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Fargo - Thornton & Freeman in a new tale from the Coen Brothers' world - Tues on FX

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B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Shuggah_Daddy said:
Awesome episode. BBT not giving a single fuck when grocery kings security guy showed up at the hotel had me dying lol. Didn't even say a word, just walked right past him and started to have himself a nice shit. Security guy didn't shut the door either whe he left and BBT still didn't care haha. Dude is ridiculous. I really hope Lester gets away with murdering his wife when it's all said and done lol. I like his character a lot, he's a good dude at heart, life has just taken a huge shit on him.

Oh also I think the deaf guy is the same guy who played the older deaf son in there will be blood. Didn't realize the guy was actually deaf. Surprised I recognized him since he's only in twbb for like 5 minutes.
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He's got that epic shot, though, and an unforgettable head.
 
S

Slo

Member
The Artful Dodger said:
Lol, are people really bothered the portrayal? Coen Brothers projects tends to skirt that line between dead serious and cartoony
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I haven't talked to anyone about it, but I'm a little put off that they portray Bemidji as basically Hobbiton. Bunch of dopey fucking rubes that look like they've never left the Shire and who you could probably talk them into giving you their credit card info if they did.

Otherwise I like the show.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- YahooTV: Noah Hawley and Adam Goldberg Decode the Show's Sign Language
"Fargo" pulled off two of the coolest character introductions ever tonight. We don't even know their names – and never will – but we know their dynamic. And we like it a lot.

In the opening scene of "Fargo" Episode 2 (Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on FX), titled "The Rooster Prince," we met two heavies – "We're from Fargo" – played by Adam Goldberg and Russell Harvard, and they seemed like your typical thuggish henchmen (albeit in some very interesting outfits)… until they started signing to each other.

This isn't the first time American Sign Language (ASL) has been seen on the small screen recently, but it is the first time it's been shown totally out of context. No subtitles and a very obvious discrepancy between what was being signed and what was being said meant that the "Fargo" audience was just as out of the loop as the other characters on the show.

"Adam is not translating what Russell is saying honestly," the show's creator and writer Noah Hawley told Yahoo TV with a laugh. "I forget what the line is, but there's some swordfish… basically he's being very graphic about what Sam Hess was doing when he was killed. I thought that was really interesting: An untrustworthy translator."

"After I'd written the first episode but was thinking about where to go from there, I remember seeing a lot of kids walking around signing to each other," Hawley said, noting that his home in Austin is near a school for the deaf. "It's such a beautiful visual form of communication, and yet it's completely private. If you don't speak sign language, you don't know what they're saying. So it just seemed Coen-esque to have these very sort of lethal characters who have these completely private exchanges in front of other people," Hawley said, referring to the tone of the Coen brothers movie of the same name. "The time that it takes, and the people that are watching these conversations going on... In that very first scene between Adam Goldberg and Russell Harvard, the whole dynamic of their relationship comes out."

But their cool introduction began before they were even onscreen, thanks to a change-up in the show's opening music that set the tone. "The first episode had this 40-piece orchestra recording the score, and then the second episode starts with just a drum beat – there's a totally different energy coming into the show with these guys," Hawley noted. "And maybe you think they're just some tough guys coming to town, and when they start signing you realize that you have no idea what to expect. You didn't expect that. That's my hope with much of the storytelling on the show – to be unpredictable, not in a gimmicky way, but to literally do things that you haven't seen before."

In the opening scene with Bruce Gold (Brian Markinson), after some idle chit-chat about libraries, the guys – dubbed Mr. Numbers (Goldberg) and Mr. Wrench (Harvard) in script only, never onscreen – proceeded to use their special form of communication to their advantage, making fun of Bruce's tie and commenting on the way their colleague Hess was found dead.

Not only was the character of Mr. Wrench specifically written for a deaf actor, Hawley had Harvard in mind already. "It was always my hope [that he'd play the part]," Hawley said. "I had seen Russell in 'There Will Be Blood,' and he came in and did it on tape… there's such pathos and power in his performance, I ended up adding him into an extra episode. He's just such a compelling figure onscreen."

Hawley wouldn't share exactly what ended up being signed between the two: "I like that for the first two episodes that you see them, you're in the same position as the other characters. These guys are there, they're creepy, they're mysterious, they're funny, and something's going on that you don't understand… it makes them more unpredictable and dangerous, I think." But he did note that a scene in a later episode, just between the two characters, will include subtitles for the audience.

Goldberg wouldn't shed much more light on their seemingly R-rated exchange except to say this: "Basically the idea is we're sort of having an entirely separate conversation. [Laughs] That's what's going on. The joke is that we're taking the piss out of that guy, Russell talking smack about his tie and stuff like that. And I keep translating pleasantries back to the guy."
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More via the link.
 
