We need a thread for the FARGO TV show yah? Oh, yah!

(mind you the whole Hanzee/Tripoli thing always bugged me somewhat. I get it he had plastic surgery but turning a rangy thin native american guy into a slovenly italian mobster stretches credulity even for this show.)

Latest episode was a great tension-builder for the finale.

joe keery is great in the failson role. also a very good "game recognizes game" moment at the end of the episode between munch and dot

Munch is one of those surreal characters where I’m unsure what perspective he’s being presented from and the ambiguity is unsettling and impressive

So the show has done an excellent job of illustrating the dangers of f’in around with the wrong people. Not that it is always obvious who can and can’t be f’ed with. Might not know the house cat is actually a tiger. On the receiving end of the “finding out” have been the initial kidnappers, gator, danish the lawyer, indira’s useless husband, and the bankers Lorraine wrecked. Roy going after dot set the whole thing in motion. Tune in next week to see if Roy gets his.

Wondering if some of Tillman's guys are privately not wanting to go full "Masada" (a term he mentioned right away). Father-in-law asking if he wants to be Hitler in the Reichstag or Hitler in whatever that place was at the end.

I think that's what he asked?

Hitler in the bunker. It's just taken for granted that you'd want to be Hitler at some stage of his life, I guess.

Munch is one of those surreal characters where I’m unsure what perspective he’s being presented from and the ambiguity is unsettling and impressive
Right!? I thought he would be like Hanzee but he's way more strange - they havent really slotted him in as anything but himself, outside of the rest of the story. He almost makes me think of a greek chorus or moral correction.

Have not seen the latest/last/last night's episode because we only just yesterday caught up with episode 9, and damn, this is like one of those bands that releases three great records, then releases one really disappointing record, then bounces back with a fifth record even better than the first three. This season is as good as anything I have ever watched, I think. Just masterfully made and acted.

-9 degrees outside, soup's already made, so ready for the finale tonight.

Just watched it. Don't expect that much; you know how finales often are.

I disagree, I thought it was magnificent! Completely unexpected approach to ending a story. I loved it.

This season of Fargo is the first one of the five I've seen — enjoyed it, enough to go back to previous series, probably, eventually. (I'd avoided previous seasons, initially out of a dumb fidelity to the Coens' film, and later out of bafflement and distaste for Noah Hawley thanks to the first two seasons of Legion, which I thought were stylish bullshit. I've read a summary of Legion S3 and I'm glad I bailed when I did.)

I gotta say I liked the scene where Roy, Lifted to Power by God Himself, spits at a crucifix, spits on Jesus himself basically, right after rejecting his own son for being a weakling and a failure. Not very subtle, Noah Hawley! But the jab at America's manly men who love God the Father but think Jesus was a pussy was well taken.

A lot of well composed shots in this show. The truck stop crash/Dot's injury was impressive, I'd like to know how much of that was real and how much was CG.

Wow. Nailed it. 10/10. Loved how they barely made it about Roy and focused mostly on Dot, the survivor, and what it actually takes, mentally, emotionally, to survive. Or maybe what it even means to survive.

And WmC, while I think this may be the best season, it's not necessarily representative, despite having a lot in common with previous seasons, which are all about setting up various conflicts but, most importantly, showcasing some really excellent acting, writing and directing.

So the Queen of Debt and therefore Credit told Roy she'd made sure that he'd need that little package of---what was it?
And as Biggest Donor to the Federalist Society, who pick the biggest judges as well as the justices, she could, according to her, twitch the line and make sure his appeals are denied.
Thus balancing with Dot's cosmic family values, bringing LOVE biscuits to truly unfreeze thee Sineater in Lynchian humor, its own tradition.

But for all yall to enjoy it more than I did is good; I've just gotten cynical about/detached from so many finales. Oh well, I was mostly into this season before that.

She just gave him a packet of cigarettes, didn't she? Which is kind of default cliche prison currency. Sort of rubbing salt in the wound. Like, maybe you can trade some of these for a few days of peace.

Lots of stuff about debt in this season, and who is owed or deserves what. I'll have to think about it a little bit.

xpost Oho, that's good! Throw the old dawg a bone; she's a philanthropist too.
What and why did the Sineater consider that Dot owed him?

He thought she owed him the Sheriff’s death.

First season is still the best, 2/3/5 all interesting in their own way.

Why didn't he kill the Sheriff? Maybe because she was the one (still living) who was most sinned-against. That was why he saved her, so she could repay him by collecting from Roy?

I thought his wounded ear was the debt.

Anyway I'm happy. Glad it wasn't chili and pancakes, would have been too on the nose.

Xpost I also thought munch was wanting repayment (a pound of flesh) for his wounded ear.

Had to laugh at Dot, Wayne and Scotty just drinking beers and making biscuits with the weird undead horror guy. Looked like munch wandered from the set of a medieval movie. But it worked. And I really liked dot recognizing what was wrong and showing him a way out

U mad, first season of Legion was incredible xps

"A man...a man has a..." yeah that was high comedy. The light side of midwestern domesticity finally coming to bear.

