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

i enjoyed watching this season fine but i don't feel like it really added up to much ultimately. this show is always so binary about good and evil but can't even do that right (JJL's character is clearly evil but is ultimately treated as a heroine - sure she's come around on dot but she's still a right-wing debtlord). however i did really enjoy the final chunk with munch in the lyons' home. the messaging is pretty simple but the munch/sin-eater thing was the most unique aspect of the show this season, i really enjoy that actor's performance and it brought the strangeness that the season really needed (the puppet show episode was the only other thing approaching this feel and it turned out to be a ~all a dreeeam~).

i've watched every season except 4 (which i started) but i can't remember - has every season been as humorless as this one? i feel like humor is an essential part of the coens' tone and there was nothing approaching funny in this season. like how do you cast lamorne morris and have him be totally serious the entire time?

i guess a way to summarize all that is that this season felt a little too much like a straight crime/revenge story with too few coens-y quirks

This season had less humor than the first three for sure. Or the humor of this season was darker than previous ones.

honestly a great season that lost me completely when the trooper chose to get knifed for no reason.

moonk obv dot's trauma/PTSD just walking around out there. biscuit obv homer's olive tree.

With an extra day to think back on the whole season, I do think this season probably had one too many characters/plot arcs. For instance, Indira stopped having anything to do once she took her new job. And Whit... enough said itt about him already. Jennifer Jason Leigh also went quiet for a few episodes. Nevertheless I loved the whole thing and I think this was the best since s2. This is probably the first show since Mad Man where I think Jon Hamm was truly excellent.

I think the first three were about cops vs. baddies, right? The last season, season 4, was kind of more about feuding factions, which in a sense this season was about, too. I agree that both cops were pretty ancillary in this season, though perhaps to underscore the limitations of legal power.

https://www.vulture.com/article/fargo-jennifer-jason-leigh-lorraine-finale-ending-interview.html

season two also had the kansas city mob vs gerhardt clan faction thing going on, but also there was law enforcement vs other law enforcement with lou being treated dismissively by whoever those other law enforcement guys were, like molly in season one and gloria in season three. seasons three and four had a fatal home visit in the denouement, which also happened in season five, but inverted because of dharma. emmit and loy threw their fates to the wind, as it were, maybe good, maybe bad, but dot was straight up in the sanctified and righteous zone despite being a little bitey and whatnot and therefore what unfolded was totally in keeping with the gestalt. this series has an eternal returns with variations that turn on karma mostly, but also chance, which is part of karma, i'm assuming. some seasons are like other seasons but different, and other seasons aren't, i guess.

regarding witt ,he didn't have to die. he was the only pure character or characterization in this season. he died anyway, doing what he felt obligated to do. danish perished , and it was kinda like, hey! you bastards, you killed dave foley (south park reference), dave foley is my boo! i didn't care for it, frankly. but witt, that was we. we're him, if we're at our best. we're cogs that get our spokes ground off if the wheels grind too hard. his sacrifice is our sacrifice. witt is the kermit the frog, the jim halpert, the point of entry for the common man or woman who is pure of heart and didn't ask for this shit. it's not what we hope for but at best it's what we get. if dot and indira visit our grave and offer respects that's validation of our existence.

also, yeah, there was not a lot of comedy in this season, but imo, that scene where munch was like, a man has a code, and dot and family was all, this is how you make biscuits, that was all-encompassing and over-arching. munch is a theoretical construct carrying the weight of original sin and consequence and the weight of the world and dot flips him with bisquick Jiu-juitsu i didn't outwardly guffaw or lmao but internally i've been irrevoca bly altered. so much seriousness given to munch's pronunciations in this season and then, whatever, this is biscuits and forgiveness. eat it or don't.

a man has a code, that the coen's universe in a nutshell? karma, fate, predestination, character, all as literary theory? teleological imperatives? you can see it coming? grace. dot offered munch grace, like she did to gator, and in that moment i eexperinced absolution and transcendence. granted, this is just a tv show, but i'll take it where i can get it.

wayne and scotty were also pure, but didn't have to confront eventualities like witt. witt is the secret heart of this season even if the character was given short shrift vis a vis narrative weight.it wasn't about him but he did his fucking part and paid for it. .

that aligns with a lot of my thoughts on the season, slugbuggy

the halting conversation between Dot and Munch had the tension of her attempts to feel out where he was coming from while she stayed resolute in her stance. the turning point, where she wasn’t wrong but lacked context, was her point that taking a job implies risk and that if you lose something, it doesn’t mean a debt was incurred, but that you knew you were risking something

Munch’s story about taking on sin (and eating it), when he had no knowledge of the risk and really had no choice as a starving man, was a parallel she didn’t expect. He didn’t know and was wronged. Dot was taken into Roy’s house not knowing what would happen, when she had nothing, too.

I'm convinced that Danish is based mostly on another one-eyed attorney, Phil Ken Sebben.

One of my main irritations in action-trash (which this isn't, want to be clear) is that when the people with super killing skills get going, all law enforcement agencies conveniently disappear. I liked that Fargo S5 had almost every flavor of cops — local police, rural sheriff's departments, highway patrol, FBI, and I think that was DHS in the final showdown unless the FBI has their own tactical assault team. Not that I like cops, but I like verisimilitude.

It was DHS, the product of I believe an overt Trump reference, when Lorraine gripes something along the lines "call the orange idiot, it's time to cash in on all those campaign donations."

“500 years earlier”
This season is SO DUMB watching anyway

I'm convinced that Danish is based mostly on another one-eyed attorney, Phil Ken Sebben.