X

xbhaskarx

Member
Worst part so far is that there was a dude who frequents the strip club where the guy was killed who looks similar to Billy Bob, just so happens to also have an injury on his forehead, and he carries around a freaking knife. And when the hit men go to the strip club to investigate the death, he just happens to be there, and almost immediately shows them the knife. That's just ridiculously contrived nonsense that the Coens would never resort to, and the worst part of it is that it was completely unnecessary. They could have just said "this one regular is kind of creepy" and they could have found some other reason to suspect him, take him back to the business to be identified, and eventually kill him. That part was so terrible that could have been on The Killing or The Walking Dead, please don't tarnish the Fargo name like that...
 
T

The Artful Dodger

Member
xbhaskarx said:
Worst part so far is that there was a dude who frequents the strip club where the guy was killed who looks similar to Billy Bob, just so happens to also have an injury on his forehead, and he carries around a freaking knife. And when the hit men go to the strip club to investigate the death, he just happens to be there, and almost immediately shows them the knife. That's just ridiculously contrived nonsense that the Coens would never resort to, and the worst part of it is that it was completely unnecessary. They could have just said "this one regular is kind of creepy" and they could have found some other reason to suspect him, take him back to the business to be identified, and eventually kill him.
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I think it would've been funny if the guy looked nothing like the dude, but the hitmen killed him anyways cause he was a dick.
 
G

Gozer the Gozerian

Member
xbhaskarx said:
Worst part so far is that there was a dude who frequents the strip club where the guy was killed who looks similar to Billy Bob, just so happens to also have an injury on his forehead, and he carries around a freaking knife. And when the hit men go to the strip club to investigate the death, he just happens to be there, and almost immediately shows them the knife. That's just ridiculously contrived nonsense that the Coens would never resort to, and the worst part of it is that it was completely unnecessary. They could have just said "this one regular is kind of creepy" and they could have found some other reason to suspect him, take him back to the business to be identified, and eventually kill him. That part was so terrible that could have been on The Killing or The Walking Dead, please don't tarnish the Fargo name like that...
Click to expand...

Yah that was unnecessary if they had just given him one of those attributes, like he had the cut on the head but didn't look like BBT, it would've seemed less hokey.
 
R

Romars202129

Member
xbhaskarx said:
Worst part so far is that there was a dude who frequents the strip club where the guy was killed who looks similar to Billy Bob, just so happens to also have an injury on his forehead, and he carries around a freaking knife. And when the hit men go to the strip club to investigate the death, he just happens to be there, and almost immediately shows them the knife. That's just ridiculously contrived nonsense that the Coens would never resort to, and the worst part of it is that it was completely unnecessary. They could have just said "this one regular is kind of creepy" and they could have found some other reason to suspect him, take him back to the business to be identified, and eventually kill him. That part was so terrible that could have been on The Killing or The Walking Dead, please don't tarnish the Fargo name like that...
Click to expand...

According to the show, this is a true story. So blame reality.

For serious though, worst part for me is the hitmen are kinda lame and cartoonish. But, I always have a soft spot for killers with unorthodox methods.
They kinda won me over the second they pulled out the ice drill, lol.
BTW, can't wait to see Billy Bob body all his lame competitors in this show.
 
I

Incandenza

Banned
How do people feel about the humor in this show? It hasn't really been hitting the mark for me. It's weird, because I watch a show like Justified or Mad Men and I'm cracking up all the time, and yet here's this show that's going for humor way more directly than either of those two, and I haven't been laughing much at all.
 
N

NotTheGuyYouKill

Member
Incandenza said:
How do people feel about the humor in this show? It hasn't really been hitting the mark for me. It's weird, because I watch a show like Justified or Mad Men and I'm cracking up all the time, and yet here's this show that's going for humor way more directly than either of those two, and I haven't been laughing much at all.
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I feel the opposite. It's clicked so hard with me. It's weird, cause when I first watched Fargo the movie, I didn't laugh much at all. I laughed quite a bit in the second episode.
 
G

Gozer the Gozerian

Member
Incandenza said:
How do people feel about the humor in this show? It hasn't really been hitting the mark for me. It's weird, because I watch a show like Justified or Mad Men and I'm cracking up all the time, and yet here's this show that's going for humor way more directly than either of those two, and I haven't been laughing much at all.
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It's been pretty hit-or-miss with me. I wonder how much of it is just me coming in with the wrong expectations, because I'm a big fan of the movie Fargo and was expecting a similar sense of humor. The show's humor seems goofier, with more cartoonish characters, at least in general. Maybe less subtle, and more in your face than the movie was? Not quite sure how to explain it.
 
N

NotTheGuyYouKill

Member
I really liked that scene between Solverson and her dad. That scene, and the one with Malvo and the Postman gives this show an eerie 'No Country for Old Men' edge. While I wasn't a fan of that movie, I liked that bit to the show, it feels just weird and poetic and right here.
 
