Fargo - TV Series

- Socks. Ah great. I, I needed socks, thanks.
- Don't thank us, thank Santa.

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"I may be rancid butter, but I'm on your side of the bread."
E. K. Hornbeck

FFS Hawley I can't wait another ******* week

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Letterboxd

I see what you did there, DD.

Now I don't feel so bad, thinking that the prison bus driver just flipped the bus to avoid hitting some jerk walking into his path. A homemade ramp. Not bad.

So, Mr. Wrench was in the first season of Fargo, eh? Well, he's very lucky. What I wouldn't give to be chained to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, if only for a little while.

And Ray Wise, aka Leland Palmer himself, is now some sort of advising angel? I like the irony of that. Twin Peaks has returned and Ray Wise is suddenly on Fargo, but as a good...guy/angel/The Stranger as Saunch so smoothly pointed out. I wonder if the vision he showed Yuri ending up killing him or scrambling his brain. It's three months later and all we see is Meemo dancing around the mansion and plopping Emmit into bed. No mention of Yuri. I'd like to have closure on his character, ala walking around in a brain-dead daze.

I'm jazzed by what Paul Marrane (Ray Wise) said to Nikki about saying those words to the evil men when it's time. Even though she killed a man with an air conditioner, she seems to have turned her life around, in the way that Marrane said that Mr. Wrench had. So obviously he knows she's going to mete out justice to someone, hopefully Varga. I was really hoping for Gloria (Carrie Coon) to be the one that nabs or gets him in some way. Speaking of Gloria, when Emmit walked in, I loved the shot of her face looking at him. She has seldom looked so beautiful.

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"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

Any clues or theories on what Meemo's been listening to?

I'm betting it's a Gordon Cole situation.

This episode was another great watch, but it seems like things are starting to get a little ragged story-wise making sense.

I'm lost on the significance of why Burgle is no longer being ignored by her mechanical overlords. There was probably more to that conversation than a hug, but I lost it.

Throw in that Varga is being outfoxed by a two-bit hustler. Eh... It's fun to watch, nevertheless.

Insert rando fallguy.

I'm hoping I can revisit the whole season and come up with a better conclusion than I got now.

Till' then...

Exactly.

I enjoyed watching it, but really? I don't know what I'm spose' to think. A criminal mastermind and crew ambushed by 2 petty crooks?

A car that breaks down, a man standing five yards in front of a sawed-off shotty blast survives and then drives off in broke down car.

Whatever. S2>S1>>>S3

Hawley should stop. This season while better than other tv, pales in comparison. I did appreciate the Sopranos ending.

Yeah, I think you got it. Lots of individual parts I liked but I'm not sure this added up the way the crew thought it did.

I did find it kind of interesting that with this and season two, being the season's where Hawley strayed away from The Coens more, the roots of the conflict moved from being internal (Jerry and Lester's greed and antipathy) to external (Mike and the corporation and the much more black and white conflict between the small town folk and Varga).

Edit:

The German prologue basically added up to this:



Edit #2:

Interesting Reddit theory (SPOILERS)


Edit #3:

Love this.

Saunch, you stole my thunder with "Okay, then." Which is exactly what I thought after the last episode went dark.

Yeah, I was disappointed with the conclusion of Nikki's story. I didn't mind them taking down all the bad guys on the third floor. Revenge is a huge motivator in some of these shows. But, I agree. When Ray Wise told Nikki to say those words to the bad guy before she destroyed him, I truly believe he meant Varga. For going after Emmit, she was distracted while saying the words because he kept interrupting her with "What now?" and the like, and looking past her at the arriving highway patrolman. And she did wrong by gunning down the state policeman. I hated that. Still, she lived fast, died young, and made a good looking corpse. If you feel icky about that last sentence, it's a movie quote.

I didn't like the whole, "Make up your own ending" to the series, because I believe that because it focused on the clock on the wall, it showed five minutes had gone by and nobody had come through the door to rescue Varga. That said, Carrie Coon looked so fine in her uniform with her dark, slightly salted hair really bringing out the beautiful color in her eyes. Give this lady a network series!

I can help!

Normally, I hate these kinds of endings, but this one didn't bother me. I like that it's a litmus test: what kind of person are you? What do you think the world is, at its core? A flawed place genuinely trying to do good, where real justice still takes place, or a rigged game from top-to-bottom?

I didn't notice the clock thing; you're certain it was five minutes? If so, that's a very nice, subtle method of having it both ways, of giving us our little hero's victory while simultaneously asking the question above.

I don't mind the Swango stuff at the end: she didn't do what she was supposed to. It was kind of shocking when she shot the police officer, until I remembered she was pretty darn shady in the first half of the season. Easy to forget she wasn't good, she was just in mourning, and just making trouble for someone we hated more.

I also don't mind her and Wrench outsmarting Varga's crew. I think of it as:

1) She wasn't as small-time as she seemed. The bridge stuff suggested untapped potential.
2) Wrench isn't really a petty criminal. He's very skilled, as we've seen in past seasons.
3) Varga was overconfident. He seemed calm and scary because he was in control. But lots of people seem that way in control, and it falls apart the moment they're not. EDIT: oh, and he's down a man or two, I believe.

Anyway, really thought the last couple of episodes pulled this season together pretty well. And I like how increasingly weird it was at times. Still the "worst" of the three, but I think that might have more to do with how similar in tone they all have to be in order to still feel like Fargo. I'd like to see more, but it wouldn't shock me if we've seen the best (or even the last) of this show. It was such an odd thing to try at all, and so delightful that it ever worked, let alone so well.

Oh, also, one of the things I appreciate most is how they restrain themselves from using the Fargo score. Really lets it kick you at exactly the right moment.

"Fargo" seasons ranked:
1. Season 3
2. Season 1
3. Season 2

Season 3 was the best because I never knew where it was gonna go and I appreciate it was more like mystery than crime genre.

I can't go there on S3. Varga the Horrible was great, but the cast of characters this time is of such a lower stature.

Ewan MacGregor was completely forgettable.

I'm just starting this series.

I got the initiation with S2 ep1. Then, by my own accord, borrowed s1 on blu ray.

I'm now 1/2 way immersed and looking forward to watching it, at least. It's very well made.

So far, I'm impressed with Martin Freeman's performance.

I laugh because I see his unavoidable british-ness coming through in his body language, but his accent I really appreciate.

Please explain.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Certainly not an insult but its his honed in, energetic and exacting movements, as if everything is a shy but outward ackowledgment of his immediate circumstance. Wide eyed, quick neck movements, sharp inward breaths... basically espresso on wheels. And the fact that he still plays his usual British character body-wise, theres a simple answer.

Fourth season is being developed by Hawley. FX higher-ups are expecting it for 2019.

I haven't seen season 3 yet (Will be getting it in about a week from Netflix), but I loved seasons one and two. Captures the vibe of the film perfectly while being mostly unrelated. Seson one has been my favorite so far, but the dark humor of season 2 with Kirsten Dunst as a stupid but underhanded housewife was great too.

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

An idea I tossed around here and there was that they should do a “True Grit” season set in the early days of the territory (it’d be worth watching just to see how Hawley handles period dialogue) but with the Coens’ Buster Scruggs series on Netflix this year I think it would end up feeling derivative.

I don’t know how much they’d want to connect the seasons but, much like the mention of Sioux Falls in season one, season two has that line about a Gerhardt family member getting 19 bullets to head during prohibition so... Miller’s Crossing season?