Cody takes an episode-by-episode journey through season 2 of the Fargo television series.
These reviews weren't necessarily intended to be read in one sitting, so beware some repetition when it comes to describing characters.
Episode 1: Waiting for Dutch
With the 2014 debut season of the FX series Fargo, a show set in the same universe as the Coen brothers' 1996 film of the same name, the show's creator Noah Hawley did something incredible - he took something no one was asking for, a Fargo TV show, and delivered ten episodes of great, involving, captivating television that stood up as a more-than-worthy entry in what is now a Fargo franchise.
The success of season one has clearly emboldened Hawley to pursue a more distinct vision for the show, because even though the winter weather and Dakotas / Minnesota accents are still present, season two starts off in a way that feels further removed from the '96 movie than season one did. For one thing, it starts off in black and white, on the set of a movie called Massacre at Sioux Falls, where the director and a co-star are waiting for the film's lead, then-actor Ronald Reagan, to arrive on set. Reagan's nickname is "Dutch", so there we have the title of this episode, even though this scene doesn't have much to do with what follows.
The timeline then moves forward to 1979, where the bulk of this story will be taking place. During the first season, which was set in 2006, retired police officer Lou Solverson (there played by Keith Carradine) mentioned that he dealt with a mess in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in his officer days, and this season will be showing us that mess.
I have to be honest, I was not connecting with the first 16 minutes or so of this episode at all. During this time, we're watching the operations of the Gerhardt crime family as they conduct their business in the snowy countryside. Family patriarch Otto (Michael Hogan) has a stroke, put-upon Gerhardt son Rye (Kieran Culkin) needs a judge to unfreeze a bank account so he can get into the electric typewriter distribution business, and I was just not interested in any of this stuff. Then Rye pulls out a gun at a diner in Luverne, Minnesota, shoots and kills the judge and the two employees working there, and the story began to click.
After committing the murders, Rye is dazzled by the sight of some strange object in the night sky and walks out right out into the street... Where he is hit by a car. And that car drives away with Rye's body still on the hood, his head stuck through the windshield. Okay, now I'm hooked.
It's then that we catch up with two of the first season's characters, Lou Solverson and his daughter Molly - although here Lou is a younger man, played by Patrick Wilson, and Molly is just a little girl, played by Raven Stewart. Lou is called away to investigate the murder scene with his father-in-law Sheriff Hank Larsson (Ted Danson) - and both Wilson and Danson are always a very welcome presence in anything, so I was instantly liking these characters, especially since we already know Lou. I have a feeling Lou's personal story might be quite sad, because even though Molly's mom Betsy (Cristin Milioti) is around in 1979, she is battling cancer, and we know Betsy doesn't make it to 2006.
While the authorities and locals are pondering the strange crime scene, the show introduces the two new characters who I think are going to be the most interesting to follow this season, butcher shop employee Ed Blumquist (Jesse Plemons, plus several more pounds than usual) and his wife Peggy (Kirsten Dunst, who also gained some weight for her role but it's not as noticeable as the belly Plemons cultivated). Ed and Peggy are just an average couple with a shaky relationship - he wants kids, she's distant - but then we find out that Peggy was the one who hit Rye, and in a state of shock she drove him all the way home to their garage.
Rye isn't as dead as he seemed, and when he lashes out the people who appear to have trapped him in a garage, Ed stabs him in self defense. This is a total mess, and the Blumquists are going to be in trouble if they go to the police. So they decide to cover up Rye's death... and the season is off and running now.
'Waiting for Dutch' got off to a rough start for me, but it totally won me over by the time its 48 minutes came to an end. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with the Blumquists and to spending nine more episodes with Lou Solverson and his friends and family. I'm not so interested in the Gerhardt family or their rivals, but I have a feeling that these criminal organizations are going to be inconveniencing the characters I do want to watch, so I'm on board to see what happens with them as well.
Episode 2: Before the Law
Although I'm locked in to see the story through, the darker, more subdued tone of this second season is continuing to throw me off a bit and hamper my enjoyment. This isn't quite what I expected to get when I decided to venture back to Fargo.
