In 1979, Lou Solverson investigates a Waffle Hut shooting, with his father in law, Hank Larsson. He notes the strangeness of the shooter apparently fleeing the scene in a different vehicle after parking his own car outside the diner. Unbeknownst to Lou and Hank, Rye was hit by Peggy Blumquist's car after running into the street after seeing a UFO. Peggy, not knowing what to do, returns home with Rye stuck through her windshield, and he is later killed by her husband in self-defense. At home, Lou is dealing with the worsening cancer of his wife Betsy, and his 6-year-old daughter, Molly. Later, while driving his family into town, Lou stops by the crime scene where Betsy finds Rye's gun in some weeds.
Later that night, Lou sees a light on inside the closed butcher shop and finds Ed Blumquist there. Lou asks to buy some bacon, while Ed does his best to distract Lou from noticing that he is putting Rye's body parts into a meat grinder. Lou eventually leaves unaware of what was really happening, and Ed finishes grinding Rye's body while strange flashing lights illuminate the exterior of the butcher shop. The number of important characters increases in this season but all are given their fair share to shine.
There is a gang war brewing between the local ruling crime family of the Gerhardts headed by matriarch Floyd and including her three sons Dodd , Bear , Rye and daughter Simone played by Rachel Keller against the Kansas City syndicate. They are represented by the likes of Brad Garrett as Joe Bulo and Bokeem Woodbine as Mike Milligan. Drawn into this war are State Trooper Lou Solverson and his father in law Sheriff Hank Larsson . Like Larry from the first season there are two 'civilians' caught up in the plot in the form of beautician Peggy Blumquist and her husband butcher Ed who prove old hands at dealing with this all-out war then the people conditioned to it. Played by Jean Smart, Floyd Gerhardt inherited one of the most difficult jobs in the world. After her husband Otto, the head of the Gerhardt crime syndicate, suffers a stroke and is unable to lead the mafia any longer, Floyd takes over all the guns and the money.
Her eldest boy, Dodd, is unwilling to accept a woman, who is also old, as the new mafia don. However, throughout the season, Floyd shows us who's boss as she uses an iron hand to deal with a rival gang from Kansas City and to investigate the homicide of her youngest son. One of the characteristics of Floyd which makes us like her so much is her love and concern for her granddaughter, who is mostly abused and humiliated by her father Dodd.
The characters in season 2 are the strongest, but without Floyd, none of the other characters would be as appealing as they are. 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. 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. The last episode of "Fargo" was a little all over the place as we only saw a few tiny snippets of each part of the story that has not really connected that well yet. What we loved about season one is that the focus was on one character and we got to watch as his inner demons unraveled showing us what a terrible human being Lester Nygaard really was. This year we have a pretty full cast of characters and not really enough time to know anyone at this point.
Also we have a few different stories going on with the crime syndicate, Ed and Peggy killing Rye, the cops looking into the Waffle Hut massacre and because that's not enough we also have UFO's. In 1979, Lou Solverson is a state trooper with the Minnesota State Police and based out of Luverne, Minnesota. He often works alongside his father-in-law, Rock County Sheriff Hank Larsson.
One night, the two are assigned to investigate a triple murder at the Waffle Hut on the outskirts of Luverne. Unbeknownst to Lou and Hank, Rye was hit by beautician Peggy Blumquist's car after he had run into the road after seeing a UFO. Peggy, not knowing what to do, returns home with Rye stuck through her windshield, where he is later killed by her husband, local butcher Ed Blumquist, in self-defense. At home, Lou is dealing with the worsening cancer of his wife Betsy while also raising their 6-year-old daughter, Molly.
In short, everything about this episode was pretty much in-line with the high-bar set by the first two episodes. The cast is uniformly great, although I'd still like to see Ed and Peggy get fleshed-out a bit, although I assume that's still to come. One guy I'm absolutely loving is Bokeem Woodbine, as one of the most atypical bad guys since, well, I guess Billy Bob Thornton's Lorne Malvo in season one.
His happy-go-lucky killer is an excellent creation, with his affability being a unique touch (I love the throwaway bit where he compares the softness of his hair to Brad Garrett's). As in previous week's, by the time the credits rolled I was all but desperate for the story to continue, and part of me wishes this was available in a streaming binge-format. In a season of great acting performances I think Peggy takes the cake. Really the combo of Kirsten Dunst and Landy Todd Fat Damon. They were so fucking hokey it was borderline infuriating.
