It’s a problem of pacing, I think, but it’s one that’s hard to pin down. This season of Fargo has picked up some steam, and this week’s episode ends with a dramatic death, always a good way to get our attention. But while “The Birthplace Of Civilization” has its share of strong scenes and striking visuals, there’s an airiness to it, an emptiness, that keeps preventing those individual scenes from connecting together in any but the most intellectual way. This week’s theme is a bit more clearly stated than usual, and it’s not bad, and there are some moments of suspense. But every time it seems like momentum is being built, every time it seems like the series might shift into a higher gear, there’s a hitch or some character beat that doesn’t quite land to keep it from making that transition.
Take the scene where Gaetano takes revenge on the teenager who laughs at him for slipping in the ice. It has all the hallmarks of Fargo’s approach to violence: a long, slow burn, a monologue that delays the inevitable even as it underlines said inevitability (in this case, Gaetano talking about how Italy is tougher than America), then the sudden, almost comic brutality of murder. I don’t know if any of this is done poorly, apart from my ongoing problems with Salvatore Esposito’s performance. But I’m also not sure it’s that necessary a scene. We know who Gaetano is at this point, we know he’s an angry fella, and we know that he holds America in contempt. We know he’s capable of violence. I guess this shows us he’s capable of committing the violence himself, and not just ordering it, but having him take his aggression out on some random folks we’ve never met before feels like a waste.
The issue isn’t that the sequence is explicitly bad. It’s fine. But it’s not so great that it absolutely needs to be in the episode, and putting it in context with everything else, it mostly comes across as a distraction. There are a lot of characters in this season of Fargo, and it seems like every damn one of them has their own plotline to follow. It’s not confusing, as none of the individual plotlines are all that complex (the characters may be quirky, but their goals are all pretty clear, outside of the wild card that is Oraetta Mayflower), but it leads to a diffusion of focus that makes it hard to care that much about any individual one of them. There are characters I’m more interested in, but everything gets diluted by the amount of time we have to spend checking in all over, so that none of it comes across as absolutely vital.
Still, some parts do stand out. Last week, I complained that Odis Weff’s nervous tics were one bit of random oddness too many; this week, I’m proven completely wrong when we get an explanation for why the guy acts like he does. Two explanations, actually. In the first, when Odis and his men come to arrest several members of Loy’s organization (as part of a two-pronged attack ordered by Josto in the previous episode; the other prong has the cops raiding a night club where Lemuel and Leon are watching some excellent jazz, arresting them both), Loy gives a monologue about how Odis was a minesweeper during the war—and he was good at his job too, until one day it proved too much for him and he just lay down in the grass, lying that the work was done and letting a superior officer get blown to smithereens.
That’s pretty good; Rock delivers the monologue well enough (his performance this week felt a bit more on point than usual, maybe because he spent a lot of the hour being angry and threatening people), and it transforms Odis’ twitchiness from a showy piece of writing and performance into something more complex and tragic. Then later in the episode, Deafy stops by Odis’s apartment, and we learn the real reason Odis laid down in the grass: he’d just gotten a letter from home telling him that his fiancée had been raped and murdered. So now a guy who looked to be kind of a joke is someone worthy of our sympathy—which explains why Jack Huston was in the role.
It works, and I should’ve waited before I made my criticism last week (thankfully, I will never make that mistake again)(sarcasm!), but I’m not sure if this structure is the most effective way to handle the set-up and the pay off. Loy’s monologue gives us enough context for make Odis more interesting on its own; finding out ten minutes later that his backstory is even sadder seems like a waste, when it’s something that could’ve been held till later in the season. At its best, Fargo’s episodes have a kind of offbeat internal logic that allows us to think something deeper is going on, but while this season is clearly telling a story, it’s telling it in a way that feels inefficient and self-defeating, forcing us to work harder to grab onto the compelling bits and disregard the rest.
The main events this week are the aforementioned police strikes against Loy and his people; Loy taking over the funeral home and getting Zelmare and Swanee’s location from the terrified Smutnys; Deafy getting said location from an equally frightened Ethelrida; Zelmare and Swanee going off with the Cannons; and, the big event, Calamita shooting and killing Doctor Senator while Gaetano watches on, smirking. I’m sorry to see Doctor Senator go, as Glynn Turman is always a pleasure to have around, but it was about time Loy lost someone important to him, and given that the scene prior to Dr. Senator’s death is yet another scene where intense men trade threatening monologues, somebody had to die or else it would’ve just been silly.
We even get a bit of a theme this week, courtesy of Zelmare and Swanee explaining to Ethelrida why they’re “outlaws” and not “criminals.” A criminal, you see, is someone who inherently respects the institutions of civilization even as they violate their laws—sort of an “honoring in the breach” kind of thing, their illegal behavior designed with the end goal in mind of going straight and taking their place alongside other upstanding citizens. Outlaws, on the other hand, reject all of this, taking what they want to survive and living outside of normal conventions and rules.
