Fargo the TV miniseries

I know. I imagine Armiger knows too.

But where would she store her extra teeth???

I loved Key and Peele in there too. And while initially I was wondering if the office rampage staging was to save money, after a while I decided it was just a great way to show the carnage without having to waste a lot of time and money on extras and makeup. It ended up being effective.

Though I am still enjoying show, the general incompetence of all law enforcement except for maybe Molly is starting to gnaw at me though. And I do hope Gus gets his moment of redemption soon, it’s pretty agonizing seeing his particular incompetence.

I dunno, a lot of people don’t actually know this.

— Alan

Though I am still enjoying show, the general incompetence of all law enforcement except for maybe Molly is starting to gnaw at me though.

Yep, too much realism there in what is a otherwise a black comedy farce :p

re: Gus fucking up big time twice and then finding a redemptive change at the end – God, I hope not. If this were a Coen joint, Gus would be a fuckup to the very end, including rolling a critical miss at the climax of the series.

Woo, Stephen Root sighting! It wouldn’t be a Coen Bros pastiche without him (can Jon Polito be far behind?)

But aw jeez, can’t they do better with the localisms? It’s fair-boh, guys, not fair-BALT. And it’s in no way shape or form “up” from Bemidji.

I’m behind you guys and have to tread lightly in this thread, but I’ve had a lot of fun researching various NA accents after being inspired by this series.

I can’t believe they pulled the “one year later” bit in this last episode. Well, I guess I can, just kinda funky. And really what’s Gus’ redemptive change? Now he’s relegated to being a mailman.

And am not exactly sure of the point about the chief and the Sudanese kid is yet. If there is one.

— Alan

The sheer audaciousness of the shot pulling away from Gus when we all knew A)he was alone and B)Malvo was looking for him was a wonderful bait-and-switch. I mean, we all /knew/ when the camera started moving left that we were going to see Malvo standing there, possibly with a bazooka. It was a really nice job of subverting expectations, and of extricating us from having to sit through the pointless grind of Gus being removed from duty.

As for the Sudanese kid, I think it’s there both to remind the characters that there’s a larger world outside the Bemidji-Duluth axis, and also to give the Bob Odenkirk character a redeeming feature. I mean, yeah, he’s an idiot who’s blinded by loyalties and easily led, but those same qualities are what saved this kid.

I expected to see Malvo with a sniper rifle.

— Alan

Now he’s relegated to being a mailman.

Gus stated that becoming a mailman was his dream job as a kid.

And after last night’s episode, boy is Lester super easy to hate.

They’ve done a superb job with his character. He’s been someone you might root for, someone you hate, then you start rooting for him a bit more because of his audaciousness, but now… yikes. Great writing, and great acting by Martin Freeman. His general likability got you through the early patches, but when he became a douchebag after getting away with the murder, you could see his performance change, his posture change, just everything about how he carried himself.

And man, did I ever love Billy Bob Thornton’s long-con dentist.

Molly better win in the end, though.

Watch your DVR before proceeding…

Freeman has done a great job with his character, transitioning from the nebbish you almost want to smack his obnoxious wife with a hammer for him, to the overly preening successful salesman who doesn’t have the sense to take no for an answer. Similarly, Malvo’s elaborate con (hell, if you can be a dentist why do you need to be a hitman - well, okay, I understand the spit part - never mind) and then this is your last chance warning. And still somehow he had a soft spot for Lester, and Lester panicked. But that cold sending in wife #2 as a decoy to take the hit just in case - get 'im, Molly! And FBI guys exiled to the records room! And Molly’s dad, who clearly started to get a dangerous vibe from Malvo (sounded like another unsolved Malvo case). It’s a whole cast of odd characters and it has just been a lot of fun to watch the actors and the story.

I must echo what has been said about the June 10 episode.

The puzzling things are 1) why Lester forced the issue with Malvo, and 2) why Malvo didn’t kill him immediately after killing the other 3.

If I’m rationalizing 1), it’s that getting away with murder filled Lester with unfounded self-confidence. Self confidence that translated into serious commercial success, but also leads him to believe he can confront Malvo. When clearly if Malvo had wanted to, he could have killed Lester without further consequence.

Agreed that sending in wife #2 to get murdered by Malvo makes Lester easy to hate. A minor puzzle is that she covered for him with Molly, and then never asked Lester what she was hiding. I was really expecting her to play it straight and trip up Lester without meaning to.

Rationalizing 2 is tougher, but it seems to be an extension of Malvo’s initial reaction to Lester. He killed Hess purely because he despised Hess as a bully, and he felt some vague sympathy for Lester. He sometimes does stuff just for the hell of it, like getting the Motel kid to piss in the owner’s gas tank. Yet he clearly doesn’t have much sympathy for the ineffectual, since he immediately called the owner to get the kid in trouble, he set up the personal trainer to die, and intended to murder Lester in tonight’s episode.

Malvo’s just weird. Sometimes he takes the coldest, most pragmatic approach, and sometimes he does stuff apparently on a whim. Like visiting the deaf hitman and leaving him alive.

It’s great seeing Molly finally gettting some respect, but it’s hard to take that respect seriously since the two FBI guys are definitely clowns. Quite literally - that they cast Key and Peele is distracting, since I’m way too familiar with them as self-mocking comedians. I keep expecting them to start spazzing about “Liam Neesons.”

There’s no question that Molly’s dad made Malvo as a dangerous man almost immediately. His reaction to “where’s Lester?” was very clearly “no way in hell I’m telling you that.” That was a damned scary scene, because if Molly had come in, she would have recognized Malvo immediately - and he would have killed both of them. We’ve established that Malvo is ridiculously lethal, even against people who are supposedly professionals and prepared. Molly, Molly’s father, and Gus* all being thoroughly sympathetic characters, unlike Lester.

  • It’s not often I end up commenting on a namesake. It feels weird.

Malvo doesn’t have sympathy for Lester I don’t think. Notice the call Malvo was listening to was very similar to the call from Lester but with different results. He enjoys chaos, and talking these meek people into it. Also look back at some of Malvo’s speeches, where he talks about being raised by wolves. To a degree I don’t think Malvo is necessarily the boy in those stories, but the wolf. Letting Lester run and hunting him down is part of seeing how far Lester has come, it’s all part of the game.

1-Who was the one person in the world Lester could show off to at that point? The one person who actually knew how far he’d come? Malvo. He was a kid looking for dad’s approval.
2-Bodies are heavy. It seemed pretty likely that he was going to have Lester help him carry the bodies, and then kill Lester once that was done. Lester, weasel that he is, does have a strong survival instinct, which is why he hit Malvo and ran.

They’ve been subtly making “Malvo is the devil”, in the “walking to and fro in the earth” sense, all the away along. Note the line about apple pie in the diner.

And you could have all sorts of fun deconstructing a name that starts with “Mal” - “evil”.

Yeah, this is spot on. Why kill Lester when it’s so much more fun to torment/corrupt him?

MALeVOlent.

Good catch. And it’s not so obvious as Louis Cypher.