Legion s2 was the sweet spot for me, s1 was too high on its own psychedelia and s3 was trying extremely hard to make it happen (still enjoyed it though, especially the time goblins).

Just started watching season one of this with my wife last night. We have a lot of trouble finding shows that we agree on, but we both came up with this independently, so we gave the first episode a shot. I'm very on board. She enjoyed it to an extent, but a couple of the deaths (the wife and the police chief) in the first episode were too much for her. I think it's understandable to find those upsetting, but I want to keep pushing through.

How does the rest of the series hold up as far as emotional gut-punches and brutality?

There's a fair amount of violence and death in the series but not quite that brutal.

It's pretty violent throughout, sometimes darkly comic (a la Coens), sometimes not. This season, season 5, was the first that really made me wince.

Speaking of which, pretty lame to kill the only black character in the finale

I agree, and going into the finale I actually predicted the would survive because it would be a bad look to kill him off. Also, I don't feel it worked for me because he was a tertiary character so the dramatic stakes weren't that large--like he was killed just because someone on the good guy team had to die, and folks would have cared even less about the FBI duo biting it.

Yeah, that was my thought. I get that they had to imperil a good guy for the sake of drama, but it was pretty harsh to off his character that way, to no real narrative advantage, afaict. Might have gotten some mythological mileage out of, say, having Gator stumble in and get stabbed by his dad instead.

Yeah, I mean, we've watched shows with death and violence in them. It was those two in particular where my wife was like, "I'm not sure I can see this through." Pearl Nygaard was murdered in a frightening act of deeply personal relationship violence. Vern Thurman was an expecting father who showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time. They were supposed to hit hard. I wasn't surprised, but may have been too effective for her. I might be able to convince her to come back for episode two if the whole thing isn't like that.

Oh, since I'm here and on this topic, let me just ask: any child deaths? That's definitely one of her things.

not that I recall, though there are kids in danger, IRC.

iirc

much appreciated.

My favorite moment, as moments go: Lorraine on the phone: "What's the use of being a billionaire if you can't have somebody killed?"---and then! Listens to other person's response, which we can't hear, and then she's like, "Yeah---Ha ha!" Laughing at her own line (not nec. a joek), or the op response, both---billionaires bein' billionaires---epitome of the touch JJL always brings to this mogul fairy godmother, so confident of her power, her authority, that she never has to lean in, just, to Roy or whomever,"Here are your options, and if you chose X---", or just, "Here's how it's gonna be." She loves to see that look in their eyes. Though Dot is a learning experience.

Just like Munch and Roy, she can't quite topple the indomitable Dot. And just as Roy, Munch and Lorraine epitomized different kinds of power and willfulness, so did Dot. One mystery is how Dot, raised as she was, in isolation and subjugation, ended up the person she became, and not like her erstwhile brother Gator, though there is a case to be made that Dot represented a sort of primal goodness, just as Roy represented primal (chaotic?) evil (and Munch kind of neutral evil and Lorraine kind of ... lawful evil? I don't know my D&D tropes, lol).

My Prime ran out just before this last ep, so maybe won't be able to watch for a while (fucked if I'm giving bezos any more of my coin)

Y'know, I had assumed Munch's "pound of flesh" debt was the ear too (though I'd forgot about it already!) but that seemed disproportionate, so now reading some comments here I think I agree he meant the fact she didn't kill Roy, because really, that is what he wanted. He got at Gator, but not Roy.

One odd/annoying thing I found was the subtitles were spelling his name as "Oolay Moonk" when he told them his name. I dont know if that was a weird error, or intentional to show the pronunciation? Do we only know the name otherwise from IMDB?

it was definitely about the ear

I can't remember from the early episodes, but was his partner killed - the one who invaded Dot's house with him on the first night? I thought maybe that was the debt? I don't think it was connected to Roy; back in those early episodes he was upset that he did not defeat his "tiger" - Munch's whole arc is rooted in his initial failure.

Hmm, I recall that Dot did smash his partner's head in with a toilet lid at the gas station, but I'm not sure how much affinity Munch had for that partner; iirc it was kind of like the "Fargo" movie baddies, with one a midwest fuckup but the other partner (in this case, Munch) more enigmatic, and definitely not his friend. But yeah, there are a number of things Munch might consider a debt. Having rescued Dot, her having thwarted his original obligation of capturing her, or having not killed Roy, which is why he rescued her and gave her the gun.

that line that was something like “I’m the largest single donor to the Federalist society” was… oh, we’re playing a different level of the game here entirely. Roy not knowing what that was? what a small-timer

"Koreans make cars?"

Yet even he knows how to livestream, of course! Sign of the times, seriously.

Just like Munch and Roy, she can't quite topple the indomitable Dot. And just as Roy, Munch and Lorraine epitomized different kinds of power and willfulness, so did Dot. One mystery is how Dot, raised as she was, in isolation and subjugation, ended up the person she became, and not like her erstwhile brother Gator, though there is a case to be made that Dot represented a sort of primal goodness, just as Roy represented primal (chaotic?) evil (and Munch kind of neutral evil and Lorraine kind of ... lawful evil? I don't know my D&D tropes, lol).