"Fargo" TV series from the Coen Brothers

[Bored of Canada]

Thornton was great, definitely a good move on his behalf to sign up for it to remind people of that. Freeman also done a really great job imo, haven't seen Sherlock but he really surprised me here with the performance.

He's good in Sherlock, but hasn't got much to work with.
He is very much entirely in aid of Sherlock, which hey, is the point of Watson. I really can't complain. The show's name IS Sherlock, I guess.


Lucky that lone sign was there in the middle of nowhere, for Martin Freeman to directly pass.

I thought

Spoiler alert

Lester literally being on thin ice at that point was a little too on the nose.

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It was such a safe,  neat ending. Lacked any boldness, and ultimately just mirrored the film.
Why? Audience's learned nothing new and our expectations were met exactly, not subverted. What was the point having that ending.

Spoiler alert

Gus didn't deserve to be a hero. He should have remained a fuckup. And Lester should have gotten away. A more brave thing to do with such a reprehensible character.  But no. They finished it with it all done and dusted. No ambiguity except for all the plotholes.

[close]

Why did Gus not ring?

Who was the Vegas witness that called in Lester but not Malvo? I thought it was Malvo when that detail first emerged and thought it was going to be framing Lester for a crime he didn't commit, successfully, which would have been a more ironic and clever ending for that character. But Malvo was going after him so that makes no sense to be bri ging in the cops.

How in fucks name did he get out of that basement?

I generally don't care about plotholes. But the first and third ones I listed were so glaring and upsetting that I got physically angry with the show.

[Dropshadow]

I liked the poster on the wall of the cafe which advertised White Russians, the Dude's fave drink.

But imagine if you really dislike that film, and you see distracting references to it in the background.

In that case I'd instantly (or at least within 24 hours, say, after a good kip) send a very stiff email to Leonard Cohen and Billy Joel and tell them to stop putting distracting references to their films in the background of their TV shows because I dislike it, and that. It's the only language they understand.

[Default to the negative]

It annoyed me that Molly showed her father that blurry CCTV image of Malvo, when we'd already seen that she had a much clearer photo of him pinned to her crime wall. The mugshot of "Frank Peterson" should have been her standard Malvo pic.

[neveragain]

So many great moments that I'm willing to overlook the plot discrepancies. I also like the fact they tied Lester and Malvo's stories up. It could have gone in a different direction, yes, but all in all it was an enthralling watch (from around the time when Dennis Reynolds got shot to bits and Lester was hopping around hospital beds, a bit too zany-quirky beforehand).

[the science eel]

These things are getting too complicated, impenetrable plots and mumbling and bollocks. Seriously. Where will we be in twenty years?

There'll be a tiny little picture of an old man under someone's coffee mug, seen in the opening shot for half a second, and woebetide you if you didn't see it, 'cos there'll be references throughout the whole series. And some cunt wandering into a bar off the street rambling on about something - LISTEN CAREFULLY 'cos he mentions a book which some other fella read 30 years ago which has the key to the location of the murderer's assistant.

[Tiny Poster]

So what happened to Lester's brother?

[Old Nehamkin]

So what happened to Lester's brother?

I'm guessing he got released after the cops heard the tape of Lester talking to Malvo.

[Tiny Poster]

I think he bust out, got the re-buried money and then lied about witnessing Malvo's murder so that Gus could get a commendation.


Oh and he sent electricity through Malvo's body so it looked like he came to life and reminded you of Gus. Fring. The other Gus.

[Small Man Big Horse]

It annoyed me that Molly showed her father that blurry CCTV image of Malvo, when we'd already seen that she had a much clearer photo of him pinned to her crime wall. The mugshot of "Frank Peterson" should have been her standard Malvo pic.

Heh, yeah, the same thought crossed my mind at the time.

I've just binge watched the last six episodes over the last few days and I did enjoy it a lot, until the final episode where everything was tied up way too conveniently.

Spoiler alert

I know Key and Peele bought it, but I was expecting the death of at least one other major character, and some kind of verbal confrontation between Malvo and those hunting him down. But no, Colin Hanks murders him, Martin Freeman drowns and it's an all too happy ending

[close]

for my liking.

Still, Thornton made it just about worth watching despite my issues, and in certain scenes I couldn't help but think he'd make for an amazing Bob in Twin Peaks now that Frank Silva's no longer with us.

[zomgmouse]

I just finished this a few days ago and overall thought it was fantastic. It had the grippingness and the funniness. Thornton's deadpan was magnificent.

