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

D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
I've never been a big fan of Kirsten Dunst, but she's definitely brilliant here.

BannedEpisode said:
Just for absolute clarity, my second comment was facetious. A joke.

To be honest, I don't really feel a need to rationalize the UFO/Aliens. It's weird and they are leaning into it. I like that.
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I was fairly confident those were funny replies, so I didn't really comment on that one ;)

Although I'm sure someone, somewhere is writing a thinkpiece along those lines.
 
T

Turin

Banned
"It's just a flying saucer!"

Gotta love Peggy. lol

-griffy- said:
I like someone's read yesterday, that the UFO represents the bigger picture that many of the characters have been ignoring while focusing on the petty stuff going on between the gang war. Betsy is dying of cancer, Vietnam vets are getting fucked up, Reagan is getting ready to screw the country yet people are buying his bullshit, Ed and Peggy are so self absorbed in their own shit they don't realize their marriage is broken, fucking UFO's ARE FLYING AROUND. Yet all anyone cares about is this senseless turf war and the violence it's causing. No one is paying attention to the actual problems around them. Even in the moment it appears, people can only gape at it for a moment before resuming their shit, Peggy not even being phased.

And I'll reiterate that the UFO also represents that violence and death, as it only appears around it. It's a gawker at human stupidity, not interfering, but watching as the humans below fuck up. So yes, it also represents us as the audience in that way.
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That's a cool take on it and probably about what they had in mind.

I think the injection of the UFO is more amusing than anything. lol
 
Grinchy

Grinchy

Banned
ezekial45 said:
Oh shit, I didn't realize that Bear Gerhardt was The Organic Mechanic from Mad Max: Fury Road

organic_mechanic.jpg
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He's also the mule from The Mule.

l4aHTQdl.jpg


Really good movie.
 
S

Spectral Glider

Member
Lo_Fi said:
When did this happen? She was gonna cut his hair, but then she didn't, and he got away. I still don't get why she said she stabbed him. I honestly don't remember it at all.
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She stabs him with the scissors in the shoulder just before he gets away. He then tends to the wound in the store bathroom after killing the shop owner at the beginning of the last episode.
 
L

Lo_Fi

Member
Spectral Glider said:
She stabs him with the scissors in the shoulder just before he gets away. He then tends to the wound in the store bathroom after killing the shop owner at the beginning of the last episode.
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Waaaaat. Completely missed that. There was the slow-motion shot where the scissors swoosh by his hair, and then the cops show up. Crazy, I don't remember that. I couldn't figure out where his wound came from, I thought it might have been from a bullet or something. Huh.
 
T

TheDrizzlerJ11

Member
Lo_Fi said:
Waaaaat. Completely missed that. There was the slow-motion shot where the scissors swoosh by his hair, and then the cops show up. Crazy, I don't remember that. I couldn't figure out where his wound came from, I thought it might have been from a bullet or something. Huh.
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She stabs him, so he points the gun at Fat Damon after unloading in the direction of the cops and "click". Then he flees.
 
W

Worthintendo

Member
It really is unfair to all other TV shows out there that Fargo is as good as it is. No other show has a chance of being as good as this ._.
 
B

BossDarkseid

Member
You know I would love to see a gaf discussion if Fargo, The Sopranos, The Wire etc all aired at the same time rather than over the course of 15ish years
 
C

chicko1983

Member
poppabk

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
flaxknuckles said:
Dang, that wasn't subtle at all. I think that may have jumped the shark for me. Will the characters even reference it next episode of will it be forgotten? I feel like both would be dumb choices so they never should have done that.

EDIT: And it wasn't even the fact that it just showed up but how it stopped the fight. If it was just shown and maybe distracted a character for a sec then it would have been a nice Easter egg.
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There are only a few characters left who actually saw it, and it is likely that most if not all will be dead by the end of the episode.
I thought Peggy's reaction was pretty great, shows how much of a fantasy world she is living in that she didn't think it was a big deal. Anyone have any ideas what the same show (im pretty sure it was the same Nazi film) showing up on the TV meant?
 
