The season 5 finale of Fargo aired on January 16, 2024, and delivered an emotional ending that resonated with viewers. Dorothy Lyon’s story concludes when she extends forgiveness to Ole Munch by offering him a biscuit made with love. The immortal accepts the food and what it represents, breaking into a smile during the episode’s final seconds.

FX has not yet announced Fargo Season 6, likely due to Noah Hawley’s upcoming series, Alien. While each season centers around a new cast of characters, Sam Spruell, who plays Munch, shares that he would be open to returning if the right opportunity presented itself. However, the actor also admits that Munch’s story may be better left as is, and hopes he’ll find peace after centuries of suffering.

Screen Rant interviews Sam Spruell about the meaning behind the sin eater, Munch’s future, and elevating the final scene of Fargo Season 5.

Spruell Believes The Sin Eater In Fargo Season 5 Represents Modern America

Screen Rant: In a series like Fargo that follows a different story every season, how far in advance do you know your character arc? Are you given a general overview from the beginning, or do you find things out as you get the scripts?

Sam Spruell: Interesting question. Before we started filming, I certainly read the first four scripts, maybe even the first six. There were still changes taking place, but, actually, they were pretty set. I knew where I was going to be, and how I was going to be involved with the story and the other characters. People like Roy Tillman and Dot Lyon, played by Juno and Jon. I knew who I was going to be doing quite a bit of acting with, which was also kind of nice, but maybe till six, and that only took us just over halfway through the show.

It was exciting getting more scripts and also getting the final scripts, which really created a proper arc for my character. I was unbelievably grateful for that and excited about the challenge. I had talked to Noah Hawley about how the show was going to pan out. Again, it was all loose, but Noah holds a lot of great stuff in his head. I think he had ideas right from the get-go.

Were you surprised that Munch was the sin eater?

Sam Spruell: It was quite a shock to know that this character began 500 years ago. You’re dealing with an aspect to this character, making him a bit mythical, a bit supernatural. That is a completely daunting prospect in the sense that I’ve never played a supernatural character, or an immortal character. Being a sin eater kind of represented, I guess, a take on modern America about how the poor are all sin eaters.

The very poorest of America are the sin eaters of the very richest of America. That was a political take, which I found interesting, but it’s also thematic. It was my job, I suppose, to take the themes of what sin eating represented and make them a character, make them a person whose actions and whose disposition and sensibilities were all dictated by eating the sins of other people.

Given everything that we discover throughout the season, did your opinion of Munch change by the time you filmed the finale?

Sam Spruell: I suppose it evolves, doesn’t it? I don’t really have an opinion of him. I suppose I continued to shape him and think about him. The great thing about TV, when you’ve got kind of fantastic characters like Noah Hawley writes, is that the characters through the series, through over ten hours, you really get to deepen your understanding of who these people are, and what they represent, and why they do the things that they do. I had sympathy for Ole Munch in the beginning, and that sympathy only deepened as I went on. I could see he was trapped in a cycle of life that wasn’t down to his decisions, initially. He had no control over it.

Spruell Hopes That Munch Will Achieve Solitude Following The Fargo Season 5 Finale

There are several important moments between Munch and Dot. How do you think she’s impacted him?

Sam Spruell: She has an impact, because, of course, she’s a tiger initially, and a match for his power, and his ruthlessness. But then he sees her later on in the show, maybe as a fellow victim, as someone who is trapped in a cycle of life and a cycle of activity that isn’t down to her own making. There’s a shared victimhood there, and maybe an empathy. Right at the end, he is confronted with her own code.

He has a code of action and recompense. For whatever he’s done for you, you owe him a debt. Her code is slightly different. Her code is, “Maybe I do owe you that, but maybe you can forgive the debt. Maybe you can let it go. Maybe you can choose another way of life that is about love and compassion and kindness.” I think the force of her code wins the day.

I’ve seen a lot of different theories about what happens to Munch after the finale. Where do you think he goes from here?