That last is what Zelmare and Swanee aspire to, although we see the limits of such aspirations. It’s also a good way of explaining the problems with Loy trying to go to war against the Faddas. Josto and his men are criminals; Loy and his men are outlaws who want to believe they are criminals as well. Zelmare and Swanee can’t allow themselves this luxury, and I won’t be completely surprised if Loy gets a hard lesson in the same before the season is out. Presumably most of these people are going to die before the end. Some of those deaths will be ironic—the possibility of Josto getting strangled or otherwise ended by Oraetta seems likely (maybe too likely)—but Loy’s fate is almost certainly going to be tied up in his ambitions. It’s good to have that underlined at this point in the season, but I wish I had confidence that the show would be able to deliver on that promise.
Stray observations
- I don’t think Loy’s confrontation with his wife over their children quite works. It gives Rock a chance to be angry, which is fine, but we’ve seen so little of his wife that there’s no weight to it. Like the Gaetano scene, it feels like something we’ve seen a thousand times before (Wife Upset Over Husband’s Criminal Activity), without enough specificity to make it fresh.
- Ethelrida writes a letter to Dr. Harvard, pretending to be a nurse who’s worked with Oraetta in the past and informing him of her crimes. I don’t know if she sends it. This is also an Oraetta-light week; we just get a brief glimpse of her at work, banging her head against the wall as a patient groans.
- Rabbi Milligan is determined to protect Loy’s young son in the chaos to come. I wouldn’t have made the connection between him and Mike Milligan from Fargo’s second season, but it’s a clever nod.
- “Why would I fight for a country that wants me dead?” -Loy
- “Here in America, respect is earned.” -Doctor Senator, on his way out.
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Quick aside, but the guy Loy sold the guns to, Mort Kellerman, is from season 2. He’s the Fargo gangster who shot Otto Gerharts father, and in 1951, Dodd Gerhart stabs him in the head at a movie theater. Interesting tie to previous seasons. Also I think there was a quick Big Lebowski reference at the start with the name of the trucking company. Treehorn? Like Jacky Treehorn? Also the direct use of the line rumpus from Millers Crossing? Anyway, onto the episode proper, yes the shows loves a monologe more then Mike Flannigan but if it’s performed well its fine by me. The last scene was quite great at racketing up tension before giving the outcome you expected. And I gotta say, that remix of the Fargo theme at the end was beautiful. Its a remix of the rarely used Bemidji Alternative theme from season 1, which happens to be my favorite version. Jeff Russo can do no wrong if you ask me. Overall its a good episode and advanced the plot, I’m fine with the pacing but one more set up episode would have been too much.
When Winstead had her shootout at the end of season 3 with the patrolman, the use of the Fargo theme there was devastating. The subtler use here, I agree, was very effective.
love the bemidji theme too!
I would totally geek out if this series had ties to Miller’s Crossing. The city it takes place in and the name of the (Irish?) crime family are not specified, per IMDB. If it turns out Leo was a Milligan, that would be too cool.
Milligan is getting interesting, which I like because I have liked Whishaw since Layer Cake. I’m anxious to see what transpires when Oraetta finds the notebook Ethelrida left in her trophy closet last week. You’d think a smart young lady like Ethelrida would have realized that she’d left the notebook there. And what was Oraetta’s head-banging thing? Nice twist the outlaw lesbians going to work for Cannon. Agree that filling out Odis’s backstory as a minesweeper in France makes him a little more intriguing, though I can’t figure out how Loy Cannon had access to that information.
You’d think a smart young lady like Ethelrida would have realized that she’d left the notebook there.
Glad someone else noticed. That’s been a glaring issue for me. At some point, she’d notice she left her notebook. And this episode made it worse because clearly some time has passed and she still doesn’t remember it. In the grand scheme, its a minor issue but it has been bugging me a bit.
I guess she was just banging her head to come up with a plan to poison Ethelrida’s birthday cake. I thought she was doing something sexual in the room, due to the moaning.
“…I can’t figure out how Loy Cannon had access to that information.”Plus last week Loy somehow knew of a moment in Rabbi’s past. Quite a repository of backstories, that Loy.
What was Oraetta’s head-banging thing?Mental illness.It’s a prime example of her reflection from what would be an annoyance to people into a straight forward willingness to self-harm. She isn’t lightly banging her head out of irritation, she’s SLAMMING her skull into the wall. Those are classic signs of spectrum behavior and signs of mental illness playing out. I think it’s a bit abrupt to see it but it definitely plays into her reality, that she isn’t a killer for power or money, she’s a killer for joy and a deep sense of wrong is in her soul.
Her killing could be compulsive like the head banging.
Wait…holy shit, that’s Q?!?! I haven’t paid attention to who most of the actors are and didn’t realize who that was.
Am I the only one who saw this? Oraetta was banging her head because her patient with gout would not stop moaning, and she couldn’t sleep.Notably, teh last shot we see her get up. Go to credits… and the moaning stops.
Seemed pretty obvious from the almost the beginning that Odis’s ticks were because of the war. Not sure how you missed that. Poor Jack Huston has had a rough go in both World Wars now.
Even more jarring, are you really saying that you’re just now getting that Satchel is Mike Milligan? How can that be? do you even Fargo, dude?
Yeah that was the first thing I figured the moment a character with the surname Milligan was announced.
also I am seeing some of the adult Mike Milligan’s cadence in speech in Chris Rock’s character’s dialogue.