With few classic exceptions, stories about crime family organizations do not generally appeal to me (unless The Punisher is in the mix), so - as indicated in my write-up of the first episode of this season - I have been resistant to the Gerhardt family element of this story, despite the fact that there are some fantastic actors involved with that side of the plot. The wife of the ailing father is Floyd, played by Jean Smart. Their sons Dodd and Bear are played by Jeffrey Donovan and Angus Sampson, respectively. Gerhardt son Rye, well... the hapless Blumquist couple took him out of the equation, but the other Gerhardts don't know that yet. There's a power struggle going on among the Gerhardts at the same time that another crime organization is making a move to take over the Gerhardt business. This other organization is represented by Brad Garrett and Bokeem Woodbine - this is a great bunch of actors, so I'm trying to be more open to the story they're telling. It helps that Woodbine has a standout scene in this episode, where he keeps a pleasant demeanor while trying to intimidate information out of someone.
Woodbine's Mike Milligan and his silent lackeys Wayne and Gale Kitchen (Todd and Brad Mann) also cross paths with someone involved with a storyline that I don't have to give myself a pep talk to get into, the investigation of the murders Rye committed in a Waffle Hut. This trio stirs the suspicions of Ted Danson's Sheriff Hank Larsson, and this scene reminded me of that great scene in season one where Billy Bob Thornton's Lorne Malvo is pulled over by police officer Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks). Milligan is no Malvo, but I have a feeling that he and Larsson will be meeting again, like Malvo and Grimly did.
The investigation takes a couple steps forward in 'Before the Law' and the Blumquists make some progress in covering up their hit and run / self-defense killing of Rye, but all of this is moving very slowly. The first season of Fargo surprised me by always having storylines move quicker than I expected them to, and so far season two seems to be taking the opposite approach. This episode fills 58 minutes with very little happening at all.
Something does happen that I wish didn't - an ending voice-over that when paired with a moment in the previous episode gives me reason to worry about where this season may be heading...
Episode 3: The Myth of Sisyphus
While the Fargo, North Dakota-based Gerhardt crime family prepares for the possibility of going to war with the Kansas City, Missouri-based organization that is seeking to take them over, the police in Luverne, Minnesota are starting to figure out that the youngest son of the Gerhardt family, Rye Gerhardt, was the person who killed several people at a local restaurant.
Rye has been missing since the night of the murders, and Betsy Solverson has a theory for what happened to him - going off clues at the crime scene, Betsy has deduced that Rye was hit by a car after committing the murders and the driver drove off with his body. Betsy happens to present this theory to her father, the sheriff of Luverne, while getting her hair done at the salon where Peggy Blumquist works. Being the driver who accidentally hit Rye outside of the restaurant and then drove off with him stuck in her windshield, Peggy is understandably quite disturbed to hear Betsy's thoughts on the matter.
I really like how Betsy was able to figure out what has happened before her sheriff father or police officer husband have been able to figure it out - in fact, Sheriff Larsson agrees with Peggy that the scenario Betsy has come up with is unrealistic. It's a nice touch for her character, and gives another reason to show why her daughter Molly Solverson proved to be such a capable officer in the first season of this show. She inherited crime solving smarts from three people.
The police are searching for Rye, the Gerhardts are searching for Rye, and so are the Kansas City organization. Tracing Rye's steps back to Fargo, Lou Solverson has encounters with the other searchers, and has great scenes where he's facing off with both the Gerhardt family and Kansas City enforcers Mike Milligan and the Kitchen brothers.
While in Fargo, Lou is accompanied by Keir O'Donnell as Ben Schmidt, a character I found interesting and thought could be a good ally for Lou... if only he weren't so scared of the Gerhardts. Not being from Fargo, and being a man of strong character, Lou is not afraid to stand up to the scariest members of the Gerhardt family or shotgun-wielding mobsters, a fact that draws the viewer even further onto his side.
With some excellently written scenes and terrific character moments, this third episode of Fargo's second season is the one I've enjoyed the most so far. This gave me more of the Fargo I know and love than the previous two episodes have.
Episode 4: Fear and Trembling
In the previous episode, Fargo cop Ben Schmidt gave some back story on the criminal operation run by the Gerhardt family. It all started with Dieter Gerhardt running booze during Prohibition, the gateway to running a trucking empire. In 1951, Dieter was shot to death and his son Otto ended up taking over the business. Information Schmidt left out was that Dieter was killed by a man who attempted to take the business and Otto kept control of it by killing this man and his lackeys.
