The finale of Fargo‘s second season was so beautiful and full of so many great moments it’s hard to give them all the attention they deserve. From Mike discovering that he was not a conquering hero ready to ascend to his throne, but rather just another cog in the dirty business of making money; to Peggy’s wrenching scene after losing Ed, who only in his final moments realized his fight had been for nothing; to Hank Larsson’s idealized version of a world without misunderstanding; this was a season finale worthy of what preceded it.

However, none of those captured what this show was about quite like the dream (read: vision) that Betsy Solverson relayed to us.

“That night I had a dream. It felt so real, even though I knew it couldn’t be, or wasn’t yet. I dreamt of a magical future, filled with wondrous devices, where everything you could ever want, would be in one amazing place. And there was happiness there. But then I saw farther still, years, decades, into the future. I saw a handsome older man, his back still straight, visited by his children and grandchildren-people of accomplishment, of contentment.

But then I saw chaos. A fracture of peace and enlightenment, and I worried that the future I’d seen, magical and filled with light, might never come to pass.”

She sees her husband and daughter as they age without her, and they are happy. She also sees the world that would come, the same one that was mentioned earlier in the year, (a world where corporations have taken over). It is a future of wonder, where everything you could want is in one place.

It might sound great, but we already know that it is a false promise. It’s the same world that ended the Gerhardts. Kansas City is just Wal-Mart for the underworld.

But Betsy also sees a future of darkness, though here she doesn’t see into the actual future like the positive parts of her dream, but rather the present, where her husband and father are both in a fight for their lives. That chaos of a fractured peace has already descended on the world. The future and the present are all one, and it is there where light “might never come to pass.”

The show opened with a montage of all the dead Gerhardts, another empire destroyed. The Solversons will not escape this fate though; Betty’s time is short. The difference is she will end her days sitting with her family, able to kiss her daughter and tell her father what a good man he is. She got to lie down with her husband and wish him good night. More importantly they all got to have that moment with her.

The world of Fargo is dark, and surely this season was a dark place for everyone who lived in it. But in the darkness light shines the brightest. For every Hanzee and Kansas City and Dodd, there is a Lou Solverson, pushing that rock, not as a burden, but as a privilege. It may not be a peaceful world, and no heroes are coming to save us like in the movies, but like beautiful blue lights hovering against the infinite darkness, it can still be full of love, where good people can sit with their families and be happy. The darkness will eventually swallow us all, but we needn’t live our lives in it.

What did you think of this season? Tell us in the comments below.

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HT: FX

IMAGES: FX