Bingo! I can’t wait for Rabbi to read him Jabberwocky as a bedtime story
Also, it’s late afternoon when Calamita guns down Dr. Senator, but almost dark when Loy observes the scene and the cops are still on their way. I think they had radio back then?
Black neighborhood. To quote Public Enemy, “911 is a joke in yo town”
That part rings somewhat true, but what is harder to swallow is nobody else doing anything until then.
The diner wasn’t like the isolated joint in the beginning of Season 2, where you could believe a big shooting might happen without anyone coming across it for a while. It was the place for regular meetups between the reps for both gangs because it was a place in the middle of the city where it would be hard to pull off any funny business.That nobody moved the bodies or gotten word sooner to Loy’s people seems odd.
Drew got it half right:Black victim + Black neighborhood.
It’s mid-December, Christmas decorations are all over. It gets dark early and fast that time of year.
Having thought about this some more, I think we have to consider that this is a symbolic visual choice meant to signal that this moment, this death is when things really get dark. It is Fargo, after all, a show with a history of alien visits, mysterious bowling alleys and the like. In that context, fudging the timing of sunset is small beer.
I haven’t seen previous seasons which apparently S2 took place here partially?
But KC is a HUGE city in 1950, 703K metro. The idea that two people gunned down in the streets with nobody around to say anything is insane unless Spud’s is basically in the exurbs outside KC…Still, this season is playing out due to the age and need to use cars and certain architecture really making KC seem small when it was a major US city on par with anything just outside NY/Chicago/LA.
I’ve generally liked the season just fine but the pacing does feel off. We never really see Loy work his way up before the premiere and his partnership with the Faddas turns into war almost immediately. That’s why his speech about jumping on the roller coaster doesn’t really work, because all we have seen is him constantly riding that coaster. It almost feels like this should be the second season of a show, there’s just so much going on with the two gangs that doesn’t feel properly earned.
Glynn Turman knows how to wear a FedoraRIP Doctor Senator, you were a honorable man in an un-honorable world.
Hear! Hear!
I miss him already. He was my favorite Fargo character this season. At least Nadine got her last tip. When he ordered a coffee, I knew his time was up. 🙁
Fedora is the ultimate hat that some or few people can just KILL wearing it.This guy does.
I’m so upset! He was my favorite one on here!
Plus it is amazing how little Glynn Turman has aged since A Different World 25 (!) years ago.
Gaetano is so cartoonish at this point that it is truly ridiculous and embarrassing for this show. And the fact that his dumb crony Calamita killed Doctor Senator really boils my blood. I’m gonna miss Doc; at least he got the nice Fargo music send-off. Someone called it last week saying that the Cannon crew letting Calamita live was going to bite them.
It was when Gaetano gets out of the car and is waving his hands around to the music that I realized that he’s like a Jack Black version of a dangerous mafioso. And the instant that thought popped into my head, Gaetano eats shit on the ice.And thinking about it more, I think maybe they wanted Black for the role and couldn’t get him? Jack Black feels like a more natural brother for Jason Schwartzman from a casting and acting energy perspective.
It was cringey watching the scene when he slips on the ice and also him crazily eating the ice cream sundae. It’s like the actor watched the Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix versions of the Joker and decided he was going to try to be a bad over-the-top version of them mixed together (when Gaetano moves along to the music it reminded me of Joaquin’s Joker dancing down the stairs).
maybe they wanted Black for the role and couldn’t get him? Except contemporary Jack Black doesn’t even act that way anymore. Gaetano is, like, 2000s Jack Black.
I’ve been picturing him as the love child between Jack Black and Bruce McCulloch.
He’s doing Nacho Libre. Once you see it, you can’t take him seriously again.
I need to hear an interview with that actor in which he explains what, exactly, he’s going for. Not since AJ Soprano have I seen a performance where I could definitively say, “Well, that guy is never going to work again.”
Agreed. I can’t see any American show-runners and casting directors watching his performance and saying, “I want that guy.” If he was hoping to break into English language film/TV, then this isn’t going to help him. Maybe he’ll continue to get acting roles in his native Italy.
Well, the directors of Fargo ARE directing him. If they don’t want more crazy eyes, they just have to tell the actor, “less crazy eyes this time.”
Gaetano’s bugged out eyes and a half-smile comes off more like a mentally challenged than deranged or whatever it’s supposed to be. I’m pretty much done paying attention to him it’s so bad.I want Calamita to get hit by a truck and then run over and over for killing Doctor Senator.
It really is so, so bad. I wonder if Noah Hawley realizes how awful the acting and this character is.
Too bad Mr. Wrench isn’t around this time period to mercilessly kill Calamita. I want to see his death played out painfully because he deserves it. I love a good revenge kill (like Beatrix Kiddo vs Elle Driver).
And I feel bad for the actor since it’s unlikely all this was his own idea. With the raspy Vito Corleone voice too.Who is the enforcer for the Cannon Limited? At least if Zelmare is doing dirty work for Loy, they’ll hit back at the Fadda’s hard.
I feel like we haven’t gotten to know the Cannon crew outside of Loy and Doctor Senator that well, and now the latter is gone. I hope Zelmare and Swanee are the ones who end up hitting back at Gaetano and Calamita.
Uh, didn’t she not kill Driver? I always figured if he ever did Vol. 3 she’d be back with two eyepatches.