The opening of this episode shows us exactly what Otto did in 1951 to keep control of his father's company, meeting Dieter's killer in a movie theatre - a theatre showing a Ronald Reagan movie, the second time Reagan's acting career has come up in this season. While Dieter puts a gun to use, it's his young son Dodd who truly struck the killing blow to the man who had Dieter killed.
After that opening, we jump back to the season's primary setting of 1979. With Otto having had a stroke, Dodd is now engaged in a different struggle over control of the Gerhardt company. With this flashback to '51, we get a better idea of why Dodd is so determined to hold on to the company and run it, butting heads with his mom Floyd and brother Bear over whether he should take control or if Floyd should. He has been killing for this company since he was 12 years old.
The next generation of Gerhardts are split on their dedication to the business. Charlie (Allan Dobrescu), the son of Dodd's brother Bear, is totally into it, and even though he has a physical handicap - cerebral palsy affecting his right hand - that doesn't stop him from becoming an enforcer for the family. Charlie's cousin Simone (Rachel Keller), Dodd's daughter, is fine with the organization from Kansas City taking over the operation. So fine with it, in fact, that she's sleeping with Kansas City enforcer Mike Milligan and leaking information to him in exchange for cocaine.
I'm familiar with most of the older actors in the Gerhardt / Kansas City story, and Jean Smart's Floyd Gerhardt and Brad Garrett's KC representative Joe Bulo have a great scene here, a meeting that turns into a showdown where Bulo threatens to wipe out the Gerhardts in the most civil way possible. This is my first time seeing Dobrescu or Keller in anything, though, and they're making a strong impression so far. Dobrescu especially, as he does a wonderful job of mixing a timid demeanor with a desire to threaten people at gunpoint, all the while delivering his dialogue with a great North Dakota accent.
'Fear and Trembling' is heavy on the Gerhardt part of the story being told here and this would have put me off before, but with the new twists and revelations I'm getting more interested in what's going on there.
This episode does offer a standout scene with people outside of the Gerhardt family as well, when the search for the youngest and deadest Gerhardt son Rye leads police officer Lou Solverson to Ed and Peggy Blumquist, the couple trying to hide the fact that they inadvertently killed Rye. Lou does his best to make them confess, but they keep their secrets as Gerhardt goon Hanzee Dent (Zahn McClarnon) draws near.
And Hanzee sees something strange in the sky, much like Rye did before he was hit by Peggy's car. What the hell is going on in the sky outside that Waffle Hut in Luverne, Minnesota, and why is it happening on this show?
Episode 5: The Gift of the Magi
Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, the creators of the 1996 movie the Fargo TV series is spun off from, have had ties to the career of actor Bruce Campbell ever since they were starting out. Joel worked as an assistant editor on Sam Raimi's first feature film The Evil Dead, which starred Campbell. When the Coens were looking to make their own first feature, Blood Simple, they shot a trailer for the story to show to potential investors - and that trailer starred Bruce Campbell. Campbell would go on to appear in several films the Coens were involved with; Crimewave, The Hudsucker Proxy, Intolerable Cruelty, and even Fargo. Campbell was in a soap opera that can be seen on a TV in the '96 film.
Although the Coens aren't directly involved with the Fargo TV show, it still seems quite appropriate that Campbell would return to their universe by appearing on the show, and he makes his first appearance in this episode, playing a real historical figure who has been referenced before in this series. Campbell plays Ronald Reagan, who swings through Luverne, Minnesota while on the campaign trail, running for President of the United States in the 1980 election. Bruce Campbell as President? I can dig it. It's always great to see Campbell in anything, and he has a very entertaining interaction with Patrick Wilson's Lou Solverson here.
A lot happens in the episode that surrounds Campbell's cameo, starting off with the first shots being fired in the war between the Fargo-based Gerhardt crime family and the Kansas City organization that's trying to take over their business. These shots result in CG blood splattering all over the place, which is always a bummer to see.