T

The Jackdog

Member
i loved this season, adoring it so far. i have one worry.

the aliens. they were always in the background kind of hanging out, but now they have so obviously been put in the story and now influenced it....they gotta do something with it now.
 
I

It's Reyn Time!

Member
I know it's probably been hypothesised but I'm wondering if the UFO is something Lou or Hank are injecting into the story while telling it to Molly. Maybe using it to fill in the blanks where they don't actually know a detail about what happened, or trying to keep the story a little more lighthearted for Molly.
 
A

Alpende

Member
Really loved the episode. They teased the UFO stuff a lot and now they just show it in full, did not expect that at all. Peggy's reaction was great too.

Season finale should be good.
 
P

Pai Pai Master

Banned
I love Martin Freeman but the narration felt off to me. Maybe it was just their way of doing a recap for the penultimate episode but it didn't feel consistent with the rest of the season or even the rest of the episode.

Absolutely OK with the UFO stuff though, interested to see if it plays a role in the finale.
 
P

| Praxis |

Banned
I am three episodes into this and it has been excellent so far. I thought the first series was the best TV for years, and so far this has lived up to that.

Time to back out of here before I read anything I'll regret.
 
M

Megasoum

Banned
Wait... They teased the UFO stuff before?

The only thing I remember is all the alien stuff on the walls in the gas station.
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
Megasoum said:
Wait... They teased the UFO stuff before?

The only thing I remember is all the alien stuff on the walls in the gas station.
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You kidding me? Very first episode, after Rye shoots up the diner and wanders out into the road, he sees bright lights hovering in the sky which distracts him long enough to get hit by Peggy. Those bright lights have been present several times in the background. When Hanzee gets to the diner investigating Rye's whereabouts, and finds the piece of the Blumquist's headlight, he looks up and sees the lights pass over too and loses a couple of hours of time as it happens. A guy tells Lou about the strange lights when he is waiting in line to fill his tank, saying something like "They always come in threes." An episode ends with Ed grinding Rye up at the butcher shop, with voiceover from War of the Worlds playing as the camera flies out and above the butcher shop, blue lights visible in the reflection of the windows. Betsy sets her coffee down on one of Molly's drawings, and when she picks it up there's a coffee ring left just right on top of the sun in the picture in such a way that it looks like the UFO, which captivates Betsy momentarily before she is distracted by something else. We see Hank's home office covered in strange signs and markings, like he's been obsessing over this for some time.

Then there's been a bunch of "Easter egg" UFO sightings, like the gas station stuff. The season has been full of references both overt and subtle.
 
F

Fancy Clown

Member
Haven't popped in here much, but this has been my favorite show on television all year (and would be amazing in any other year to). That being said, I think the last episode was the weakest of the season.

The book franing device felt too cute for its own good, didn't gel with the style of the show up this point, and it honestly felt like a patch to make up for Hanzee's lack of motivation for what he did. Like, it felt like the writers wrote the whole episode, shot it, and then were like "huh. This doesn't seem to make sense does it. Well, I guess we could add a narrator for this episode to try and fix it?". Also, using Hanzee to dismantle the entire Gerheart family just feels like wasted potential in addition to not really making any sense for him to do. Like, it made sense that he killed Dodd, I'm fine with that. But there was so much inner conflict to be exploited within the family, and tension with Kansas City, that it feels like a waste to have Hanzee just wipe them all out like its nothing with his super killer abilities. Also, the UFO bit I'm not sold on. It felt like a really cheap Deus ex machina to let Lou escape. They should have only had the Gerheart who was choking him see it, because that would make more sense (he has a bullet in his head so of course he sees a strange light) and would be a way more natural and less cheap way of Lou escaping than a flying saucer showing up out of nowhere distracting everyone. But maybe the final episode will incorporate the UFO stuff into it's themes in a way that makes more sense? I donno.

