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Fargo - Season 2 - a new true crime chapter takes us to 1979 Sioux Falls - Mon on FX

M

Mindlog

Member
Let's recap:
KuGsj.gif
 
H

Hinchy

Member
Well fuck me sideways, I really thought the UFO was just going to be a metaphorical, vague thing.

If nothing else, I have to give them credit for the fucking boldness. I feel like this season has been more uneven than season 1 but it's also way fucking bolder and more experimental and crazier. And this shit just solidifies it.

Though if nothing else, my friend just said something that makes a lot of sense: the "It's just a flying saucer, hon. We gotta go." quote - aside from just being the fucking TV quote of the year - could sum up the whole thing. No one can see beyond their own shit, the bigger picture or whatever.
 
H

Hinchy

Member
Oh hey this just popped up in the credits.

Special Guest Star
MARTIN FREEMAN

It was him narrating!

Also I'm glad I stuck around for the next time on trailer, it didn't reveal much of anything. Just tantalizing enough.
 
I

IronRinn

Member
I loved the shit out of that. I loved that actual fucking aliens showed up. I loved the true crime narration. Everything. So good.
 
R

Rixxan

Member
i mean the reason they included it is because all the eyewitness accounts included it, right?

im not familiar with this story nor how factual this show tries to be, but that inclusion is based on what actually happened no (what survivors said actually happened)?
 
B

Baroquemantic

Member
Hinchy said:
Oh hey this just popped up in the credits.

Special Guest Star
MARTIN FREEMAN

It was him narrating!

Also I'm glad I stuck around for the next time on trailer, it didn't reveal much of anything. Just tantalizing enough.
Click to expand...
Ha! I knew it! Though I couldn't think of his name and called him the hobbit.
 
H

Hatchtag

Banned
Flying Saucer is akin to the Wolf at the end of last season. I have no problem with it and absolutely loved Peggy's reaction to it. Mike Milligan's reaction to the massacre was also a highlight. I'd be perfectly fine if that was the last time we saw him this season. In addition, I don't think the supernatural stuff ruins this or last season. It's set up in both where it doesn't drastically affect the story. It only provided a reason for Bear and Rye to get distracted, respectively. It seems like the kinda fluff used in true stories to explain things that seem really unrealistic happening-like the shit in conspiracy theories. In addition, I don't think Ed, Peggy, or Hanzee will make it out of this alive, so that would mean no living people saw the saucer (I don't think Lou or Ted Danson saw it).

But anyways, can I mention how god damn happy I am that Iowa's listed in the true crime book? I hope they make a season in my state.
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
I'm watching the repeat.
Rixxan said:
i mean the reason they included it is because all the eyewitness accounts included it, right?

im not familiar with this story nor how factual this show tries to be, but that inclusion is based on what actually happened no (what survivors said actually happened)?
Click to expand...
Oh no. I don't want to be the one to do this, but Fargo is not a true story despite what the title card says. I mean, it's true that it's a story, but it's not based on real events. It's a gag title the movie did up front in order to lend credence to the inherent absurdity of the story. You know, remind people that "Truth is stranger than fiction." The show just keeps the gag going.

Though there was a real UFO encounter by a police officer in Minnesota in 1979 that may have inspired the inclusion in this fictional story.
 
H

HoJu

Member
Well, that was something. Mulligan's ok then was perfect. Not sure about the whole framing device with Freeman explaining or speculating why Hanzee did what he did. That whole bit felt out of place.
 
R

Rixxan

Member
-griffy- said:
I'm watching the repeat.

Oh no. I don't want to be the one to do this, but Fargo is not a true story despite what the title card says. I mean, it's true that it's a story, but it's not based on real events. It's a gag title the movie did up front in order to lend credence to the inherent absurdity of the story. You know, remind people that "Truth is stranger than fiction." The show just keeps the gag going.

Though there was a real UFO encounter by a police officer in Minnesota in 1979 that may have inspired the inclusion in this fictional story.
Click to expand...

yeah i thought that might be the case, i didnt watch the first season so i was kind of dropped into the the show, tonally

makes sense - thanks
 
H

Hatchtag

Banned
HoJu said:
Well, that was something. Mulligan's ok then was perfect. Not sure about the whole framing device with Freeman explaining or speculating why Hanzee did what he did. That whole bit felt out of place.
Click to expand...