After the Gerhardts and Kansas City folks have both taken losses, traitorous Gerhardt Simone goes to see KC enforcer Mike Milligan, with whom she's having an affair... This is not a wise decision, and the interaction between Simone and Milligan is very tense, as you might expect. Once your family has killed a man's cohorts and he's looking to wipe out your family, you should probably keep your distance from each other.
This episode also spends a good amount of time with Ed and Peggy Blumquist, who accidentally killed a Gerhardt and now everyone knows it, the police just need to figure out a way to prove it while the Gerhardts prepare to get revenge. I like when the show focuses on Ed and Peggy, because I truly expected them to be the main characters in this season, I thought we'd be seeing a lot more of them than we have, that we'd be watching them make poor decisions while spiraling down into danger and damnation. Peggy has the right idea, she wants to get out of town, but poor Ed - not realizing that his head is on the chopping block, he insists on staying in Luverne, where he intends to own the butcher shop and raise a family.
Gerhardts arrive at the butcher shop with the intention of killing Ed, and any witnesses, right there. Luckily for him, the Gerhardt who has talked his way into getting this execution assignment is young Charlie, who chickens out when he sees how likeable Ed and his co-worker Noreen Vanderslice (Emily Haine) are. Noreen is around the same age as Charlie, and even though she's obsessed with the futility of life and inevitability of death, she sure doesn't seem to think hooking up with Charlie would be pointless. She's practically swooning at first sight.
Despite his criminal aspirations, Charlie is a good kid who hadn't gone too far yet when he walked into that butcher shop. He should have ditched this crime family nonsense right then and asked Noreen out on a date.
Oh well. Hopes and dreams are going up in flames as this episode comes to a close, bringing this season to the halfway point and leaving the story in a very intriguing place.
Episode 6: Rhinoceros
After the assassination attempt that left Charle Gerhardt injured, a Gerhardt family lackey dead, and the butcher shop Ed Blumquist works at burning to the ground, I figured Ed and his wife Peggy would be getting out of Luverne, Minnesota real quick. But this couple is a bit dim and slow, as evident from the way Peggy reacted when she accidentally hit Rye Gerhardt with her car. They stick around too long and Ed gets hauled off to jail. I thought they would be on the run by the time this episode began, taking an escape path through Sioux Falls, South Dakota where they'd be a part of the "mess" there that will still be stuck in the mind of police officer Lou Solverson twenty-seven years later (Lou reminisces about these events in the first season of the show, to which this season is a prequel.)
A movie title at the beginning of season two's first episode indicated that this mess will turn out to be a massacre, and it's almost certain that the Blumquists will be involved, because Peggy has already been talking about Sioux Falls - she wanted to attend a Lifespring seminar there. I'm sure they'll get to Sioux Falls by the end of the season, they'll just have to overcome more hurdles than I expected to get there.
While Luverne's only lawyer - a drunken man named Karl Weathers and played by the always hilarious Nick Offerman - is enlisted to help Ed clear his hurdle, Peggy is presented with an even more dangerous one: a home invasion conducted by another group of Gerhardt killers.
Dodd Gerhardt may not officially be in control of his family's business at this point, but he has made it very clear that he thinks he's king of the world. He doesn't care who stands up to him, he'll do his best to knock them down, whether it's his brother Bear, who he gets to submit to a beating with a belt, or even Sheriff Hank Larsson of Luverne. Larsson is at the Blumquist house when Dodd and his men arrive there, and the presence of a cop doesn't even make them hesitate.
Hell, Gerhardts will even stand outside a police station with weapons in hand, demanding a prisoner be released to their custody as if 1979 is the Old West and there are no repercussions for this type of behavior. If pushed to it, these folks would even try to pull off an Assault on Precinct 13. Or, because of the Western comparison, maybe I should say they'd try to pull off a Rio Bravo.
All that, and the Gerhardts aren't the only killers in action this episode...
'Rhinoceros' was my favorite episode of this season so far. It was thrilling and amusing, and full of captivating scenarios that had me legitimately concerned for the well-being of some of the characters. There's a moment when someone raises a shotgun to a person's face that actually made me flinch. This was an awesome 46 minutes of television.
Episode 7: Did You Do This? No, You Did It!