HA haaaa.... SNOW.

The golfing husband doesn’t know how to grip a club

Don’t think that was unintentional

In ep 10 the denouement started with a half hour to go. I shut it off. Do I need to watch the rest ?

Finally resumed this after a few weeks off so I can get to True Detective; just about to start E7. Have avoided the thread...the possible new bond between matriarch Lyon and Sheriff Olmstead is promising.

you should watch the rest imo xp

I know I won't be saying anything here that wasn't said already (will catch up when I finish), but the ending of E7--the footsteps, the look on Dot's face, "I got you"--quite terrifying.

Let me praise and nitpick over the soundtrack. I love "I'm Your Puppet," so great pick. Seems to come off the radio, stops, then reappears when Dot walks into the diner--are they playing the same station? They missed a potentially great moment: Dot closes her eyes, she's about to lose herself in the song, but they stop it abruptly before she gets the chance. Poor choice--a few seconds more with her eyes closed would have been great.

The Optic Nerve's "A Long Way to Go" was a nice simulation of 1966 garage--wish it had actually been from '66, but that's okay.

Finished up. I don't know if it's necessary to still hide stuff...If you haven't finished, don't read this.

I liked the (unexpected, and thoughtful) turn towards abusive violence in the last few episodes. I didn't expect that--didn't comport with my early impressions of Tillman. Thought JJL's character became more shaded as the season went on, without losing her essential distance, like her awkward embrace with Dot in the final episode ("okeydoke"). Her jailhouse visit with Roy was very satisfying. And I really liked "Whipping Post" to end S9...even though I don't particularly like "Whipping Post"! I just like it when someone's coming from the same general place I am.

Complaints: thought Moonk--the character, and the whole subplot--was a drag. He was obviously meant to evoke Peter Stormare in the movie, but the epilogue to me felt like Noah Hawley wanting to fix (like Tarantino fixing the Manson murders) Anton Chigurth's story in No Country for Old Men. "You don't have to do this" Carla Jean said to Chigurth in No Country; he did, because he couldn't not do it, but Dot manages to find the right words to say. Would have been fine without that last scene and fine without Moonk at all. Also, wish it had been Farr who got to put down Tillman. The way they did it seemed like a very 1960s thing to do.

Don't know how to rank all the seasons except that S2 remains far and away my favourite. The rest all had things I liked.

Well I made it about halfway through rhe denouement, until the point it tried too hard for comedy

The viewership has been declining season over season, this might be the last one?

That would be my guess. I liked the way a character would connect some seasons to others, especially Mike Milligan across S2 and S4. 1, 2, and 4 all connected; can't remember if 3 did. I don't think there was anything in 5, was there?

Pretty sure Hawley said there are likely more seasons in the pipes, but he's also busy with the Alien show now.

Totally loved this season, more than S2, maybe more than S1 even (my previous high bar). It got the tension, the action, the humor, the weirdness, all in great balance. Ending was weird and unexpected and awesome. The "suburban mom who's secretly a fighter and weapons expert" also reminded me of Long Kiss Goodnight a bit

None of the other season have come close to S1 for me personally.

just watched long kiss goodnight for the first time a few days ago, and yes totally

Just watched S1 for first time, it’s not said out right, but Malvo lets the guy from the car lot live (who earlier was buying health insurance). I kind of took it that the car being gone and never explained was like him letting Gus live in the stop earlier in the show.

i'm rewatching no country for old men for the first time in a long time and wondering if the last chunk of the fargo s5 finale is maybe riffing on the javier bardem/kelly macdonald conversation near the end of the movie (though that doesn't seem to work out as well for kelly macdonald)

munch kind of has the anton chigurh haircut

Yeah agreed, clemenza also mentioned this upthread, except I really liked it.

Complaints: thought Moonk--the character, and the whole subplot--was a drag. He was obviously meant to evoke Peter Stormare in the movie, but the epilogue to me felt like Noah Hawley wanting to fix (like Tarantino fixing the Manson murders) Anton Chigurth's story in No Country for Old Men. "You don't have to do this" Carla Jean said to Chigurth in No Country; he did, because he couldn't not do it, but Dot manages to find the right words to say. Would have been fine without that last scene and fine without Moonk at all.

Hawley has explicitly talked about the similarity: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/fargo-season-5-finale-explained-noah-hawley-1235789647/

Kind of makes sense to drag other Coens properties into Fargo, I think of the show as riffing on their whole deal

yeah there have always been allusions to other Coen movies, from direct lifts of dialogue to things like a mysterious otherworldly stranger sitting at the bar in a bowling alley (Ray Wise in season 3).

There are boodles of these references I’m noticing. Hotel hallway in Vegas and in season 2 with ref to Barton Fink. The scene where Bear takes his niece out into the woods has the ‘you don’t have to do this’ from Millers Crossing.

“We are going crazy with boredom out at the lake.” The first show she finds on tv is a nature bug documentary like in the movie Fargo.

Hanzee grilling the guy at the store about the couple is also a bit like the No Country for old Men scene.

White Denim’s cover of “Just Checked In…” was another Big Lebowski ref.

Munch is the dybbuk

I liked the way a character would connect some seasons to others, especially Mike Milligan across S2 and S4. 1, 2, and 4 all connected; can't remember if 3 did. I don't think there was anything in 5, was there?

― clemenza, Saturday, 3 February 2024 17:35 (one month ago) link

I was looking for this too. All I found was that Jason Schwartzman (Josto Faddo from S4) narrates the voiceover in episode 5 from Season 5 called "The Tiger."

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/who-narrates-fargo-season-5-episode-5-the-tiger/