As a big fan of the Coen brothers film that inspired it, I was sceptical about the Fargo TV show. I didn't think that a TV show from different creators could match the dark comic tale the Coens told in 1996. But it totally exceeded my expectations and the first season stands alone as a great piece of storytelling. Kicking off with The Crocodile's Dilemma, the show introduces its colourful palette of rich characters, from Billy Bob Thornton's Lorne Malvo to Martin Freeman's Lester Nygaard. Anchored by fantastic performances, a respect for the original while still creating something wholly new, a fascinating cast of characters and a wonderfully dark sense of humour weighted with just enough genuine emotion, this first episode made it clear we were in for something special.
Then with the second episode The Rooster Prince, the story started to expand, and we got a true sense of what we were in for. This episode established Fargo as a unique show, even though its whole philosophy is emulating a previous work's familiar tone, which was refreshing, and continued to deliver, proving the benchmark set by the pilot would hold up for the rest of the run. The stellar cast continued to deliver fantastic performances in their roles. The overall structure of the series started to fall into place with this episode, which was exciting, and also makes the show ideal for future binge-watchers who can watch episode after episode. The episode teased us with Malvo's mystery tapes and gave us an interesting dynamic in a grieving Molly Solverson (who is a wonderfully intriguing character in that her good nature clashes with her old-fashioned police instincts to prove you don't have to be a brawny man to be a good cop) chasing after Lester, who despite being an excellent liar, played marvellously by Freeman, she suspects of murder, which of course as we know he is guilty of. This dynamic was as interesting as Walter White's encounters with DEA agent brother-in-law Hank.
In the third episode, A Muddy Road, Lester's constant fear of getting caught became the main draw of the series. Interestingly, he felt no guilt about killing his wife but instead started to make the transition from good-natured and mild-mannered to a criminal mastermind lacking in emotion. In other words, after Lester Nygaard met Lorne Malvo for the first time, he began the path from being Lester Nygaard to becoming Lorne Malvo, and it made this series a classic piece of filmmaking. Molly played some devilishly smart mind games in this episode, and we got to see just how evil Malvo is, as well as a glimpse at the conscience of Colin Hanks' Gus Grimly. It seems that every episode we learn more and more about each character, and head deeper into their psychosis. It's brilliant television, and highly enjoyable.
The fourth episode Eating the Blame was just, from start to finish, a thrill-ride. The hitmen duo Mr. Numbers and Mr. Wrench were a hilarious pair from the beginning, and I cracked up every time their drumroll theme came on. Their method of going out onto a frozen lake with an ice drill and threatening to throw people into the freezing water was both scary and funny, in keeping with the dark humour both the show and film became known for. It's also made clear that of the characters featured on the show, Molly and Gus represent the moral side of humanity, while Malvo and Lester represent the immoral and inhumane, showing this is a story like all great stories that is about more than just what it is about. It is a study of humanity, and a fantastic one at that.
The Six Ungraspables, episode five, had a particular balance between humour and drama that can at some points in the series seem somewhat uneven. Also, it had a perfectly timed comic situation befitting of this show with Lester getting himself thrown in jail for the express purpose of escaping Numbers and Wrench, only for those two to wind up being put in the exact same cell with him all night. The way they sat either side of Lester and turned to face him together, it was gold. Meanwhile, the sixth episode Buridan's Ass was the most action-packed to date, having passed the halfway point, elevating the dramatic tension with tragic consequences for Gus' inept actions in a tense, fogged-up shootout. There was some great material for Lester and Malvo to play with here, and it was probably the best-looking episode so far, directed with serious visual style, achieving best visually what the rest of the show has attempted to do.
By the seventh episode Who Shaves the Barber?, Lester's transformation into a heartless monster like Malvo is almost complete. The whole opening sequence of Lester making up a whole story to the cops that frames his brother, and then ignoring his incarcerated brother on the way out with a sick smile and cut to the main title was just breath-taking, and the greatest opening scene of any episode yet, as well as the longest, and with a very valid reason. Here we get to see Malvo pretending to be friendly, which is so unnerving because we know his true malevolent nature, and the subtle transformation of Lester comes to a head, much like Walter White's transformation did towards the end of the third season of Breaking Bad in the final moments of the episode Half Measures, but here it was as the start of an episode and they made it work in terrific fashion. The only gripe I might have is that Molly rehashed Marge Gunderson's speech from the original film in this episode and it didn't quite work, but other than that, some terrific and well-written dialogue this episode.
While Fargo made itself known for taking unexpected twists and turns in its first seven instalments, it outdid itself on the unpredictable midway through the eighth episode The Heap when the story jumped forward a year out of nowhere to a time when Lester has re-married, Molly and Gus have married, and Malvo is strangely nowhere to be seen. This was a smart twist because if the story was becoming stale, they could shake it up a lot by giving a whole new Lester with a much improved life, winning Salesman of the Year at an insurance convention in Vegas and having a beautiful, loving wife, he has become a lot more outgoing and confident in his own skin. If it took murdering his first wife and framing his brother for it to improve himself, so be it. The final twist of Lester catching Malvo in a Vegas bar on a couple's night with his fiancée and their friends, who all refer to him as "Dr. Michaelson", was confusing but incredibly intriguing. Ever since the time jump, we all had the question on our minds, "What has Malvo been up to in the past year?" And with this ending, it's not revealed exactly what he did, but one thing is clear: he's been up to a lot.
The first part of the ninth and penultimate episode A Fox, A Rabbit and A Cabbage was dedicated to explaining what Malvo was up to, building a cover as part of a hit. He feigned falling in love and making friends for an entire year, building up to simply gunning them all down right in front of Lester and thinking nothing of it. If we thought Malvo had even the slightest inkling of human emotion deep down, those thoughts were completely cast aside by the sounds of three gunshots and the sight of a lot of blood and a careless expression. This is all down to a consistently fantastic performance by Billy Bob Thornton, as not many actors could make a killer who feels nothing (ie Dexter Morgan) that we actually care about. There's a real intensity that comes from that elevator scene, so harsh that it snaps new Lester back into reality and sends him and his wife back home immediately, and gets Molly back on his trail. This was the perfect setup for a strong conclusion, proving that the unexpected time jump was absolutely necessary for the telling of the story, as if Lester hadn't had that time to transform himself and Malvo hadn't used it to create a life around his latest hit, it would have played out entirely differently, and one can only wonder.
And finally, the first season of Fargo ended with Morton's Fork, arguably the best episode of the series. Finales are tough - almost every finale in the history of TV has been controversial. Some are done well with a fitting conclusion to a terrific series (Breaking Bad, The Office, Cheers), some are polarising in that they are so outlandish the fans are split between those who think it was good and those who think it was terrible (Lost, How I Met Your Mother, Seinfeld), and some are handled terribly and fall flat in their attempts to be unpredictable (Dexter, The Sopranos, The X-Files). Thankfully, Fargo's long, sprawling tale of crime in a gloomy and dark world came to an end in a totally unexpected way that was also the perfect ending and befitting of the show and its themes (without wanting to give too much away). Each character confronted their own inner demons and wrapped up their story arcs brilliantly.
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