from the Faddas because his racist principles would not let him treat an Italian in his hospital.
- Serial Killer: Oraetta turns out to be a very prolific serial killer who murders her patients.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Oraetta speaks in a very precise manner, using a whole lot of complicated words, ostensibly so that nobody will misunderstand her.
- Shellshocked Veteran: Odis Weff's backstory. He was a very talented minesweeper in World War II, and much smarter than the rest of his platoon, who kept walking into mines and blowing themselves up. Then one day, he got a letter that his fiancé had been brutally raped and murdered. In shock, he went out that day and just lay in a field for hours, failed to do his job, and his commanding officer got blown up.
- Shout-Out:
- The Kansas City Union Station massacre in "The Nadir" evokes a lot of the atmosphere of the Chicago Union Station shootout in The Untouchables, even reusing the filming location.
- History buffs will see it as a Shout-Out to the historical 1933 Kansas City Massacre
, which took place here, where freelance gunman Vernon Miller and two associatesnote in an attempt to free escaped felon Frank "Jelly" Nash, attacked a team of armed law enforcement personnel who were returning him to the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. The attackers killed two local Kansas City cops and two FBI agents, wounded a third, and also accidentally killed Nash as well. - Much of "East/West" contains references to The Wizard of Oz. The action takes place in Liberal, Kansas, a city that has a recreation of Dorothy's house and the Yellow Brick Road, Satchel's dog is similar to Toto, there's a massive twister, the old sisters who run the hotel are a nod to the Wicked Witches, and most of the episode is in black and white with a final ending bit of color.
- Spotting the Thread: After the failed attack on Lemuel, Doctor Senator correctly suggests that the hit must have been ordered by Gaetano, because Josto would not benefit from starting a gang war with Cannon Limited.
- Stealing from Thieves: Key to resolving the season's conflict - Ethelrida Smutney steals Don Fadda's ring from Oraetta Mayflower, who stole it from Fadda when she killed him all the way back in the first episode of the season. Ethelrida trades the ring to Loy Cannon, Fadda's rival, in exchange for her parents' debt to the Cannons being cancelled. Cannon then turns around and uses the ring to force Don's son Josto to the bargaining table to end the war between their two gangs.
- Stupid Crooks:
- The hitmen sent to kill Dr. Harvard bungle the task in the worst possible way. Dr. Harvard is a civilian and a soft target. They could wait until he leaves work, snatch him on his way home, and then kill him somewhere where his body will not be found. Instead, they get tired of waiting and do a drive-by shooting as soon as they see Dr. Harvard step outside the hospital for a moment, in broad daylight and in front of multiple witnesses. They miss him, kill a wealthy socialite instead, and then park their car outside the Faddas' house. It's only because the cop assigned to the case happens to be in the Faddas' pocket that they aren't arrested.
- Zelmare and Swanee have the brilliant idea of trying to solve the Smutneys' debt problems by robbing the Cannon Limited, the gang to which the Smutneys are in debt to. The only reason they survive is because Cannon initially believes that they were sent by the Faddas as retaliation. But during the robbery, Swanee accidentally pukes on the stolen money due to indigestion from eating Oraetta's tainted pie, and even after Zelmare literally launders every single bill, the stench remains, meaning that when Thurman hands the money over to Loy, Loy realizes it's the stolen money as soon as he gets close enough to smell it.
- Stupid Evil:
- In the second episode, Josto puts out a hit on Dr. Harvard, the racist doctor who refused to treat his dad. The hitmen decide to do it as a drive-by shooting. They manage to botch this, only succeeding in killing a wealthy donor to the hospital instead, while Dr. Harvard is just wounded in the right arm and easily identifies their car.
- Gaetano proves no smarter than his brother, when, incensed over not being allowed to retake the slaughterhouses that Cannon stole from the family, he puts out a hit on Lemuel Cannon, Loy's older son. As Rabbi repeatedly points out, killing Lemuel will only trigger an all-out war with Cannon Limited. The failed hit also alerts Loy and Doctor to the fact that the Faddas are divided, as Doctor points out that not even Josto would be stupid enough to order something that would endanger his younger brother Zero while the latter is still Loy's hostage. As it is, the failed hit leads to Loy retaliating by hijacking one of the Faddas' gun shipments, leaving the Faddas in an even worse position if a war were to happen.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Oraetta laces a pie with ipecac syrup and leaves it as a gift for the Smutneys. Circumstances stop them from eating it and it ends up being consumed by Swanee. The ipecac causes her to have uncontrollable flatulence and vomiting in the middle of an attempted robbery.
- This Means War!: Loy after Gaetano has Calamita kill Doctor Senator and his driver.
- Unexpected Inheritance: When handing over the money he owes to Loy, Thurman claims it's an inheritance from his "Uncle Boolie". The ruse almost works, until Loy smells the money and realizes it's the money that Swanee threw up on during the robbery of the Cannon warehouse.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: After consuming the apple pie that Oraetta laced with ipecac syrup, Swanee becomes flatulent and starts vomiting in the middle of her and Zelmare's robbery on Cannon Limited.
- Vomiting Cop: In episode 3, after searching the morgue drawers of the Kingdom of Mercy Funeral Home for Zelmare and Swanee and coming up dry but for two corpses (one emaciated, one bloated), two cops are seen clutching their mouths and making gagging noises before excusing themselves to vomit. This also causes them to miss the drawer where the fugitives have concealed themselves.
- Wham Episode: "The Nadir" sees Swanee and Zelmare go on an actual rampage in Kansas City Union Station, gunning down a whole lot of cops and civilians in an attempt to avoid arrest, which results in the deaths of Swanee and Deafy at the hands of Odis. Oraetta learns that Ethelrida has found out about her murders. Josto and Gaetano finally put aside their differences, only to see their mob decimated and their mother killed by Loy Cannon's allies.
