Fargo Season 5 (Jon Hamm, Juno Temple, Jennifer Jason Leigh)

[Proactive]

Excellent, thanks.

[backdrifter]

I'm also loving this!

[Tiggles]

Episode One and it has come screaming out of the blocks. Haven't been that tense watching telly in quite some time.

[jobotic]

Wasn't so keen on Episide 3 although gun shop was amusing.

Couldn't see what was happening half the time.

[Tiggles]

Episode 3 was absolutely fucking terrifying. Forcing myself to wait a bit before going in to episode 4.

Is JJL reminding anyone else of her turn in The Hudsucker Proxy, which for some reason is one of my favourite films by the Coens?

[Inspector Norse]

I think JJL is the weak link, not because she gives a bad performance, just the character seems too clichéd (though I liked the big NO behind her desk). Only three episodes in so hidden depths/backstory hopefully to come.

Episode three was otherwise off the chain. Loved Wayne's little "oh!" at Gun World.

Any significance to having another eyepatch character, I wonder?

[selectivememory]

Loved the latest one. An even more thrilling

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home invasion sequence than in the opening episode. If they gave me a whole season of Juno Temple thwarting and seriously injuring her would-be kidnappers, I think I'd be pretty happy with that.

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Totally agree with the Jennifer Jason Leigh criticism. She's stood out to me from the start as being a bit too broad and silly a character compared to everyone else. I hope that's a deliberate bit of misdirection, but I think maybe she's just not that great a character. Minor misstep in an otherwise excellent season so far.

[selectivememory]

Halfway through now, and it's really shaping up to be a great season. Dot/Nadine is just a great protagonist for this show, and Juno Temple is so good in the role.

Ok, it was a bit silly that

Spoiler alert

after she escaped the psychiatric ward disguised in the nurse's scrubs, she was still on the loose in the hospital for what seemed to be hours before she finally escaped, with presumably the whole place looking for her.

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But whatever, can forgive this show that kind of thing, as it's never been one for realism.

[Mobbd]

I enjoyed Episode 5. I love Juno Temple.

JJL, though somewhat 2D as others here have said, got some terrific lines and moments in this one. Though I take the criticism, I'm never bored when she's crushing some guy's balls while barely trying. I liked the zookeeper line too.

I actually kinda like her 2-dimensionality in a weird way. It's almost postmodern. Like, we've got the occasional supernatural character and now we've got a character straight out of Dallas or Dynasty. Why not? That's a thing! She's this season's UFO.

What do people think of the minimalism of the season so far? Like, there's not much going on in terms of story. Hamm wants Dot. That's about it. After Season 4, I'd have welcomed a more pared-down version of the show but (beautifully made though it is) this isn't getting my blood up like previous seasons have done. There used to be a sense of there being so many pieces on the board, but the second-tier characters beyond Hamm and Dot don't hold much mystery. Unless they do, of course, and I'm not seeing it yet.

I like Olmstead (lady cop). I hope we see more of her and that she gets her moment somehow.

[Bad Ambassador]

JJL's instant deconstruction of Sheriff Jon Hamm was beautiful.

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"So you want all of the freedom, but none of the responsibility? There's only one person in the world who has that. A baby. You want the right to be a baby."

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[selectivememory]

Yeah, kind of came round on her a bit in this episode. Think maybe @Mobbd has the right idea in how to think about her character.

Am liking how focused this season is. Very welcome after the sprawling mess of the previous one, though I do see the point that even compared to the first three seasons it feels a bit scaled-back and less ambitious. Does help that both Dot and Tillman are very compelling.

Plus I suppose there is a lot of intrigue surrounding Tillman's unorthodox (and illegal) methods of enforcing the law, and also JJL's whole deal is extremely shady. And who knows what's going on with Munch and how he's going to fit into proceedings in the second half of the season.

[Better Midlands]

I love Juno Temple.

She's always left me nonplussed - she could be OK-ish (Vinyl) or annoying (Ted Lasso) but she's great in this and was pretty decent playing a minor role in Palmer TBF.

[selectivememory]

Wasn't that familiar with her work prior to this, but she's been perfectly cast here.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I like how Dot is incredibily scary but also very likeable. She just wants to be with the husband and daughter she loves. I think she is really cool (unless we discover in later episodes that she is a Captain Tom fan or set XL bullies on toddlers).

[jobotic]

JJL's instant deconstruction of Sheriff Jon Hamm was beautiful.

Spoiler alert

"So you want all of the freedom, but none of the responsibility? There's only one person in the world who has that. A baby. You want the right to be a baby."

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Yeah that was good.

I really enjoy her scenes, have from the beginning.

[Better Midlands]

Yeah that was good.

That was a great line.

[Mobbd]

She's always left me nonplussed - she could be OK-ish (Vinyl) or annoying (Ted Lasso) but she's great in this and was pretty decent playing a minor role in Palmer TBF.

Oh, I mean in this, yes! Haven't knowingly seen her in anything else.

[phantom_power]

I love how this season is just get some great actors to play some great characters and then set them off against each other, both verbally and physically. JJLs face to face with Hamm was awesome, as was Dave Foley's little coda with him outside

[Tiggles]

This is a genuinely great season. Top five of things I've seen on telly this year already. Everyone is incredible in it.