You’re right; she really just left her there for dead but we don’t really know what happened to her after she lost her last eye. I guess it was just such a satisfying scene that it felt like she killed her.
It was implied that she would presumably get bitten by the Black Mamba that was loose in the trailer…🐍
During the ending credits, where character names appear and (if dead) get crossed out, her name has a question mark next to it instead.
If it’s meant to be one of those “the audience decides” things (like whether the spinning top topples in Inception), then I choose that Elle didn’t survive. As The Dude mentioned above, that Black Mamba was in the trailer and I had always assumed that was going to be the end of her.
I just I just can’t deal with his bugged out Pop Eyes!
Gaetano is a guy who got by his entire life on being a heavy. His native life back home, he was a strong farmhand and occasional enforcer. Then he went on to be a killer against fascists for the resistance, he’s gone his whole life being a guy who’s a bull in a china shop and being rewarded it for it. You get the sense when he gets laughed at it’s something that happened often as a child and never as a man. He’s meant to be sloppy, piggish, and cruel. Schwartzmann is legitimately small and it reflects in his borderline Napoleon syndrome approach. I don’t think the actor behind Gaetano is terrible but his leaning into the lunacy is hurting the credibility as we know from countless mob reports, guys like Gaetano either settle into roles of killers or get killed when they try to take power because nobody wants to follow an unhinged loon like him.
Gaetano is so bad. How bad is he? So bad that no one even talks about how bad the guy playing the funeral home director is. And that guy is TERRIBLE! When I first saw him he looked enough like Jason Schwartzman that I assumed he had to be his brother and got the job through connections. But nope. Just a terrible actor getting a part based on his own terrible merits.
You know, now that you’ve brought up Thurman Smutny, I haven’t even given any thought to what I think of his acting just because Gaetano is so bad. I only know Andrew Bird as a musician so it was surprising to me to see his name when the cast of the new Fargo season was revealed. I’m curious how Noah Hawley even decided to cast him. Maybe since Noah has a strong music background, he knows Andrew a bit and was like, let’s just try this out.
Right!? I saw that he had a lot of soundtracks on his IMDB profile, but very little acting. He wouldn’t even get cast in a community theater production based on what we’ve seen of him so far, even though he’s a man and they’ll pretty much cast any man who comes through the door. That said, if he starts singing at some point maybe his talents will present themselves and it will all make sense!
I went and found an article that talks about how he was casted and it basically was offered to him right after Noah saw him play at a gig in Austin. Insane.
As Bird tells it, he was playing a gig one night in Austin, where Hawley lives. After the show Hawley walked right up and offered him the role on the spot, without even an informal audition: “Just a quick meeting with him and I was like, ‘What makes you think I can do this?’ And he said, ‘You’re a dad right?’”https://www.stereogum.com/2100711/how-fargo-cast-andrew-bird/news/
Whomp, there it is.
I don’t understand how we can talk about terrible acting on this show and not talk about the woman who plays Swanee. WOW is she bad. And that southern(?) or Texas(?) accent she puts on makes it ten times worse. I feel like Gaetano, Zelmare and Swanee are in a different show than the rest of the cast. It’s Looney Tunes-level, cartoonish nonsense.
Anyone know if the killer Odis was referring to was a real guy?I had forgotten how good Jack Huston was in Boardwalk Empire. It took me a few episodes to realize who he was.
Anyone know if the killer Odis was referring to was a real guy?I wondered the same. He called him “Nelson Beets”. Google gives me nothing.I’ll never get used to Jack Huston with an entire face.
He was also very good in Season 2 of Mr. Mercedes.
I found hilarious very nice and timid Thurman not leading with Ms. Mayflower poisoning the pie when warning Ethelrida to steer clear of her. Saying “I’m sure she’s a nice person but” then giving another reason before mentioning the pie. Glad Loy didn’t kill him and the wife. He’s like the normal, happy good man version of Jerry Lundergard.
The Godfather points out that it’s helpful for a crimelord to have a funeral home director in his pocket.
I don’t know why Thurman didn’t immediately tell Loy he didn’t know it was his money he’d paid him with. Because that part is 100% true.
I thought he didn’t know the pie’s source, or that it was poisoned. Did I miss something last ep?
Thing is, you don’t come into money in a Coen story and live.