Spoiler alert

"I could call you up at night and you can listen to me shit on people."

[close]

I liked that the series was only really based on the film in terms of concept/mood rather than just replicating the characters and plotline. Yes there was a pregnant policewoman and a -gaard-suffixed salesperson who gets involved with murder, but I felt it more than held its own ground in terms of being an autonomous entity. Maybe it helped that I wasn't watching it episode-by-episode as it came out. I find that usually helps with appreciating stuff.

In terms of plot holes, the only think that really irked me was the lack of communication between police departments. Especially on that

Spoiler alert

physical trainer being duct taped/SWATted thing

[close]

. I was also kind of surprised at the swift dropping of the supermarket guy plotline. But mostly that didn't stand in the way of my enjoyment of the show.

Maybe one too many "meaningful anecdotes". Though personally I'm glad the final bit

Spoiler alert

with Gus and Malvo didn't involve some kind of poignant conversation about the nature of evil or whatever and instead Gus just gunned the fucker down. Just blam blam. Blam blam

[close]

. That pleased me.

For people complaining about

Spoiler alert

Gus killing Malvo

[close]

- I'm pretty sure there is such a thing as justifiable homicide. As for who was the Vegas witness, I thought that was Malvo too, so that if Malvo didn't kill him, the police would get him. Or something. Oh, and didn't Lester's brother

Spoiler alert

commit suicide

[close]

or something? Or was did I just misconnect something? I'm pretty sure there was a shot of

Spoiler alert

Malvo listening to some tapes of someone committing suicide

[close]

. Maybe that wasn't Chazz, though.

One thing I realised was how signposty the names were. SOLVERson. MALvo. GRIMly. What the Dickens?

But anyway, I really found this very great.

[Bad Ambassador]

"Lester Nygaard" is an anagram of "arranged style".

[zomgmouse]

Also "trendy arse lag".
Or "trendy slag era".

[Lost Oliver]

Really enjoyed this but it was nothing special (bar BBT). Just an enjoyable watch but a bit too twee at times.

I would've given it a bit more of a glowing review had I not recently become obsessed with Hannibal and watched the whole first series last weekend.

[chand]

*SPOILERS BELOW, IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LATEST EPISODE*

It's a bit weird that Gus was given a citation for bravery. That would make sense if he'd taken Malvo down during one of his mass shootings, but what actually happened was the opposite of that. I think it's more likely that Gus would be charged with murder. He gunned down a wounded, unarmed man and didn't even plant a weapon in Malvo's hand to make it look like self-defence. That wouldn't fly with the police, even if the victim was a dangerous hitman. Furthermore, he waited in the cabin for Malvo to come back with a clear intent to kill him, when he had ample time to phone the police and tell them he'd found the killer's hideout.

I dunno, I'm not an expert on these matters, but I don't think there's any precedent in the real world for someone doing what Gus did and not only getting away with it, but also being hailed as a hero by the authorities. I'm used to things involving Malvo being unrealistic, but the Molly/Gus side of the story is usually more grounded in reality. This outcome was too implausible, even by the stretched standards of Fargo.

I agree that, based on what we actually saw, Gus isn't a hero. But come on now, a former cop shooting a notorious hitman with a couple of dozen kills, in the midst of a killing spree, in a small town, isn't going to go to jail whatever the circumstance. I don't think people would be asking a lot of questions and there wouldn't be any public desire to get him taken to trial. Looking up examples of vigilante killings brings up stuff like this, where 46 people witnessed a murder but none would say who did it because they all hated the victim. Regardless though, it's the sort of killing that happens all the time in fiction without consequence.

I hated the entire section with Gus in Mavlo's home. Why didn't he phone it in? Why is assuming Malvo will come back? It stunk so badly in terms of logical plotting.

That was definitely the worst bit. He gets his phone out and considers phoning it in, and then shuts it, and I wondered if we were meant to think his phone was dead or out of signal. Which in itself would be kind of annoying given that he was on his phone before that, it would be a bit too convenient. For him to stay there and wait was a ridiculous decision. I mean, once he's checked out the house and found all the tapes I could understand him assuming Malvo would eventually come back, but in the meantime Malvo is out there killing three more people, and for a man who was so concerned about the safety of his wife, letting Malvo go and potentially kill her on the off-chance that he'll get to kill Malvo himself when he comes back is a terrible decision.

frankly I wanted Lester to get away with it all to be honest.