Freeman speculating about it felt neccessary. Hanzee's a character whose motivation isn't really known to the audience. It would feel odd if no one acknowledged that. And I'm fine with the narration itself, the show's been framed as being from a true crime history book so someone narrating that is okay with me.

I do still wonder how/if they're gonna loop back to the opening of the first episode this season.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Cornballer said:
- EW: Fargo showrunner explains that shocking close encounter
Click to expand...
Of interest:
With Hanzee, it’s so interesting that this impervious, cold, murderous character who’s been lurking in the background for so long, all of a sudden in that bar scene we find ourselves rooting for him to go First Blood on these people. But tonight a couple times you have the narrator talking about Hanzee’s motivation, and I couldn’t tell if you had a tough time figuring out why he’s doing this in the writers room and just decided to shine a spotlight on that creative problem, or whether you wanted to deliberately keep his motivation vague.

At certain point in the editorial process it did feel like those questions [needed to be] asked. Was him killing Dodd premeditated? When did he decide to turn on the rest of the family? Anton Chigurh​ was easier to understand, because he was after the money. This is a little more complicated because it requires Hanzee to bite the hand that feeds him.
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In addition to Fargo being “based on a true story,” can you say what was your inspiration for including the UFO in the first place?

The Coen Bros. sometimes put something in because it’s funny, but that doesn’t mean it’s meant to be comic. … There’s a couple things that felt right about it. One is that it plays very well into the conspiracy-minded 1979 era where it’s post-Watergate, you had Close Encounters and Star Wars. There was a Minnsisota UFO encounter [in 1979] involving a state trooper. It was certainly in the air at the time. Alternately in the Coens’ The Man Who Wasn’t There they had a [running UFO thread]; certainly it was more ’50s inspired, but it was part of the cinematic language of their movie. So it felt like it worked for the time period and worked for the filmmakers, and is a way of saying “accept the mystery” — which is a staple of the Coen Bros. philosophy in their films. And I thought it was funny. But obviously it affects the story in a very real way. It’s not just a background element.

I’m just picturing you in the writers room at some point going: “You know what? I’m going to put a UFO in this season, and just see if I can pull that off.” Because I know you like to challenge yourself and see how far you can push it, and you had to think that if you could creatively pull it off, it would be pretty impressive.

An executive from MGM came to take us all to lunch before the season and they said, “Can you tell us anything about this season?” and I said, “Yeah, we’re going to make three fictional Ronald Reagan movies and there’s a UFO.” There was a long beat and they said, “So can you tell us anything about this season?” Nobody expected Fargo to be about any of those things in the second year. Ultimately what I think is exciting about a fake true crime story is that in actual history there’s a lot that we understand and there’s a lot of it we’ll never understand. The Zapruder film captured the JFK assassination, and we still don’t know what happened. It’s not just that truth is stranger than fiction, it’s that what we call truth is a small part of the historic picture. There are so many elements that usually get weeded out of the story so you can have a simpler narrative.

What was FX’s reaction?

Nobody said, “Don’t do it.” Look, there was a lot of conversation as we were prepping to shoot. “Can we see some pre-visualization? What’s really going on with the UFO? Is it really a UFO or is it a weather balloon?” So going into that, they find that balloon in the second hour. There were some people [at the network] who wanted the UFO to be shot in a way so that it could have actually been a balloon. My feeling was always, “No, it’s a UFO. It is what it is.” We put a lot of references to it, maybe too many references. But it pays off, obviously.

I was impressed that in the moments leading up to that, you managed to generate so much suspense over the fate of the only character that we know is going to survive, Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson; a character that was also in the first season set in 2006). I worried about him, and then this happened. Then afterward you have Peggy (Kirsten Dunst) with that great dismissive line. It’s almost like you don’t know how to feel and need to process it.

At the end of the day, Peggy’s line sums it up — “It’s just a flying saucer Ed, we need to go.” I like your “I don’t know, I need to think about it” reaction. So much storytelling, especially on television, is a spoon-fed experience with clarity of all things. You’re going to have to see the end of the story and look back at it and ask how you feel about the deus ex machina of a UFO saving Lou Solverson's life and what would happen if it hadn’t. I think those elements in a story are really exciting because we’re so unused to having them. We usually separate our genres more neatly. To suddenly have a genre element come into a dramatic story is exciting.
Click to expand...
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
Cornballer said:
- EW: Fargo showrunner explains that shocking close encounter
Click to expand...
An executive from MGM came to take us all to lunch before the season and they said, “Can you tell us anything about this season?” and I said, “Yeah, we’re going to make three fictional Ronald Reagan movies and there’s a UFO.” There was a long beat and they said, “So can you tell us anything about this season?”
Click to expand...
LOL. How could anyone have even conceived of that being season 2 coming off the first season.
 
