The Nadir

In October 2020, it was reported that the eighth episode of the season would be titled "The Nadir", and was to be written by series creator Noah Hawley, co-executive producer Enzo Mileti and co-executive producer Scott Wilson, and directed by Sylvain White. This was Hawley's 31st writing credit, Mileti's third writing credit, Wilson's third writing credit, and White's first directing credit.[1]

In its original American broadcast, "The Nadir" was seen by an estimated 0.70 million household viewers and gained a 0.2 ratings share among adults aged 18–49, according to Nielsen Media Research. This means that 0.2 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode.[2] This was a slight increase in viewership from the previous episode, which was watched by 0.65 million viewers with a 0.1 in the 18-49 demographics.[3]

"The Nadir" received positive reviews from critics. Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "B" grade and wrote, "Not everything really works in 'The Nadir', and even twists that do work feel like they were dropped in from another, better structured season of television. But there are some stylish action set pieces, some unexpected moments, and a general welcome vibe of creepiness and tension. The episode is called 'The Nadir', after all. Some bad news is going to go down. It's just a shame it has to feel so disjoined when it does."[4]

Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone wrote, "Structure has very much been lacking from Fargo of late. 'The Nadir' doesn't entirely solve this problem — it's not hard to imagine pieces of the episode having originally co-existed with scenes from the last few before Noah Hawley started re-editing — but it has dramatic highs to cover for it that recent episodes lacked."[5] Nick Schager of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "There's no such thing as a reliable criminal alliance, meaning the fortunes of gangsters are as unpredictable as the wind. 'The Nadir' reinforces that point with thrilling twists which suggest that, for most of these underworld characters, only doom awaits."[6]

Keith Phipps of Vulture gave the episode a 3 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "So where is all this going? Fargo's traditionally been good with propulsive action scenes and dialogue-driven character moments, but much of 'The Nadir' plays like a shapeless collection of the latter capped by the former. It's not a bad episode at all, though the familiarity of the shoot-out is a bit much."[7] Nick Harley of Den of Geek gave the episode a 3.5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "Regardless of how I felt about it, there's going to be no talk of deescalating the war now that Josto and Gateano lost their mother. Like the specter of death that seems to be floating around this season, a messy, violent ending seems to be inevitable. Let's just hope that things are messy in a narrative sense, and not in the underwhelming way that we saw in tonight's episode."[8] Scott Tobias of The New York Times wrote, "For the most part, this episode was an entertaining jumble of loose ends and Plan Bs, full of characters who are scrambling to figure out how to act when their schemes have been blown up. With various subplots zipping every which way, there's not any single unifying idea that binds the hour together, but at this point in the season, there's just too much narrative business that needs to be resolved."[9]

TVLine named Jessie Buckley as the "Performer of the Week" for the week of November 14, 2020, for her performance in the episode. The site wrote, "With her aw-shucks accent and cute Minnesota-isms, Nurse Oraetta Mayflower seems at first glance to be from the same good-hearted Midwestern stock as Fargo's original Marge Gunderson. But behind that kindly smile lies a cold-blooded killer, and Buckley — already Season 4's MVP — hit new heights this week as Oraetta opened up about her twisted childhood... and started to see her master plan fall apart."[10]