A List of Fictional Characters Ranked by Their Success (or Lack Thereof)The When the Shooting Starts, We Vanish EditionRabbi Milligan “Funny. Nobody ever says ‘I’m bad at English.’” “This problem you got is a math problem, either you divide them, or they multiply.” Rabbi sees the play coming, better than Josto does, probably better than anyone. It’s good to see that when they’re alone (or with Satchel, at least) Josto listens to what Rabbi has to say. But as Rabbi said, Josto shouldn’t be proud of being bad at math, which is why Milligan’s planning to hit the road with Satchel rather than standing by his latest adopted family when things get bad. Up from last week.Deafy “Shake the tree, said the Lord, and your suspects shall fall like sweet, ripe, fruit.” Gets closer to his quarry, but his long stay in Kansas City isn’t just cramping Odis’s style. His confrontation with Ethelrida had the potential to break his winning streak, until he realized he could just use extortion. At times, casting Oliphant to play a wisecracking U.S. Marshall looked lazy, and you’d be forgiven for seeing this season as some kind of Justified prequel. But unlike Raylan Givens, whose confidence was born of the fact he knew he could draw a pistol faster than anyone else, Deafy’s confidence is a matter of faith. In this episode, it looked like that confidence was being challenged, a little bit. Down from last week.Gaetano “Everybody thinks they’re going to be president one day, and no one does the job they got.” I’m going to disagree with Zack on this—Gaetano killing the kid and the bartender was purposeful. Look at the scene—Calamita, whose foiled murder attempt and loss of the gun shipment got Gaetano labeled “weak” by his smaller brother, was lecturing Gaetano about strategy, and Gaetano just up and murders two civilians, with the message “No one does the job they got.” (Well, that and American Jesus looking like a lady, which is harsh, but fair.) In any case, their next scene has Calamita confronting and killing Doc Senator while Gaetano sits in the background, because message received, people gotta do the job they got. If you hire someone to sweep—or start a gang war with the Cannons—they’ve got to do the job right. The problem isn’t in the script, it’s in the performance: Salvatore Esposito has made Gaetano’s performance so relentlessly mannered, that none of it has impact. It’s like he has resting psycho face, which takes away from when the character’s actually trying to be strange and intimidating. Not ranked last week.Constant Calamita “The point is, you scare an animal, you don’t know. Sometimes it fights.” Finally gets a win, but to Doc Senator’s credit, it wasn’t a pretty win. Calamita’s confrontation with Doctor Senator almost reads like the show criticizing itself: it is largely two guys monologuing at each other. It’s purposeful, I think, as both sides keep complaining that the other isn’t listening, but it captured the way the show feels at its worst moments. I also feel like Calamita’s “baby in a box” is going to get Noah Hawley a cease and desist letter from PT Anderson. “‘Bastard in a blanket’ was mine, pal. Ya got permission to crib from the Coens, not from me.” Up big from last week.Zelmare and Swanee “Ain’t nothing organized about our crime because our crime is freedom.” Not sure what was more hardcore: Zelmare’s thrown-off line about Uncle Charlie cornering her in the shed at age 9, or Ethelrida’s complete lack of reaction to it. However, I liked Swanee’s steadfast refusal to die with her pants on. The outlaws stay on the list, because Loy broke Thurman quicker than Deafy broke Ethelrida, and so, I guess they’re gonna be criminals for the time being? Josto Fadda — “Johnnie society looks at me and sees a fella who’s using crime to get ahead.” Had a week in which everything went according to plan for him, which isn’t the same as winning. More than Gaetano’s ice follies, Josto’s holding cell monologue—complete with awkward cut so they could use the take where Schwartzman did his air machine gun thing—is what’s wrong with the pacing of this episode. It’s not a bad monologue. It just serves very little purpose, other than giving Rabbi an excuse to very briefly talk to Loy’s men. But before that, the show has to stop dead for Josto to make a big entrance, and to tell everybody a bunch of things they already know. Down from last week.Detective Odis “They had me clearing land mines on account I’m real precise. Get a system, never vary.” From OCD as a bit of random weirdness in the season to OCD as a tragic job qualification. Winds up with Swanee’s bag of puke dollars, having carried out Josto’s instructions to a T, but he still doesn’t look like a winner this week. Loy took his pride, and the meeting with Deafy, as all meetings with Deafy are wont to do, left him poorer as well. Unranked last week.Ethelrida “I’m Ethelrida Pearl Smutny. One of a kind.” Smart enough to know that if she’s gonna snitch Oraetta out on her birthday, she shouldn’t do it under her own name. Still, Ethelrida’s not ready to go toe-to-toe with Deafy, and she best get better at it before Oraetta stops banging her head against the wall. Down from last week.Loy Cannon “They had to send him home in a tureen. That’s a pot they put soup in.” “Why would I fight for a country wants me dead?” “Where do you think it all comes from? The razor’s edge!” Takes a beating this episode—gets in Dutch with the wife and mother-in-law, has to bail his son and his team out of jail, is robbed of the barf bag of cash (again!), and loses Doctor Senator. Was undaunted by any of those losses, until the last one. Loy was the example of good monologuing this week, as each of his rants had an organic story purpose and was delivered more or less naturally. Down from last week.Leon Bittle “I may as well bite my own throat.” Get caught with your pants down once, maybe, shame on them. Get caught with your pants down while being Lemuel’s shadow a second freakin’ time? Nice knowing you, Pong. Unranked, and unlikely to get ranked again.Thurman “This Ms. Mayflower, I’m sure she’s real nice, but she’s not someone you want to hang around.” Mr. Smutny, with his blessed gift of understatement. Has a distinct problem that every time he puts his foot down, the slightest wrinkle of one of his ladies’ brows lifts it back up again. In any case, I made an extra space for him down here, because this is about as much as you can lose without anyone getting killed. His business is Loy’s, as are every member of his family except, possibly, Ethelrida. Dibrell looks like a volcano about to erupt every time he looks at her, and not in a good way. It’s a hard life if you don’t know the rules. Down from last week, but even then we saw this coming.In MemoriamDoctor Senator “You said we were done talking. And then you kept talking.” Went out with his portfolio in hand, which I think was something he accepted was going to happen before he asked Nadine for coffee.Not ranked, but notableOpal Rackley “He shouldn’t have been out there at all. Boss’s son. Underage. Neck deep in liquor and syphilis.” After having been kind of a non-presence up to this point, it’s nice to see Opal finally making his voice heard and displaying some dry wit.