Sam Spruell: It’s funny. My son reads a bit about what people are saying about Munch. I don’t really read that kind of stuff. He tells me some really funny things. He said, “Dad, people are writing all kinds of stuff about you and the character,” and I think that’s wonderful if [Much] has excited people’s imaginations. I like to think that, certainly, his brush with Dot Lyon and her family have, like I said, broken the cycle of his own life, his own life that’s trapped in sin, and their kindness and compassion towards him maybe nudges him into thinking that he doesn’t have to carry on doing the evil bidding of other people.

He can, I don’t know, become a gardener. Work with nature. I don’t know. Something where his code is facilitated in a way that he does an honest job. He gets paid an honest wage for an honest day’s work. It’s quite boring, but I think he deserves that after 500 years of hardship and living in sin. I think he deserves a quiet job where the demands on him are not too heavy, and he can exist in a kind of solitude that I think he would be comfortable with.

So much of the final scene of season 5 relied on facial expressions. Can you give some insight into what it took to elevate that moment?

Sam Spruell: That’s really sweet of you to say it was elevated. We filmed that on the last day of filming of the entire shoot. One of the things that made that scene work is that we had been in those characters for six months. In a way, we had been rehearsing these moments for six months, not directly doing that scene, but we had really filled those characters’ shoes for a long time. There was something instinctual about how we acted that scene, which we have been building up to for a long time. The thing about Ole Munch is that he did have a specific physicality in his face and how he moved.

He’s been in those bones for a long time, but I think things would often surprise him. Being given a plate of food was surprising. Being given a soda was surprising. The child’s interjections and dealing with children, even talking to a child was surprising. It feels like he’s always in a kind of alien landscape. Even though he’s lived on this earth for five hundred years, people are continually surprising to him. This surprise was, really, as I said, being confronted with the love, and free expression, and positivity of this family, and where the child is actually given space to be who she wants to be without punishment.

I think that would have been quite impactful on him. That’s just acting. The rest of it is just me. The expressions are me, but the emotions that we’re going through dictate my face, really. Once you put that haircut on my face and zoom in on my teeth eating that cookie, it gives the whole look that you would want. There’s lots that go into how I come across to you, but at its heart, is the emotional intensity and the psychology that I’ve been thinking about for a long time as I play that part over six months.

Although He Loves Playing The Character, Spruell Feels That Munch’s Story Ends With Fargo Season 5

Each season is devoted to a different cast of characters, but if the show decided to bring Munch back for an episode, would you want to play him again?

Sam Spruell: Yeah, I think so. I did love playing that character. I really believed in what Noah was trying to do with that character, as well, and what that character represented and who he was as a man. Even though he was a supernatural character, I found everything about him, on the page, anyway, really believable. That’s so joyous as an actor to read a script or read the lines of your character and completely understand where they’re coming from and completely believe that.

So much of our job is, maybe, helping the script be better. I’m sure that was tweaks along the way, but with Fargo, I really felt like Noah’s writing for my character and throughout the show was so strong. I loved it. In that sense, I would like to [see] more of what Noah has to say through that character. However, that character, and the power of that character, only exists because of the other actors on the show, and the characters that they were playing.

If they’re not going to be there, I don’t know. Maybe he wouldn’t be as impactful. Or maybe he wouldn’t be as strong. You’re only as good as your scene partners. I don’t know. It’s a tricky one. I’m on the fence about it. I’d love to come back. I’d love a spinoff. But, no, I think he ends with season 5 of Fargo, and that is it.

Now that Fargo Season 5 has come to an end, do you have any other projects on the horizon?

Sam Spruell: I do have other projects on the horizon. At the moment, I’ve got a film out on MUBI called The Settlers, which is a really fantastic small Chilean movie, but there are some British actors in it as well. And then I’m starting filming on something which is really interesting. I don’t know whether I can talk about it, so I can’t, but it will be revealed soon, and it’s a great fantasy project.

About Fargo Season 5

The latest installment of Fargo is set in Minnesota and North Dakota, 2019. After an unexpected series of events lands “Dorothy ‘Dot’ Lyon” (Juno Temple) in hot water with the authorities, this seemingly typical Midwestern housewife is suddenly plunged back into a life she thought she had left behind.

Fargo is currently available to stream on Hulu.