[2][3] The episode follows policewoman Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon) as she comes to Los Angeles to further investigate the mysterious past of her stepfather by researching information about his previous life as science fiction writer Thaddeus Mobley (Thomas Randall Mann).

[5][1] Coon's performance, the writing, and the episode's originality and uniqueness within the series were all highly praised, while its various themes and self-aware lack of point were the subject of several analyses.

[6][7][8][9][10][11] In 1975 Los Angeles, young and trustful science fiction writer Thaddeus Mobley receives an award for his novel The Planet Wyh and meets producer Howard Zimmerman, who wants to adapt the book into a film.

These factors leave Mobley heavily in debt, and he discovers too late that he is a victim of Zimmerman and Lord's elaborate scam, as they never intended to make the movie.

The novel, depicted to the audience via animation with Gloria as narrator, tells the story of Unit MNSKY, a small robot programmed to observe and record, and who only says the phrase "I can help!".

After his spaceship crashed on Earth millions of years ago and his scientist companion died, MNSKY witnesses the creation of matter, the birth of life, the rise and fall of civilizations, and much more.

Several pre-existing songs were featured in the episode: "Liar" by Three Dog Night, "Blue Shadows on the Trail" by Riders of the Sky, "Silver Bells" by Gene Autry, "Orisa" by Moncho y su Wawanko Gitano, and "Jingo" by Santana.

[15] Unlike the previous episodes of the season, the end credits, instead of a song, feature the theme of the original film by Carter Burwell, re-arranged by Russo.

It currently holds a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes: the critical consensus is "'The Law of Non-Contradiction' impressively navigates a single storyline and a drastic change in location and tone, with compellingly unconventional results.

"[5] Vinnie Mancuso of the New York Observer was very enthusiastic about the episode: she applauded Coon's performance and her character's journey, as well as the "grandiose" speeches of Gloria.

And they are connected, from 2010 to the cocaine-fueled 70s to a color-and-ink animated robot world [...] Fargo is playing with the idea that there is no such thing as an unimportant story, only the moments between collisions when we're not truly living.

[9] Ben Travers of IndieWire gave the episode an A− rating, stating "Just when you thought Fargo was playing it safe in Season 3, in comes a big swing.

In other words, arguments that Hawley was ready to recede into formula were put to rest, and those of us already enthralled with Year Three were again reminded of Gloria's distinct relationship to her policeman predecessors.

[10] Noel Murray of Rolling Stone called the episode "a wondrous, moody hour of television, bordering on despairing, with only a little of the comedic quirkiness that is this drama's stock-in-trade.

He gave it an A rating, stating "It lacks the emotional power of events from previous seasons, but in its place achieves a sustained, knife's edge sort of curiosity, a high-wire act that keeps threatening to tip over into utter meaninglessness without quite doing so".

It's like a shaggy dog story [...] Ennis's past isn't why he got killed, but there is a chain of events that brought him to that house in the midwest, a series of decisions that both put him into Gloria's life and also made him the inadvertent target of someone looking for someone else.

Noting the many references to the works of the Coen brothers as usual, he however expressed concern that Fargo "runs the risk of becoming a series of paper dolls being slotted into new outfits without much variation at the source".

[16] Conversely, Kevin P. Sullivan of Entertainment Weekly gave the episode a C rating, stating "there was the unshakable sense that something was off—like we're in an invasion movie and are starting to suspect that our friend has been body-snatched.

[10][7] As most episodes of Fargo, "The Law of Non-Contradiction" drew comparisons with the works of the Coen brothers, most notably in this occurrence with a sub-plot in the original film revolving around Mike Yanagita, which Fargo creator Noah Hawley had acknowledged in the past as one of the show's main influences; in the film, Marge Gunderson, while in Minneapolis, meets up with Mike, a former classmate from her hometown that she hasn't seen in a long time.

[9] To Scott Tobias of The New York Times, the episode is "basically an hourlong Mike Yanagita scene", as Gloria is "learning about secrets and lies and then coming back to her own town with unlocked doors, bringing with her a keener sense of the possibilities.

[2][3][12] Alan Sepinwall of Uproxx commented that several elements in the episode contradict the law of noncontradiction: "Gloria is a police chief who isn't really a police chief anymore, running a department that no longer quite exists, still technically married to a man who is no longer her husband, investigating the death of a man who hadn't been her stepfather in decades but still had a paternal (or grandpaternal) presence in her life, was Ennis Stussy but not really Ennis Stussy, and who once wrote the tale of a helper robot that never seemed to get a chance to help anyone, then proved enormously helpful to the entire universe.

[10][1] In Episode 5 The Six Ungraspables from Fargo Season 1, Gus Grimly is told the parable of The Rich Man Who Gave Everything by his neighbor Ari Ziskind.