American Jesus looking like a ladyI don’t get it. Don’t Americans have crucifixes? Also, I guess Gaetano never looked at Italian Renaissance paintings where Jesus is not exactly the epitome of virility.By the way, I’m not sure if Calamita is supposed to be pronounced that way (meaning “magnet”) or if they botched the correct pronunciation of “calamità” (“calamity”), which sounds more like a mafioso’s nickname.
The pronunciation’s all over the place. There was a moment or two in this episode where it sounded like Gaetano was calling him Kalamata, like the Greek olive. I’d have to check, but I think Violante used your second pronunciation, which I’d assume would be the right one.
Yeah, you’d think if his nickname was “magnet”, there would be a reason for it. Then again, I’m pretty sure all the names in the show are supposed to be actual first or last names. So in this universe there’s a (Neapolitan?) family that called his sons “Gaetano” (which is a proper Italian name) and “Josto” (which is a name from some fantasy novel).
I did not get that part either. I feel Italian Jesus depictions are the same as American ones.
I don’t get it. Don’t Americans have crucifixes?Many don’t. Many protestant churches either have a bare cross in them, or in the case of Calvinist churches, no cross at all.
He’s probably referring to how Jesus is depicted by evangelical protestants, the sort of “hippie Jesus”. I always thought that was a 60s thing, but I looked it up and the most famous portrait of Jesus in that style was made by a guy called Warner Sallman in 1940; it’s simpy called ‘Head of Christ’.
There’s a look on Deafy’s face, after Ethelrida explains the birthplace of civilization, that their ancestors came from the same savannah, that I’ve never seen on Raylan, or Bullock, or any other Olyphant character. He’s surprised, and probably angry at what she’s saying, has a slight, amused frown that gives way to a short laugh, he fidgets, then laughs again. It flashed me back to that brilliant scene between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken and the genealogy of Sicilians in True Romance.
It’s a beautiful bit of acting by Oliphant. His face cycles from angry to impressed to back in control, but there’s just a little too much bite when he snaps at her “Oh, it’s sir now!” You can tell that even though he regained control of the interview, she got to him. There was a similar little fidgeting moment when he was in Odis’s apartment. He’s treated Odis with nothing but contempt and suspicion, but when he asked Odis to come along, it didn’t seem like Deafy was testing him. It seemed like he genuinely wanted Odis’s help.
Yes. Deafy was able to see Odis as more than a series of irritating OCD tics and felt some amount of compassion for him.
He never hated Odis, just didn’t trust him and still doesn’t since it’s so clear he’s in the pocket of the mob. But he realizes he’s down a dark hole that he’s not climbing out of for a reason.Jack Huston is maybe the best actor of our generation.
Olyphant is always great to watch, he brings a powerful energy even if it is barely simmering on the surface waiting to explode-boil like water in a microwave…. Huston too… I posted last week I thought all those complaints about his tics were premature. Puh-leese give the storytellers a chance to expand on details. This guy is a dog whistle and you have to be patient and wait for the payoff. The lack of faith shown by the reviewer for a series we know to be well written, surprising and a cut above the rest, is a bit disappointing.
Two stars for this answer; preach it!
I admit I was in the camp of the OCD feeling showy, and this episode recontextualized it in a great way, but I think the criticism beforehand, was fair. Just because it got better, doesn’t mean it was okay to sit through all this time. It could have been presented better (at least an ep or two earlier), and that feeds to the reviewer’s first point about the pacing
Hmm I see what you are saying. I appreciate your perspective. I guess I don’t mind being led astray and am of the mindset The Journey Is Part Of The Reward. I suppose all the explained weirdness and oddities could have been pushed to the earliest episodes but I contend there is a nice sense of discovery and surprise when, especially in these types of programs, you get little reveals (out of the blue) along the way. I grew up with foreign films and a lot of that “tic behavior” is never explained, just part of the character’s personality—accept it and move along. My big beef is criticizing the tics without faith that it may be explained in good time. With all these storylines and characters, it may take a bit to get to various details, so sit back and let it happen.
I agree. It’s perfectly fine to expect frustration that the story isn’t developing a character quickly enough, or giving a poor impression, even if that impression is corrected later. That’s just the nature of week-by-week reviews.The thing I worried about (and I admit, I should’ve had more confidence in the show) is that it looked to me like they were setting up to give him a tragic backstory that explained his OCD tics, which isn’t how OCD works. (The TV show Monk, which was great for raising public awareness of OCD back when that was practically non-existent, did something similar, explicitly linking his OCD to his wife’s unsolved murder.) Fargo didn’t take that path, however. Before the war, Odis was still a guy with OCD—just he was a guy with OCD who had a fiancee, a future, and a sense of self-worth because he was a good minesweeper. He’s didn’t develop his OCD tics because he’s a broken man, but rather he’s a broken man because he lost his fiancee and his self-worth all in a single day, and the OCD had nothing to do with it. And that’s a much better treatment of the character than I was expecting.