But the way Peggy waffled between this innocent, dopey, annoying ass wife and then this maniacal killer type was hilarious. The perfect embodiment of that dark humor of the Coen brothers from the original movie version. Where they started in episode 1 and where they finished for the finale was symbolic of how this season developed. I was pulling for Landry Todd to fucking MURDER HER throughout like 75% of the season. But then when shit hit the fan she's out there stabbing Native American psychopaths and plotting to kill police detectives.
Not since Skyler White have I hated a character in a good way. While the first season of Fargo won't immediately reveal connections for those new to the series, there are a few key pieces here that come into play in later seasons. For example, there is a briefcase full of money that is abandoned on the side of the road in snow that is discovered by one of the characters.
Additionally, Lester Nygaard, who sets off the events of the season by murdering his overbearing wife, has a name and character influenced by the movie Fargo's Jerry Lundegaard. He's also a simple, timid man that can't stand up for himself or take charge in his life. 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. 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. Family patriarch Otto is dead, youngest son Rye is dead , 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. 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.
Wilson, whose other TV credits include A Gifted Man and Girls, will play Lou Solverson, a Vietnam war veteran and Minnesota State Patrolman. Keith Carradine played the role in the first season of the series. Lou's wife, Betsy, and young daughter, Molly have yet to be cast.
Fargothe television show is worth a viewing to appreciate the amount of layers and intricate storytelling that occurs within this series. The show is an anthology series set in and around Fargo, North Dakota. Each season follows it's very own cast of characters and tells a story of its own, usually involving local law enforcement, kindly mid-western folk, and crimes gone wrong. Larry while put upon originally it was revealed very quickly was an absolute asshole and Ed and Peggy are far more likeable than that and no less watchable. The Gerhardts are fascinating with their family dynamics all getting a scene where they have the power but there is a melancholy here of something being lost to time and we perversely hope for them to meet with some success.
Martin Donovan as an alpha male comically undermined later on is well played for laughs by the actor while staying true to the terror his character is feeling. Their heavy Hanzee Dent, a Native American played by Zahn McClarnon, starts to make a bigger impression on the narrative as the episodes go on but never loses his sense of mystery or menace and that's very hard to do. Fargo Season 2 is arguably the best television show I've seen in the past year and I've seen a few.
At the end of the day though it was the characters and their likeability and their inevitable countdown to confrontation that really suck the viewer in. Wanting to see how it turned out for those four characters was the key to the show's success even if a lot of its charm came from a large ensemble of colourful supporting characters. When he returns home, he learns that Betsy's cancer is spreading, but learns that Betsy can take part in an experimental drug trial for a drug called Xanadu, but there is a 50/50 chance that Betsy would receive a placebo.
Lou hesitates for Betsy to participate in the trial, but Betsy accepts anyway. Lou links the Blumquists to Rye's death after Ed and Peggy stage a wreck to cover up the damage and take the car to local mechanic Sonny Greer, and Sonny catches Gerhardt enforcer Hanzee Dent inspecting the car. Growing suspicious of the Blumquist's role in Rye's death, he visits their house to question them. Peggy takes Lou's warning about the Gerhardts' reputation very seriously and plans to leave town, but Ed insists on staying. The next night, the Gerhardts send Virgil, accompanied by Bear's son Charlie, to kill Ed in the shop. Ed kills Virgil while Charlie is wounded and arrested.
Lou tells them to invite him in and Peggy offers him coffee. Lou says he saw their car and they stick with the 'crashing into a tree' story. But, Ed's distracted when he sees the fireplace looks different.
Lou asks if he'll find blood in the car when he looks through it. Lou tells them they have the look of people who are already dead but just don't know it. (He tells a longer story about his experiences in the war as a way of getting to that observation.) They still stick with their story, but Lou tells them the man they hit was Rye Gerhardt. "Rye Gerhardt…and his family hurts people for money and they're coming.
If they covered it up, they need to come clean right now. Ted Danson, Nick Offerman and Daniel Beirne in 'Gotham' (Photo by Chris Large / FX)Hank is already taking a report when Lou shows up at the auto body shop. Hank fills him in on Hanzee, and Sonny tells him the stranger had been looking over Ed's car. Lou checks it out and wonders if the damage was from running over a gunman who shot up three people at the Waffle Hut, but Hank says it's from running into a tree. Lou wants to know if he hit the tree coming and going, and the whole thing is becoming more and more suspicious. Lou thinks back to that night after business hours at the butcher shop and how sketchy Ed was acting.