I'm enjoying how I can't tell where JJL's character is going morally/ strategically, other than to protect her son. It's a bit on the nose but I am also enjoying the wordplay of Mrs Lyons and Dot being "The Tiger". Any more big cats spotted?

There's quite a few

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men as babies

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characters in this too, wonder where that is going, thematically?

[Mobbd]

I am also enjoying the wordplay of Mrs Lyons and Dot being "The Tiger". Any more big cats spotted?

I literally only just noticed that, moments before seeing your post. No other big cats spotted but a sure-fire preponderance of eyepatches.

[Mobbd]

My partner doesn't watch Fargo but she just saw a clip of JJL and Danish Graves in the No room and she said "you wanna get ants? Because that's how you get ants."

She's right! Those scenes look *exactly* like Archer.

[Tiggles]

Episode 6 is upsetting, brilliant and left me sobbing. All the characters are fully there.

[selectivememory]

Yeah, very good. The end of the episode raised the stakes a lot by shedding a bit more light on Dot/Nadine's situation and what she was actually escaping from. Horrific. 

Very curious to see how Lorraine reacts to that info in the next episode and whether it changes her attitude to Dot. She's all-in on the fight against Tillman either way I guess.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Watched first two episodes of this and loving it. Hamm, Temple and Stranger Things hair guy in particular very watchable but everyone is great (although I get the JJL complaints).

Seems to be kind of a semi-remake of the film at times. Abduction scene is practically a shot for shot remake and there's the nervous husband in the car dealership.

[a peepee tipi]

The latest episode was horrific and very well done. Juno Temple's character is my favorite protagonist in a long while

[selectivememory]

She's maybe the first protagonist in this show who's wholly sympathetic, in that she's not someone getting caught up in events far bigger than herself because of something greedy/stupid/criminal that she did, but is actually just a decent but victimised person trying to escape a truly horrifying past. And Jon Hamm's character in contrast is one of the most monstrous antagonists this show has had as well, by representing quite a mundane but very real kind of terror, and not being a supernaturally gifted criminal mastermind like Varga or Malvo.

Anyway, good episode, excited to see how the final few episodes are going to play out.

[Tiggles]

Excellent episode, again. A clever way to tell

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Dot's horrible story, along with her almost magical hopes

[close]

and a feeling of dread when

Spoiler alert

she got knocked over and I realised that she would be "found" again if she went into hospital

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.

There is no way that

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Gator

[close]

is going to make it out of this alive, surely?

[Mobbd]

That was great.

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Adored the Cohen Brothersy twist of fate with the truck.

Liked the puppet show a great deal though it strongly reminded me of the animated sequence in Bo is Afraid.

Minor grumble in that I didn't appreciate the flashbacks to the abuse photographs of Dot. It felt patronising: I'd already clocked that she'd be triggered by a Punch and Judy show.

Not sure what purpose was served by Dot running out of gas. I was worried about that but it turned out not be relevant since Camp Utopia was her destination anyway.

Laughed when she clocked Linda one in the gazebo.

I love Old Munch. Looking forward to Stranger Things getting all the skin torn slowly off his body. Thought that might actually happen this week before he even killed the mum, the useless fuckwit. Now he's really got it coming.

It was obvious who the "husband" announced by the nurse was going to be, but the pause between the line and the revelation was smouldering. "I gotcha" - a terrifying line.

[close]

She's maybe the first protagonist in this show who's wholly sympathetic, in that she's not someone getting caught up in events far bigger than herself because of something greedy/stupid/criminal that she did, but is actually just a decent but victimised person trying to escape a truly horrifying past.

Such a good point. Maybe to the show's slight detriment possibly? I hadn't sensed it before you mentioned it, but I have a special love for conniving characters who are out of their depth.

[Tiggles]

Spoiler alert

Not sure what purpose was served by Dot running out of gas. I was worried about that but it turned out not be relevant since Camp Utopia was her destination anyway.

I think her running out of gas pretty much immediately after leaving a gas station was one of the clues they were giving us that the whole scenario wasn't real. I started out not trusting what was happening but I ended up being surprised when she woke up, still looking at her pancakes in the diner.

On the last bit - horribly tense. We all knew who it would be, it was the wait to see when Dot would see him that made it so horrible for me.

On Coen brothers references - yes! Plus Munch coming out of the house, wielding the axe. Great visual call-back. To be fair this season is full of 'em.

[close]

[tinner]

Spoiler alert

I think her running out of gas pretty much immediately after leaving a gas station was one of the clues they were giving us that the whole scenario wasn't real. I started out not trusting what was happening but I ended up being surprised when she woke up, still looking at her pancakes in the diner.

On the last bit - horribly tense. We all knew who it would be, it was the wait to see when Dot would see him that made it so horrible for me.

On Coen brothers references - yes! Plus Munch coming out of the house, wielding the axe. Great visual call-back. To be fair this season is full of 'em.

[close]

Spoiler alert

I was hoping that the easy on the eye statement would get her up and out of the window..(not that her current husband isn't pretty , I suppose you'd describe him another way.

[close]