This. Deafy is not Raylan. Deafy is a shithead racist with no redeeming qualities, they establish this upfront with his Mormon spiel, explaining his basic identity as a bible thumping racist evangelical. I get that they both had the same job but Raylan while largely apolitical was objectively anti-racist the handful of times PoC popped up in Justified and extensively made a point against the white militia led by his former best friend (and possible relative? I forget anymore). Deafy is really the embodiment of whiteness here, sure the Faddas and such are white, they’re really overplaying Italian oppression…in the early 1900s, sure, definitely a case to be made but by the 1950s, Italians were definitively white within the power structure. That being said, Deafy is really taken back by that comment as it runs directly against his truly believed comment from the Book of Mormon, when Ethelrida says ‘and that’s a fact’ he is so deeply stung because in his heart, he is also an educated man of science and knows his personal spiritual beliefs are in conflict and to have it said to him by a 17 year old black girl just is a one-two punch he wasn’t ready for.
Went out with his portfolio in hand, which I think was something he accepted was going to happen before he asked Nadine for coffee.
I think he clocked he was in serious trouble the moment he walked through the door, which is why he didn’t ask for coffee right away.
Yeah, when he thought he might die, he refused the coffee. When he was damn certain he was going to die (I think right after Calamita pulled out his knife), one last sip of coffee was called for.
I think the point in the diner scene was to show Calamita’s realization that he backed the wrong horse. It sets up his final look in the episode. You can tell he didn’t want to kill Doc, but he’s in too deep now. Well maybe not that he didn’t want to kill him, but he regrets killing him, regrets following Gaetano.
I’ve really liked this season, but this episode was my least favorite. Most of the big scenes didn’t feel particularly well thought through. The race to sweep up Zelmare and Swanee just ends with Loy driving off. The shootings by Gaetano and Calamita seem to happen in a vacuum without drawing any heat on them. Josto’s speech in the jail was delivered to an audience of underlings, which doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Josto’s reluctance to move against Gaetano seems underexplained — he has had plenty of opportunities to have either the law or Loy take him out if he doesn’t want to do it himself, but he’s inert for reasons that don’t add up. And Gaetano doesn’t seem like a particularly clever operator who is masking his motives, so why is he left to freelance? The scene last week where Josto asserted dominance seemed to settle things, but this episode it is as if it didn’t happen, but there is no sense of why.
I agree that Loy’s facing down his wife was pretty shallow without a better sense of her character, or a more interesting argument by Loy. And likewise, Deafy putting the squeeze on Ethelrida seemed underwritten to me in showing her perspective.I agree that the backstory of Odis was well handled, and I liked the twist of Loy enlisting the outlaws instead of killing them, but overall this episode felt underdeveloped.
This was actually the ep I liked most episode so far, mainly because I thought the monologues were really good, but these are fair criticisms.
Ethelrida asking Deafy “what’s the rumpus?” is straight out of “Miller’s Crossing”
To the point that it felt a bit out of character, since Ethelrida isn’t usually that chill and informal. Plus we saw that when she’s sent to the principal office, she should expect to get spanked, so there was no reason for her to be cheerful.
Did anyone else notice that in the closeups with Calamita at the end, his hair was short and combed forwards. I’m guessing they had to bring the actor in for a reshoot for some reason.
“Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.” I understand there are narrative blips in Fargo but it’s being told as a “true crime” account. Real life doesn’t occur narratively like television shows or movies, so by making random scenes like Gaetano’s double murder a highlight, it’s just honoring the Fargo commitment to filling out the story. If the film was a season of this show, I’m sure you’d find plenty of complaints about the Mike Yanagita scene.
“ … without enough specificity to make it fresh.” Maybe but the “Can I get a mmm-hmm?” at the end worked for me!
I’ve been watching Rock’s performance, imaginging how much better it would be if it someone like Samuel L Jackson were in the role instead (he even gets a “Do I look like a bitch?!” moment), but Chris’ “Can I get a Mmm-hmm” was amazing. There may be hope for Loy yet!
Zack always finds the oddest, most obscure things to whine about in his reviews. Im not sure if that’s a bug or a feature.Great episode in a season that’s been picking up steam. Looking forward to seeing what comes next. RIP Doctor Senator
Well, he didn’t whine about the nightclub act in KC playing “Moanin’” 8 years before Bobby Timmons wrote it for the Jazz Messengers.Nobody sounded like that in 1950 but then this series has always travelled in anachronisms.
When Loy Cannon YELLED “Now take off your damn coat and get me some &&$*# coffee!!” did anyone else hear a voice say “F’ the cup. Pour it in my hand for a dime!”
Did anyone else notice the change in ambient sound? Like the ambient sound would get really loud before a line was said. At first, I noticed in scenes inside and thought it might but sound design like a radiator or outside traffic. I edit videos so I thought maybe the ambient change was intentional by the creators but later, I thought maybe they could not redo sound due to COVID 19 and just left it as good as they could get the levels.Anyone else notice this? It could be my speakers too, but no other show I have watched has done this. If it was used to be unnerving, it worked. It was driving me nuts. Especially when Chris Rock’s character is telling the family to sign over their business. The static in the background got very loud. Not distorted, mind you, just loud and distracting to my viewing.
