#bisquik

During the scene in Dot's house, the phrase "across the sea" is spoken three times. If we think of sea as c, this phrase becomes part of the motif that highlights the letter c in this episode. We've also had references to "seeing" throughout this season, including eye patches and complete blindness, or lack of seeing/c-ing.

One of the meanings of C is cancer, as in the big C. Roy has said, "Cancer can't survive outside of the body," and Jordan Seymore repeatedly emphasized that he had cancer, and that, "I need this cancer out of me!"

Cigarette smoking is a major cause of cancer, and Lorraine gives Roy a pack of cigarettes with the fictional brand name Original, as in "original sin."

This "gift" can be seen as paying off the Trojan horse idea that was depicted in the shot through the windmill blades, showing two buildings on the ranch configured like a Trojan horse. The blades of the windmill itself look like matches with red tips, and the windmill is a gravesite. We can associate this with the cancer-causing cigarettes accepted by Roy. They are presented as a gift (because he can theoretically use them to bargain away abuse), but they are actually something harmful, just like a Trojan horse.

Munch also mentions being approached by a man with a "wealthy horse" to be given food and two coins. This was also a Trojan horse, because the food was actually sin.

Munch's sins are like a cancer that he can't get out of him.

Now for the second unusual thing with letters in the finale.

In the space of a few minutes, we hear the words chili, cheddar, chopsticks, chocolate, chimpanzees, and choice. That's an odd assortment of words, particularly the decision to include chopsticks and chimpanzees. What's going on with all those ch words?

The letter combination ch is a digraph: "two letters used to represent one sound," from Greek di- "twice" (from PIE root *dwo- "two") + -graph "something written," from Greek graphe "writing," from graphein "to write, express by written characters," earlier "to draw, represent by lines drawn" (see -graphy)."

I've theorized that season 5 is a story being written by Gaear Grimsrud, the kidnapper and killer of Jean Lundegaard in the Fargo movie, and that he was representing himself in the narrative as two characters: Ole Munch and Roy Tillman.

Munch is the pancake lover who just wants some peace and quiet. Roy is the domineering Marlboro Man side of Gaear, who commits ruthless murders.

In the movie, another character says of Gaear, "You know, he looked like the Marlboro Man." She proposes that this may be a subconscious thing, "'cause he smoked a lot of Marlboros." And Noah Hawley described Roy's look as the Marlboro Man.

The purpose of writing this story would be to pay a debt to Jean in the only way possible now, and to gain her forgiveness and hopefully some measure of redemption.

Just as Dot (who represents Jean) gives Munch the biscuit and speaks of forgiveness, the movie theme music kicks in. The victim has forgiven the perpetrator. In the previous episode, the perpetrator literally pulled the victim from the grave, resurrecting her in the form of this fictional character, Dorothy Lyon.

The only thing left now is redemption. So Munch eats the biscuit and is apparently freed from the curse of sin. At the same time, Roy (his other half) is damned to eternal hell for the crimes he has committed.

So there is both acknowledgement of Gaear's crimes, and recognition that they deserve punishment, but also some measure of salvation in the fact that his victim forgives him.

This is my interpretation of the finale. I also believe these events are taking place, within the story, as a bardo in the afterlife, a liminal transition space in which earthly trauma and sins can be worked out before reincarnation, much like Camp Utopia was for the abused women in Linda. As Munch says, "This is the other side."

We've had various discussions before about reincarnation and cycles, and if we look back, there are a lot of hints along the way that could point to smoking and cancer. I think this is what the author is dying from.