I'm still really excited for the finale, and this episode wasn't bad since it still had great tension building and humor that the season has brought, but I'm still counting it as an underwhelming direction and weak episode for the season.
 
M

MechaBowser

Member
Throwing a narrator in this ep was weird, then the brought out the UFO which directly altered the fight at the motel. Always assumed the UFO was a symbol, not a real thing.

If you had told me at the start both of these things were going to be a part of the show, I would've scoffed but man was that awesome.
 
F

Freewheelin'

Member
Fancy Clown said:
How so?
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The way the narrator says we can't truly know what happened and history is open to interpretation

Like

This shit is fucking nuts

This may well have happened

This may well not have

But this is the way we're presenting this story

This is the great history book of true crime in the midwest's interpretation
 
F

Fancy Clown

Member
Freewheelin' said:
The way the narrator says we can't truly know what happened and history is open to interpretation

Like

This shit is fucking nuts

This may well have happened

This may well not have

But this is the way we're presenting this story

This is the great history book of true crime in the midwest's interpretation
Click to expand...

I see what you mean, but I don't think it's necessary at all because we see all the events as they occur so we already know that shit is fucking nuts and in this episode no longer really make sense. For the narration to be included to restate what we already know feels redundant and on the nose, and ends up calling more attention to the motivation issues by trying to explain them away by saying "it's okay that it doesn't make sense to you, we don't even know why any of this happened".
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
Fancy Clown said:
I see what you mean, but I don't think it's necessary at all because we see all the events as they occur so we already know that shit is fucking nuts and in this episode no longer really make sense. For the narration to be included to restate what we already know feels redundant and on the nose, and ends up calling more attention to the motivation issues by trying to explain them away by saying "it's okay that it doesn't make sense to you, we don't even know why any of this happened".
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What motivation issue are you talking about, Hanzee? He has motivation, what the narrator was commenting on was the fact it's impossible to know what specific incident pushed him over the edge, and exactly when he started formulating his plan. Was it something that had been coming for a long time, or was it spontaneous? The narrator highlighted that there were several moments throughout the season, and before, that could have led to this moment. Historians (or us, as the viewers) can only speculate on what specifically pushed him over the edge. But he has ample motivation to do what he did.
 
F

Fancy Clown

Member
-griffy- said:
What motivation issue are you talking about, Hanzee? He has motivation, what the narrator was commenting on was the fact it's impossible to know what specific incident pushed him over the edge, and exactly when he started formulating his plan. Was it something that had been coming for a long time, or was it spontaneous? The narrator highlighted that there were several moments throughout the season, and before, that could have led to this moment. Historians (or us, as the viewers) can only speculate on what specifically pushed him over the edge. But he has ample motivation to do what he did.
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It made sense he killed Dodd especially in the context of everything in that episode. But by the end of that episode he wanted to just totally disappear be done with that aspect of his life. But then because the police push him on the run again he decides to go out of his way to murder every remaining Gerheart (who didn't abuse like Dodd did either, although I understand how he would be angry at being subservient to them I guess) and all those cops as well instead of disappearing and making a new life for himself?
 
G

-griffy-

Banned
Fancy Clown said:
It made sense he killed Dodd especially in the context of everything in that episode. But by the end of that episode he wanted to just totally disappear be done with that aspect of his life. But then because the police push him on the run again he decides to go out of his way to murder every remaining Gerheart (who didn't abuse like Dodd did either, although I understand how he would be angry at being subservient to them I guess) and all those cops as well instead of disappearing and making a new life for himself?
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We know he wanted to cut his hair, but we don't know exactly what that means. He was done, but done with what specifically? Being the Gerhardt's lacky? Being in the criminal life? Being an easily identifiable Native American? All of the above? We don't know what his next steps were after changing his hair. I think knowing the police/Lou are after him specifically, right now, rather than nebulously investigating the gang war as a whole, certainly changes things in the immediate term for him though. Like, whatever his longer term plans are, he decides he needs to get some stuff done right now.

