Fargo TV series season 1 review

Fargo (TV Mini series)- season 1.

Review by Zulfi

            (spoilers ahead)

            There is an introductory line before the start of every episode in the TV series Fargo (both season 1 and 2) that the events depicted in the show have actually occurred in real life. The best thing that happened to me while I watched it was that I took the line as had been stated. I really thought the events were based on true events while they weren’t. I came to know they were pure fiction at the start of the second season. My ignorance in the earlier stages added to the awe, I had for Fargo. There are so many perfect coincidences and thrilling cruxes in the storylines, which makes Fargo, one of the best mini-series on telly in recent times.

            The series is produced by Coen brothers, Noah Crawley (who did most of the writing) and many others. Coen brothers directed Fargo movie, one of the most excellent movies of the 90’s. The story in the first season is set in the early 2000s, while the second season is in early 1980’s. Probably the third season will go back another twenty years or may surprisingly be in the current period, who knows. That is a variable, which gives it a little touch of its own atmosphere, but the constant is ‘Fargo’, a place in Minnesota, where the stories occur.

            The first season starts with a car getting off the road after hitting a buck and a man springing from the truck on his underwear and running into the snowy woods, which looks deadly dark. Our driver (Lorne Malvo) probably the captor gives up the chase as he meets some minor injuries and when he visits a local hospital in Bemidji to get tended to, he meets Lester Nygard (insurance agent) in the outpatient lobby. The latter had a broken nose after he comes across Hess, a bully in his school life, who relives the old days, when he humiliates the puny Lester with his sons. In a debatable communicating dialogue, Malvo takes up the task of killing Hess for Lester as a return favor for a drink, the latter had provided. And he does it, not caring even after knowing that Hess is a main member of a syndicate based in Fargo. Lester gets flustered when he gets the news and when the police especially deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) starts seeing things more closely. And when the downtrodden, henpecked Lester kills his wife in a fit of a surprised domestic rebellious spirit, he is dragged into a mire of frustration and suspicion.

            What attracted to me most about the show was the way the writer, Noah Crawley doesn’t go for the little bits and pieces of evidence in making it into a detective story but he uses the weird happenings and unpolished, unintended and unfinished incidents by the criminals to evolve into quite tricky situations. The story is never told in only the line of the police or here Molly Solverson. But the crime, which happens, is looked from both of the sides of law, people who did it and people who are cracking it. The POV is further branched by the vision of Lester Nygard and Lorne Malvo. On the side of the law, again, it is in two views, through the eyes of the simpleton chief Bill Oswalt (Bob Odenkirk) and by the clinical and well natured Molly Solverson (Allison Tomlan). And there are neutral characters, Lou Solverson and many other folk of Bemidji.

Allison Tomlan does the role of the deputy police officer, who is negated by her being a lady in charge of the case and by being polite and looking dowdy in her looks. These things don’t defy her from being taken seriously and she shows the frustration in her little twitches of transient facial expressions. She is unsure by her presentation but she is a stallion at heart, persistent at following the trail of the criminal. Bob Odenkirk dons the role of police chief and we get frustrated when he always gets misguided even with the simplest of clues. He does some of them deliberately as he wants to show his deputy her place. But he is a dear old heart. In a scene, he laments about the fading simplicity of the country folk, when earlier it was easy to take them at face value and admits that Molly is a good cop. Billy Bob Thornton, in contrary to his personality gives a memorable performance as the dangerous Malvo. He teaches Nygard to live his life on his terms and reasons with Gus Grimly, a cop who tries to stop him when Malvo is getting away after committing a kill, that giving way to him and saving life is a very sensible option. The way the director makes us feel that it is a clever choice is what Fargo does in making us engaged. We live in the characters trying to make decisions for them and pleading them to accept. Malvo’s coldness in his profession lies in the way he moves on to his next job forgetting all the crap that had happened in the past. And when it resurfaces, he faces it with conniving and convincing calculations of his own. There are two other important characters, the hitmen, who come to do the killer of Hess in. and one of them is hearing and speech impaired. Doesn’t it spice things up?

When we get to the character of Lester Nygard, there is a lot to talk about. Martin Freeman is slowly evolving as the quintessential TV man of recent times along with Bob Odenkirk and the excellent Cumberbatch. Lester is the underdog, who we all root for. We root for him when the police chief, his close school friend doesn’t believe him as the killer and openly engages in frivolous talk, even when his deputy dragged him to question Lester’s suspicious moves. He looks like the weak and downtrodden husband and human at the start but slowly becomes the evil and conniving, even going against the biggest predator of the game. This switch makes us sway our loyalties too. This is the sign of Freeman’s slapstick action, not comedy.  

Noah Crawley makes us take the path of the least expectation till the end. Malvo handles all of his toughest opponents with his inherent resourcefulness. But his defeat comes at the hands of a weak character. That is how the whole show is. The way we fear harm for our core characters at the hands of the mafia syndicate slowly gets replaced by other worries. Noah Crawley does even sketching of the other minor characters so well too. Gus Grimley (Colin hanks) and his daughter show us the pleasantness of down to earth souls. Lou Solverson’s trips down memory lanes set the tone for the future. It is not hard to like the little town of Bemidji with its town center with the local diner, insurance agents, barber salons, butcher shops and other business activity. You could have been one of the neighbors and feels nostalgic about the town once you complete the series. Guest directors are five, two for each episode. It is hard to select the favorite episode as each one has its own flavor, but if I would have to choose it would be the first two (Adam Bernstein) along with the last (Matt Shakman).

The situations which the episodes present have the best answers in the sequels, but the main pleasure is how the character we regard as the weakest makes it to the end. We want stories of this quality, which not only surprise us but have a heart of their own. Fargo will remain a never forgotten word even when the series will come to a close in the future. The magic of the first season made me stick to the second. How I wish I had never known they were fictional stories.