E

ezekial45

Banned
I love that they didn't save the massacre for the finale. It's perfect that the aftermath will be the final episode of the season.
 
H

HoJu

Member
Hatchtag said:
Freeman speculating about it felt neccessary. Hanzee's a character whose motivation isn't really known to the audience. It would feel odd if no one acknowledged that. And I'm fine with the narration itself, the show's been framed as being from a true crime history book so someone narrating that is okay with me.

I do still wonder how/if they're gonna loop back to the opening of the first episode this season.
Click to expand...
Sometimes not knowing is better. Leave it up to the audience to speculate and come to their own conclusions.
 
S

Salty Catfish

Member
HoJu said:
Sometimes not knowing is better. Leave it up to the audience to speculate and come to their own conclusions.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can't help but feel the same way. The show did a great job in giving us some possible answers for Hanzee's defection last week without the need for a narrator listing them for us in the most blunt and literal way possible. It felt redundant and unnecessary.
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
IronRinn said:
After all this Lou is gonna find out that Betsy is dead and that's sad as hell.
Click to expand...

You know, Fargo doesn't really do sad endings. It's a story where the bad guys die (Grimsrud, Malvo, Gerhardt's), some other people make wild mistakes that screw themselves over (Jerry, Lester, Ed/Peggy) and cause a lot of collateral damage, and a good cop gets the job done in the end, and they go back home to their normal life that keeps them from being as messed up as all the other characters (Marge, Molly, Lou).

I wouldn't be surprised if both Hank and Betsy are alive, if hospitalized, at the end of this, even though we expect them to be dead. Probably specifically because we expect them to be dead.
 
H

Hatchtag

Banned
HoJu said:
Sometimes not knowing is better. Leave it up to the audience to speculate and come to their own conclusions.
Click to expand...

That's true, and while the reasoning for showing that clip kinda is explained (shooting for one of the Ronald Reagan movies Peggy watched and setting up the theme of racial tension with Native Americans), I feel like it could be explained more without being annoying.

-griffy- said:
You know, Fargo doesn't really do sad endings. It's a story where the bad guys die (Grimsrud, Malvo, Gerhardt's), some other people make wild mistakes that screw themselves over (Jerry, Lester, Ed/Peggy) and cause a lot of collateral damage, and a good cop gets the job done in the end, and they go back home to their normal life that keeps them from being as messed up as all the other characters (Marge, Molly, Lou).

I wouldn't be surprised if both Hank and Betsy are alive, if hospitalized, at the end of this, even though we expect them to be dead. Probably specifically because we expect them to be dead.
Click to expand...

I think it'll be a timeskip or something. There's gotta be a happy ending somehow.
 
Grinchy

Grinchy

Banned
This fucking show. What an episode.

I couldn't believe when a UFO actually appeared. I still can't, and I saw it with my own eyes.
 
B

Bobby Roberts

Banned
Like, I wanna be kinda mad that the UFO actually is a UFO. But then I think back on all the times UFOs have been referenced, and it's just - obviously, people in that region think they've been seeing SOMETHING. Hank's studying 'em, the guy running the Rushmore store definitely believes, Rye saw it flat out. A couple references, maybe you can believe that someone somewhere hallucinated some bullshit in a coked up haze, but the amount of times they've dropped hints that separate people see and strongly believe in this - it probably makes more sense, narratively, that there's actually a fuckin' UFO flying around Sioux Falls, than it would to come up with various strange explanations for why it couldn't be.

I mean, for THIS narrative, that is. The one where a bunch of cops think going undercover includes shutting off their fucking radio and dressing like Marshall Mathers circa 1999 before going to FUCKING SLEEP.

If I can believe that (and I did, no problem) I guess I can believe there's a fucking UFO about. Especially when Peggy can acknowledge, and then handwave it in less than .3 seconds.

Anyway, this show is a motherfucker, aint it?
 
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