The body count is climbing in the war between the Fargo, North Dakota-based Gerhardt crime family and their Kansas City aggressors, and even though this episode starts off with Gerhardt associates wiping out multiple people involved with the Kansas City group, things are looking a lot worse for the Gerhardts in this situation. Family patriarch Otto is dead, youngest son Rye is dead (although not because of the KC folks, his death was some randomness on the side), grandson Charlie is injured and in police custody, and Dodd has been missing ever since going to Luverne, Minnesota to confront the couple who killed Rye.
To make matters appear worse for them, now Floyd, who has replaced her husband at the head of the family business, is picked up by the police and taken in for questioning. But maybe that's just the event that was needed to tip the scales in the Gerhardts favor.
Meanwhile, middle son Bear Gerhardt takes advantage of Floyd and Dodd's absence - even ignoring calls from someone who says they know where Dodd is - to take care of a traitor problem. That traitor being his niece, Dodd's daughter Simone, who has been leaking information to (and sleeping with) Kansas City enforcer Mike Milligan. Much like his brother Dodd, Bear is one cold-hearted bastard, and maybe the way he deals with Simone has something to do with the fact that Dodd is to blame for his son Charlie's predicament.
Amidst all the mayhem and chilling, unnerving things this episode has to offer, it also has some prominent references to other movies in the filmography of the Coen brothers, the filmmakers who made the 1996 film Fargo that this series is built upon. There are songs from The Big Lebowski, Miller's Crossing, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? featured in here; part of a popular line of dialogue from Lebowski is spoken; and there's a scene that is very much like the most famous moment in Miller's Crossing.
The references were nice, but this was a very dour episode overall, even before the heartbreaking moment when police officer Lou Solverson's cancer-stricken wife Betsy confides in Lou's buddy Karl Weathers that she knows she's dying and asks him to watch out for her family when she's gone. Thanks for putting me in the dumps, Fargo.
And now we continue to inch ever closer to that long-awaited, infamous mess in Sioux Falls.
Episode 8: Loplop
'Loplop' is the type of episode I thought we'd be getting around ten of this season - an episode that primarily focuses on married couple Ed and Peggy Blumquist as they make terrible decisions and get in way over their heads with dangerous criminals.
It was a dumb decision on Peggy's part that got the pair stuck in between warring criminal organizations when she accidentally hit the youngest son of the Gerhardt crime family with her car (he had just murdered several people, so don't feel too bad for him) and then just continued on her way. It's a decision made by Peggy that gets them deeper into trouble here - after subduing oldest Gerhardt son Dodd when he comes to the Blumquists' house to kill them, Peggy decides they should kidnap him and use him as a bargaining chip. And so away the Blumquists go, keeping Dodd captive in Ed's uncle's hunting cabin.
Enduring all of these harrowing situations is actually boosting Peggy's confidence. As she says, she feels like she's "self-actualizing". She was going to go to a self-help seminar in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but as it turns out all she needed in her life was some death and violence.
Meanwhile, the couple is being tracked by Gerhardt enforcer Hanzee Dent, a badass Vietnam vet and a Native American who does not react well when confronted with racism. Although the way he reacts does make for some very crowd-pleasing moments in this episode.
Hanzee's search for the Blumquists and Dodd feels very much like the scenes with the iconic character Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, another movie that was made by the Coen brothers, the filmmakers behind the 1996 film Fargo that this series is a spin-off from.
Ed and Peggy are the most pleasant captors you've ever seen, never losing their midwestern charm and positive disposition, but that doesn't stop things from getting quite violent. Not just because Peggy isn't afraid to give Dodd some insignificant stab wounds if he's misbehaving. No, people receive some terrible injuries in this episode. People die. And one unlucky character finds themselves hanging with a rope around their neck in one of the most disturbingly realistic presentations of a hanging I've ever seen in a piece of entertainment.
Delivering what I've always expected and wanted from this season, more Ed and Peggy, 'Loplop' is a great episode that takes us into the home stretch of the season and leaves me feeling very anxious to see what happens next.