Also, in regards to the SAG nominations, kind of surprising that Fargo didn't get anything, but there being no supporting categories for TV certainly hurt it since it'd be hard to argue any role is a lead role. You'd think it could pull off an ensemble nomination, but I'd chock that up to category weirdness. I can't imagine it'll miss out on Globes and Emmy noms.

EDIT: In other news, Fargo came out #1 on Hitfix's TV Critics' Poll for 2015 (American's #2!). Sepinwall's personal list puts it at #3.
 
F

Fancy Clown

Member
-griffy- said:
We know he wanted to cut his hair, but we don't know exactly what that means. He was done, but done with what specifically? Being the Gerhardt's lacky? Being in the criminal life? Being an easily identifiable Native American? All of the above? We don't know what his next steps were after changing his hair. I think knowing the police/Lou are after him specifically, right now, rather than nebulously investigating the gang war as a whole, certainly changes things in the immediate term for him though. Like, whatever his longer term plans are, he decides he needs to get some stuff done right now.
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Hmm I'll have to think it over some more, but as it stands I still don't think it feels like the motivation justifies the action, or was built up particularly well. But even if the motivation were clearer, I would still probably think it less interesting to have the super-powered killer character take down every single important Gerheart family in two episodes rather than relying on the intra-familial strife that has been building since episode 1.
 
S

SneakersSO

Member
Fancy Clown said:
It made sense he killed Dodd especially in the context of everything in that episode. But by the end of that episode he wanted to just totally disappear be done with that aspect of his life. But then because the police push him on the run again he decides to go out of his way to murder every remaining Gerheart (who didn't abuse like Dodd did either, although I understand how he would be angry at being subservient to them I guess) and all those cops as well instead of disappearing and making a new life for himself?
Click to expand...

Hanzee may not have actually had any ill-will towards the rest of the Gerheart's. The narrator clearly tells us that Hanzee's goal was to kill Peggy & Ed, although we don't exactly know why he is so determined to kill them. The narrator presents two potential reasons why he wants to kill them so badly (because he had revealed his true self to them after having killed Dodd, or because they'd been the only ones who'd seen him kill Dodd, meaning they're the only real witnesses to his betrayal).

From everything we have seen about Hanzee up until this point, we know he is a relentless hunter, who won't really let anything stand in his way once he is targetting something/someone. While I wouldn't have thought Hanzee would be willing to betray the people he worked for in order to fulfill some personal vendetta earlier in the season, Fargo Season 2 has done a tremendous job at subtly building up Hanzee to the man we see him as at the end of ep.9. I totally bought the idea that he would absolutely betray the Gerheart's if it meant him getting to execute his target. And lets face it, even Hanzee knew there was no way he'd make it out alive of taking on a contingent of cops without some form of backup.
 
chris121580

chris121580

Member
SneakersSO said:
Hanzee may not have actually had any ill-will towards the rest of the Gerheart's. The narrator clearly tells us that Hanzee's goal was to kill Peggy & Ed, although we don't exactly know why he is so determined to kill them. The narrator presents two potential reasons why he wants to kill them so badly (because he had revealed his true self to them after having killed Dodd, or because they'd been the only ones who'd seen him kill Dodd, meaning they're the only real witnesses to his betrayal).

From everything we have seen about Hanzee up until this point, we know he is a relentless hunter, who won't really let anything stand in his way once he is targetting something/someone. While I wouldn't have thought Hanzee would be willing to betray the people he worked for in order to fulfill some personal vendetta earlier in the season, Fargo Season 2 has done a tremendous job at subtly building up Hanzee to the man we see him as at the end of ep.9. I totally bought the idea that he would absolutely betray the Gerheart's if it meant him getting to execute his target. And lets face it, even Hanzee knew there was no way he'd make it out alive of taking on a contingent of cops without some form of backup.
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I think it's the first one. He finally reveals that he no longer wants to live the life he has for so long to them and they try to kill him in the end. I don't think he had any intention of harming them when he showed up at the cabin. He just wanted her to change his look so he could get away
 