G

ganon

Member
Incandenza said:
How do people feel about the humor in this show? It hasn't really been hitting the mark for me. It's weird, because I watch a show like Justified or Mad Men and I'm cracking up all the time, and yet here's this show that's going for humor way more directly than either of those two, and I haven't been laughing much at all.
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Same here. I like the overall story, but the humors are mostly a miss for me. Are the hitmen supposed to be funny? I find them quiet lame and cringe worthy.

By the way, isn't it strange that no one at the hospital noticed that he has a buckshot wound on his hand that should be reported? Also, they show us where Freeman his the bloody hammer, what about his bloody clothes? Do you guys think they're all inside it as well?
 
N

Niraj

I shot people I like more for less.
Incandenza said:
How do people feel about the humor in this show? It hasn't really been hitting the mark for me. It's weird, because I watch a show like Justified or Mad Men and I'm cracking up all the time, and yet here's this show that's going for humor way more directly than either of those two, and I haven't been laughing much at all.
Click to expand...

I've found it to be pretty funny personally. Especially Billy Bob's character fucking with everyone he comes across.
 
jonnyp

jonnyp

Member
Romars202129 said:
According to the show, this is a true story. So blame reality.

For serious though, worst part for me is the hitmen are kinda lame and cartoonish. But, I always have a soft spot for killers with unorthodox methods.
They kinda won me over the second they pulled out the ice drill, lol.
BTW, can't wait to see Billy Bob body all his lame competitors in this show.
Click to expand...

That's actually not quite true.

From Wikipedia click:
"Although the film plot is completely fictional, the Coen brothers claim that many of the events that take place in the movie were actually based on true events from other cases that they threw together to make one story. Joel Coen noted:

"We weren't interested in that kind of fidelity. The basic events are the same as in the real case, but the characterizations are fully imagined ... If an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept."

The Coens claim the actual murders took place, but not in Minnesota.[5] The main reason for the film's setting is the Coens were born and raised in St. Louis Park, a suburb of Minneapolis.

On Fargo's special edition DVD's trivia track, it is revealed that the main case that inspired the movie is the infamous 1986 murder of Helle Crafts from Connecticut at the hands of her husband, Richard, who disposed of her body through a wood chipper.[7]

The end credits bear the standard "all persons fictitious" disclaimer for a work of fiction.
 
A

A Serious Man

Member
The show is trying a little too hard to be quirky at every turn. It's starting to feel less like something inspired by the Coen brothers and more like a dark Wes Anderson project.
 
L

lamaroo

Unconfirmed Member
I love the humour, while it doesn't make me laugh out loud like Justified does sometimes, it amuses me. I find myself smirking even though the subject matter is dark.
 
Y

yyzjohn

Banned
Finally saw the first episode. Can someone explain how Billy Bob got out of the house? I thought he went to the basement just as the cops were arriving and suddenly he's gone. I missed something.
 
N

NotTheGuyYouKill

Member
yyzjohn said:
Finally saw the first episode. Can someone explain how Billy Bob got out of the house? I thought he went to the basement just as the cops were arriving and suddenly he's gone. I missed something.
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He's smoke. He's the devil. He's the voice in your ear whispering for you to do bad things.
 
D

Draconian

Member
yyzjohn said:
Finally saw the first episode. Can someone explain how Billy Bob got out of the house? I thought he went to the basement just as the cops were arriving and suddenly he's gone. I missed something.
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There are windows in the basement. It's been assumed that he crawled out of one.
 
P

Philippo

Member
Good episode, not on pilot's level but still pretty likeable. New duo from Fargo is totally funny, wish i could have subs to know what they're telling each other.
 
H

Hatchtag

Banned
yyzjohn said:
Finally saw the first episode. Can someone explain how Billy Bob got out of the house? I thought he went to the basement just as the cops were arriving and suddenly he's gone. I missed something.
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After Billy Bob goes in to the basement, the second officer arrives, and Martin Freeman turns around for a bit, as does the camera. So it's possible he went right back up stairs before Martin Freeman even went down there. But the windows also make sense.
 
D

deltatheta

Member
yyzjohn said:
Finally saw the first episode. Can someone explain how Billy Bob got out of the house? I thought he went to the basement just as the cops were arriving and suddenly he's gone. I missed something.
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It's supposed to be ambivalent at this point. You're meant to be asking yourself "was there a window? Could this guy be a supernatural entity with special powers?"
 
C

Cornballer

Member
New episode tonight:
A Muddy Road

Malvo flips the script on the blackmail operation; Molly sets a trap; Lester's return to work has complicated repercussions.
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The episode will run about 12 minutes past the hour tonight.
 
CharminUltra

CharminUltra

Member
I don't know if I'm still looking forward to tonight's episode to be honest. I only enjoyed the last 1/3 of the pilot, and I didn't quite feel episode 2 at all outside of a few moments. There is just something about the humor that feels off. I'm bummed out because I really loved the movie and I still think the setting is great for a crime drama.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
plexcide said:
Can someone remind me of this? What kid? My memory is so bad LOL
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neuyUJk.gif
 
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