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. As Simone Gerhardt, Keller brings intrigue, dynamism, and sex appeal to the chaotic crime family trying to pick up the pieces once her grandfather has a stroke. She stands up to her domineering father , sleeps with the enemy , and takes a joint hit like a champ.
In her first leading role, Keller demonstrates an incredibly vast emotional range (Simone might go from sexy to terror-stricken in a single scene), and though her character may not always make the best decisions, she sure is fun to watch. Hank found a print on the gun found at the Waffle Hut and it belongs to Rye Gerhardt, so Lou decides to talk to the Gerhardt family. It doesn't go well and he doesn't get any information, but he does learn just how powerful this family really is. Lou gets another lead after meeting Skip, the typewriter guy, but he's been taken for a ride by the Gerhardt daughter, so he goes into Skip's shop alone… or at least he thinks he's alone. Instead he meets up with Mike and the Kitchen brothers who are also waiting for Skip.
Skip on the other hand gets questioned by the Gerhardt family about Rye's whereabouts and he tells them that he thinks the Kansas City mafia got him right before being buried alive. Growing suspicious of the Blumquists' role in Rye's death, he visits their house to question them. Peggy takes Lou's warning about the Gerhardts' reputation for violence very seriously and plans to leave town, but Ed insists on staying.
The next night, the Gerhardts send hitman Virgil Bauer, accompanied by Bear Gerhardt's son Charlie, to kill Ed in the shop. After Charlie hesitates to finish the job, Ed kills Virgil in self-defense, Charlie is wounded and arrested, and the shop burns to the ground. Then we're back to Peggy, in back of Lou's car, musing on where she might like to serve her sentence.
It's amazing, though, how Peggy is fairly loopy, yet she can snap into being so sensible, practical, even if it's still a bit crazy of her. I love her character and I think Kirsten Dunst has done such a wonderful job in the role, she was a great addition to this season. We get a nice conversation between Lou and Peggy, mostly as Lou tells her about being at war near the end; a sad story involving a helicopter pilot, and also a baby being dropped by his mother, but caught by a fellow soldier. Bear Gerhardt's conversation with his son, though extrinsically tied to the family's main story line, does play a key role in weaving its larger tapestry. The middle Gerhardt boy insists that his son, Charlie, return to school and leave behind any idea of an active role in the family. It was a promise that Bear had made to Charlie's mother, no doubt an attempt to keep the boy out of harm's way so that he can "make something" of himself.
Charlie claims that the family name alone makes him something, but Bear knows better and claims ownership and dominion over the boy. Facing each other in the kitchen, both with the control of their hands somehow limited — Bear because of his cast and Charlie because of his cerebral palsy — father and son are already mirrors of each other. The match suggests that perhaps what Bear fears passing down has already been transferred. It took a few episodes for it to hit, but when it did, Lou Solverson was the badass I expected after seeing his Old Man Attitude from Season 1.
When you first met him back in 1979, he had that goofy dontcha-know Fargo persona. As does every other character in this world, but when the main character hero police officer has that dopey, kinda silly personality its hard to see him as an intimidating man of the law. But the scene at the Gerhardt's ranch where he put his foot down and drew a line in the sand flipped a switch for me as a viewer. " scene for me where I looked at him as the same Lou Solverson who stayed up all night on the porch with a shotgun when Lorne Malvo was on the loose. Which is a goddam shame for the water cooler because its a fucking awesome series.
Season 1 was fantastic and I fully expected it to be a one and done type of situation. A one time TV adaptation of the movie and that was that. Had all the good quirky weirdness of Minnesota and the Dakotas, a huge cast of characters, and just a good, clean "true crime" story with a lot of twists and turns along the way.
I didn't do any weekly write ups on the show but after last night's finale I wanted to highlight what I thought were the best parts of the sophomore season. Finally, there is Lou Solverson, father of the series' police officer lead, Molly Solverson. Lou owns a diner in town and is a general source of wisdom for the other characters around him. Fargo, 1951 – A Ronald Reagan movie is playing at the local cinema and in walks Gerhardt family patriarch, Otto.