F

Fancy Clown

Member
SneakersSO said:
Hanzee may not have actually had any ill-will towards the rest of the Gerheart's. The narrator clearly tells us that Hanzee's goal was to kill Peggy & Ed, although we don't exactly know why he is so determined to kill them. The narrator presents two potential reasons why he wants to kill them so badly (because he had revealed his true self to them after having killed Dodd, or because they'd been the only ones who'd seen him kill Dodd, meaning they're the only real witnesses to his betrayal).

From everything we have seen about Hanzee up until this point, we know he is a relentless hunter, who won't really let anything stand in his way once he is targetting something/someone. While I wouldn't have thought Hanzee would be willing to betray the people he worked for in order to fulfill some personal vendetta earlier in the season, Fargo Season 2 has done a tremendous job at subtly building up Hanzee to the man we see him as at the end of ep.9. I totally bought the idea that he would absolutely betray the Gerheart's if it meant him getting to execute his target. And lets face it, even Hanzee knew there was no way he'd make it out alive of taking on a contingent of cops without some form of backup.
Click to expand...

I guess it makes more sense if he ultimately wants to get Ed and Peggy. I'll see if I feel better about it based on how the next episode uses that context.
 
T

turtle553

Member
firehawk12 said:
Oh just with the text repeating. I'm actually surprised that it was real text and not total nonsense, but there's two pages where the text is exactly the same.
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I liked how the text included how Peggy was originally in love with Ed's best friend (who got killed in basic training) and she settled for Ed. Interviews said they were originally going to cover that in a scene, but left it out. Really helps frame the relationship early in the season.
 
G

Gozer the Gozerian

Member
Fancy Clown said:
Haven't popped in here much, but this has been my favorite show on television all year (and would be amazing in any other year to). That being said, I think the last episode was the weakest of the season.

The book franing device felt too cute for its own good, didn't gel with the style of the show up this point, and it honestly felt like a patch to make up for Hanzee's lack of motivation for what he did. Like, it felt like the writers wrote the whole episode, shot it, and then were like "huh. This doesn't seem to make sense does it. Well, I guess we could add a narrator for this episode to try and fix it?". Also, using Hanzee to dismantle the entire Gerheart family just feels like wasted potential in addition to not really making any sense for him to do. Like, it made sense that he killed Dodd, I'm fine with that. But there was so much inner conflict to be exploited within the family, and tension with Kansas City, that it feels like a waste to have Hanzee just wipe them all out like its nothing with his super killer abilities. Also, the UFO bit I'm not sold on. It felt like a really cheap Deus ex machina to let Lou escape. They should have only had the Gerheart who was choking him see it, because that would make more sense (he has a bullet in his head so of course he sees a strange light) and would be a way more natural and less cheap way of Lou escaping than a flying saucer showing up out of nowhere distracting everyone. But maybe the final episode will incorporate the UFO stuff into it's themes in a way that makes more sense? I donno.

I'm still really excited for the finale, and this episode wasn't bad since it still had great tension building and humor that the season has brought, but I'm still counting it as an underwhelming direction and weak episode for the season.
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I don't think the UFO felt like "cheap deus ex machina", it's not like they wrote themselves into a corner with how to save Lou and had to pull out the UFO. It could've just as easily gone down with Lou's shots downing Bear instead.
 
S

Spectral Glider

Member
Gozer the Gozerian said:
I don't think the UFO felt like "cheap deus ex machina", it's not like they wrote themselves into a corner with how to save Lou and had to pull out the UFO. It could've just as easily gone down with Lou's shots downing Bear instead.
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Yeah, I'm waiting for the final episode to see if they do anything else with the UFO. But it's not like there was no UFO stuff and then suddenly, out of nowhere, they plop it in the story. The UFO theme has been there since day 1.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
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