This I can't agree with, I'm not a moralist or a believer in karma or anything but he was so hard to root for. The dude kills his wife with a hammer and is responsible for the death of his next wife, I can't say I would've enjoyed seeing him looking pleased with himself at the end of it. He wasn't as compelling a character as, say, Walter White, whose descent from hero to villain happens much more slowly and understandably, but who you end up rooting against.

Those two FBI cops were terrible from start to finish, really clunky. I also couldn't get out of my head that one of them regularly performs on Whose Line it is Anyway?

I'd only ever seen him before on 'The Planet's Funniest Animals', delivering unbelievably cheesy links between clips. So that was weird.

Anyway, I think I ended up with mixed feelings about this. For some reason I never gave a shit about Gus, and Lester was nowhere near as sympathetic as Macy's character in the film. But Billy Bob Thornton and Allison Tolman were both great. The ending did feel a bit neat though.

[Old Nehamkin]

The FBI agents are played by Key and Peele, a comedy duo who have a sketch show on comedy central.

[Tiny Poster]

And it's a pretty good sketch show, too. They are both excellent in their own right as well. Keegan Michael Key's (the Whose Line one) performance in Hellbaby steals the entire film.

[chand]

The FBI agents are played by Key and Peele, a comedy duo who have a sketch show on comedy central.

Yeah, I know, I looked Key up cos I knew I recognised him from something unlikely, and it was Planet's Funniest Animals. When that's the only thing you've seen him in previously he's kind of hard to take seriously. Kind of like if Alex Zane or, I dunno, David Dickinson popped up.

[Tiny Poster]

Think of him this way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw

[Bored of Canada]

Season 2 will take place in 1979 and focus on Lou Solverson (the character Keith Carradine played in Season 1). It'll be a 33-year-old version of Lou, a state cop recently back from fighting in the Vietnam War. Molly will be four years old and we'll meet her mother (discovering what ultimately happened to her in the process).

http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/07/22/fargo-season-2-details-focus-on-lou-different-era-different-setting

[Johnny Textface]

http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/07/22/fargo-season-2-details-focus-on-lou-different-era-different-setting

Sounds a little too tenuous this.  Assume the TV bods over in the states are shooting their collective load over the success of True Detective and the notion of a new season / new cast etc.. But this seems a bit forced really.  I would have preferred Lorne Malvo's back story - although casting it would be a nightmare.

[Noodle Lizard]

Just caught up with this.  God, that really went to shit towards the end, didn't it?  I can only imagine the Coens produced it by name only because there is very little Coensy about it at all, they're not even being ripped off correctly. 

The snowmobile chase at the end.

[Johnny Textface]

Yeah that chase was seriously crowbarred in for an action packed finale. Very disappointing ending on all fronts really.

[chand]

The snowmobile chase seemed like they'd come in surprisingly under-budget by the filming of the last episode and wondered what they could blow the remainder on.

I enjoyed the series overall, it was patchy though and I had some problems with it towards the end (Gus just patiently waiting for Malvo to come back from his killing spree, for one). I have no idea if I'll watch the next series, I thought Molly was potentially a really interesting character, so to have a new season without either Malvo or Molly I'm gonna need a new reason to watch I guess.

[Steven]

Season 2 starts tonight, hopefully Freeman-less. Not that he didn't do that bad in the show but he was basically copying William H Macy. That is all.

[Onken]

TONIGHT?! I've seen nothing about this mentioned online.

You couldn't escape the social media campaign for the first season.

[Steven]

TONIGHT?! I've seen nothing about this mentioned online.

You couldn't escape the social media campaign for the first season.

Fargo
Waiting for Dutch 10:00 PM on FX-E, 1 hr 9 min 2015
In the second season premiere, a surprising event at a diner disrupts the citizens of a small Minnesota town.

[veletision]

It's meant to be even better than the first season.

This is on one of the European Netflix regions weekly for those who have access to such regions.

[Van Dammage]

Season 2 starts tonight, hopefully Freeman-less. Not that he didn't do that bad in the show but he was basically copying William H Macy. That is all.

It's set before Freeman's character was even born I think.

[up_the_hampipe]

I think it's about the Molly's dad when he was a police officer. He mentioned something in the last episode about sitting on the porch with a gun protecting 4 year old Molly from something. I think this series is going to show that whole story.

[Steven]

It's set before Freeman's character was even born I think.

Good. But they might still do flash-forwards. Checked IMDB and it doesn't have all the episodes listed yet but for the first we have new cast such as:

Kirsten Dunst   ...   
Jesse Plemons   ...   
Ted Danson   ...   
Patrick Wilson   ...
Bruce Campbell..