Episode 9: The Castle
Being set twenty-seven years before the events of the first season, the second season of Fargo does feature some of the same characters we met the first time around, but they're played by different actors. Lou Solverson was a retired police officer played by Keith Carradine in the first season (set in 2006), in the second season (set in 1979) he's a police officer in the prime of his career and is played by Patrick Wilson. His daughter Molly was a police officer herself in season one, played by Allison Tolman. In second two she's just a little girl, played by Raven Stewart.
The penultimate episode of season two takes the opposite approach to bringing someone back - season one star Martin Freeman earned a credit on this episode, but not as his character Lester Nygaard. Instead, he's a different character, a narrator presenting to us the story from a book called The History of True Crime in Midwest. For this narration job, Freeman was able to use his own British accent rather than Lester's Minnesota one, and the story he's telling us is the story of the Massacre at Sioux Falls.
As this episode begins, established characters are converging on Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hapless married couple Ed and Peggy Blumquist have come there hoping to trade Dodd Gerhardt, the eldest son of the Fargo, North Dakota-based Gerhardt crime family, with his family's rivals, an organization that operates out of Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City enforcer Mike Milligan is on his way to Sioux Falls for the trade, not knowing that there is no Dodd Gerhardt to trade anymore. Dodd's dead. Ed and Peggy had a close call with rogue Gerhardt enforcer Hanzee Dent, and he's still around. Luverne, Minnesota police officers Lou Solverson and Hank Larsson have followed the Blumquists, since they ran into trouble with the Gerhardts in Luverne. Fargo cop Ben Schmidt has accompanied them. Having been contacted by Hanzee Dent, the surviving members of the Gerhardt family are on their way, too.
Add some local Sioux Falls cops into the mix and that's a lot of people who have been put in place to be a part of the massacre in some way. To be near an event that we've been building up to ever since Lou referenced it near the end of the first season. The bloodiest chapter in midwestern history, according to Freeman's narrator.
The police put a wire on Ed Blumquist and escort him to a motel, where he's going to be meeting with Mike Milligan while officers wait in the wings. And we can be certain the other players in this mess are going to be showing up there, too. Since this series owes its existence to the Coen brothers and their 1996 film Fargo, there are often references to the Coens' filmography to be found throughout the show, but as we prepare for what looks like is going to be a shootout at a motel, the film that is most strongly coming to mind for me is the Tony Scott-directed, Quentin Tarantino-scripted True Romance. That's one of my favorite movies, so I'm definitely not unhappy to be reminded of it while watching something else.
Episode 10: Palindrome
A whole bunch of people have died over the course of the previous nine episodes of Fargo's second season, including a massacre / shootout that capped off the penultimate episode. Now it's time to wrap things up, and after that shootout there's only a few threads left dangling. Namely, we have to see what's going to happen with mafia enforcers Hanzee Dent and Mike Milligan, we need to learn the fate of mixed-up couple Ed and Peggy Blumquist, and we have to find out if police officer Lou Solverson can achieve the wonderful future his dying wife Betsy has envisioned for him and their daughter.
Well, we already know that Lou is going to have that future, because we saw some of it in the first season of this show, which was set twenty-seven years after this season. The scene where Betsy talks about the vision she had of the future, it's very much like a scene from the end of Raising Arizona, another movie by the Coen brothers, who made the movie Fargo in 1996. Not only is this vision a cool reference to a different Coen film, it also features the return of several actors from the season one cast: Keith Carradine as Lou, Allison Tolman as Lou and Betsy's daughter Molly, Colin Hanks as Molly's husband, Joey King as his daughter. It was good to see them all again.
'Palindrome' gets off to an awesome start, transitioning from Betsy's vision to a sequence set in the streets of Sioux Falls, South Dakota at night - some characters running for their lives, other characters pursuing them, all while Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" plays on the soundtrack.
The action slows down at a point, taking the season out as it started, in a more low-key way. During this slow down, the episode truly serves as a showcase for the acting skills of its excellent cast, in particular Kirsten Dunst as Peggy, Cristin Milioti as Betsy, Patrick Wilson as Lou. There is some really great stuff in here.
There was a lot of great stuff in this season as a whole as well. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first, there were some questionable decisions made along the way (that damn UFO), but in the end it adds up to ten episodes of some involving, well made, entertaining television.
As of this writing, season three is already starting to come together, and I'm looking forward to watching it.
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