Probably recorded the dialogue too low, or the environment they were in was too loud, so they had to crank up some room tone to make it all match.
I edit video for a living and the weird audio stood out to me several times throughout the episode. It was so noticeable that you’d almost think it was a stylistic thing because there’s no reason for a technical error that bad.
Season feels overstuffed, and Gaetano is by a good margin the least interesting and worst performed character the series has ever featured (making it all the more frustrating that Doctor Senator, one of the best characters this season, is dead at his machinations). The sooner he gets killed, the better, but I’d bet he lasts til the finale.
What was with the random blasts of static (rain?) during the episode?
I watched it on a regular cable television, not streaming, and noticed this quite severe problem as well. If it was present in both, then that means that someone dropped the ball in terms of audio. For instance, whomever‘s job it was to record the audio in the various locations should have recorded what is called “room tone“ so that they have about a solid minute of what “silence“ would sound like in that location. If you don’t capture that room tone, and you have to edit together the actors’ dialogue without playing a room tone track underneath and between dialogue, it becomes a complete mess, and this could account for it. This episode’s sound problems could be the result of that happening. I’m not saying it definitely is the problem (because there are countless other ways for the final audio mix to get screwy), but if room tone wasn’t recorded at all of the locations, these are the exact kinds of audio problems that viewers like you and me would notice.
I watched on regular cable, too. It’s weird because Hawley is usually pretty meticulous about the sound design on his shows, iirc. So maybe it was intentional?
Could have been a poorly set compressor trying to bring silence up to speech level. Drove me nuts, too.
Can someone tell me what was in the hanky or napkin that Deafy shows to Ethelrida while talking to her in the principal’s office?
Carrot sticks. He’s offered them to several other people now.
Doesn’t Deafy always carry around some carrot sticks to snack on? He usually offers them to people he’s about to confront.
Thanks, mate!
I can’t believe Doctor Senator would be so stupid and reckless as to show up, see his counterpart wasn’t there and not just turn around and go. He had no backup. It was suicide. Wackadoo things happen on Fargo but smart characters acting like dummies isn’t interesting.
Where was his backup??? Where was anybody???The diner’s usually full of Loy’s guys. It’s in his neighborhood. Right?
Unless they massacred everybody inside without anybody noticing somehow, why didn’t anybody warn Doctor Senator?
Weren’t Loy’s men all still jailed at that time? That was my assumption upon thinking it was a mistake for Doctor Senator to be alone for that meeting.
I liked that he showed Calamita almost no respect, at least. But I don’t get why he wouldn’t have a man or two with him at all times, considering the state of things between the two families right now.
Yeah it was strange seeing Doctor go in there alone since we’d seen him have a bunch of his guys sitting around the diner in past meetings with Ebal. I had a feeling that when Ebal was sent on a “business trip” to NY by Josto the week before, that Ebal not being around meant something bad would happen. Unfortunately the bad thing was Doctor’s murder. I wonder what Ebal will think of that.
I don’t know if anyone has pointed this out already, but what’s with Odis and the number 5?I first noticed he always knocks 5 times before he opens a door. In his apartment, there are 5 hats hanging by the door, there are 5 cups and 5 on the wall by his kitchen table, he puts 5 spoons of coffee in the pot. There are probably more instances that I’ve missed.I just noticed this during this episode, so I don’t know if there were more 5’s in previous ones.
YOU GUYS. I can’t be the first person to have made this connection, but it only just occurred to me and I haven’t seen anyone else say it: They are all literally Cannon-Fadda. No one survives! Except Satchel “Mike” Milligan! And people who aren’t Cannon-Fadda.
I REALLY feel like you’re giving this season a hard time. In a weird way, it seems like this show laid down it’s thesis this episode alone. “Criminals play the game” and with Outlaws “Nothing’s ever broke, and there ain’t nothing to fix.” You can’t reject the presentation of something that is “outside of the law”. Although you spent like 5 opening paragraphs explaining what you would change to make the episode and season “more effective”. Honestly, the only time I question anything that show presents is when I read your reviews. And maybe when I heard a little Chris Rock comedy voice sneak in. There are certain rules in storytelling, monomyth, etc., but I can’t, on an experiential level, see this season letting me down at all.
Last season was a prime example of “unnecessary airiness”, where sucky things happened, but very little came to a head. Pure them sometimes with no sense of logic. Feels to me as if definitely is more relatable, as the family ties and trading of sons hurts my heart. Couldn’t imagine doing that to any of the kids in my family. Even the part where Belinda had to cut out a slice of Ethelreda’s beautiful birthday cake out of fear got to me. So I guess it’s subjective/personal.
I love the presence of Gaetano as someone who you think is gonna be a goof, especially being over the top, but is a threat even to the most innocent people. Very “Coen” if we’re gonna play by those rules. Oraetta pretty much has a similar thing going, although maybe it’s a preference that since she’s an original type of crazy, that it’s allowed as “ok” on the show. *shrug*ANYWAYS just had to get all that off my chest after these past few weeks. Your reviews are actually very good and I like them for the most part, the nitpicking was just irking me. Mainly cuz I really like this season so far. I know, it’s your job, it’s all good.
RIP Doc…2nd to Ethelreda as favorite character of the season.