FARGO 4.03 - "RADDIOPPARLO"

 

FARGO the series has taken a lot of more ineffable qualities, rather than direct plots or characters, from the Coen film on which it is “based”. There is the frigid Midwestern setting, the quirk, the contrasts between buffoonish venality and plainspoken intelligence or vicious cruelty and stolid decency.  What it has added, as befits the smaller-screen but longer-form medium of television, is an enormous degree of sprawl to the storytelling canvas.  A season of FARGO numbers its cast of named, significant characters in the dozens, and while prior seasons have a remarkable level of patience and confidence when it comes to being able to quickly and effectively define the characters whenever the story gets around to them, last week’s jumbo-sized premiere felt a bit overwhelming in how it threw half a dozen bosses, henchmen, and children on either side of the gang war at us.  And that is before getting to all the crooked cops, deranged nurses, escaped convicts, local politicians, and put upon morticians. So as episode three settles in a bit, it gives us a little more shading of players like Rabbi Milligan, Dr. Senator (Esquire), and Swanee, while only introducing a single new character.

Or is it even fair to say that Timothy Olyphant playing a stiff-spined marshal in a cowboy hat is a new character, when he’s already spent 10 of the last 20 years playing that type on both DEADWOOD and JUSTIFIED?  I suppose the outspoken Mormonism of Dick “Deafy” Wickware was enough to separate the role from Seth Bullock or Raylan Givens in Olyphant’s eyes, but this is definitely the same wheelhouse.  Which may be for the best, as putting a cheerfully racist, deeply religious, carrot stick-chomping federal marshal in a buddy cop scenario with an severely OCD, stuttering detective who is compromised by the Italian mafia might risk being Just Too Much.  But as it is, Olyphant’s lived-in facility with this particular type of lawman grounding those interactions at least a little bit.

Honestly, he might be under some kind of court order at this point
 to never appear on screen without a badge and cowboy hat

The fugitives he is chasing edge up against that “a little too FARGO” line as well, to be honest.  It’s not that the semi-botched robbery is a terrible version of the show’s signature felonious shenanigans, but it’s not the most inspired either.  And while I love a good fart joke, I…don’t, really?  I'm not bothered by them exactly, but I can’t think of the last time I laughed at one.  Certainly not last week when Papa Fadda teased a heart attack and let a big one rip instead. And the robbery doesn’t go entirely wrong enough to make a huge impression.  The ladies still make off with a sizeable chunk of cash, and I was frankly surprised to hear that three people had been killed afterward, as it wasn’t clear to me that anyone had actually been hit when they were popping off shots. 

The entire episode was like that really.  Not too shabby anywhere, but also not really the best version of any of the type of stuff FARGO generally does so well.  The meeting of the families’ respective consiglieres, Senator and Ebal, is built around a showcase monologue about Senator’s experience at the Nuremberg Trials, and despite being delivered well it is rehashing thematic ideas that already feel well-established two weeks in, on top of being abundantly clear where it is going from the start.   What was more interesting is the dynamic where both men are aware that their conflict is based on a lie, but also don’t even bother to litigate the believability of that lie, due to a mutual understanding of the underlying economic realities that compel the fight to continue regardless of its truth or falsity. 

Meanwhile, Oraetta forces her way into the hoity-toity private hospital, and then Josto’s car/pants.  This is rather fun just on the basis of Buckley and Schwartzman’s performances, and singing “Battle Hymn Of The Republic” during the handjob is a hysterical (if nonconsensual) touch.  But we are still clearly setting the table here, and it feels a bit pointless to end the episode before the point where she inevitably gets on board with his scheme to kill her new boss.  And from there, it seems she will be his ace in the hole when his supporters Ebal and Rabbi aren’t enough to directly overcome the hold Gaetano is taking on the muscle side of the Family, represented by chief enforcer Callamitta and the couple sad-sack flunkies he is literally strong-arming onto his side in the bar. 

"No, really, this will all end up great for you guys!!"

At least, that is how things seem to be shaping up.  But the best thing about FARGO is that there are always plenty of wildcards floating around to spin things off whatever rails have been laid out.  Oraetta and the lesbian outlaws are the most obviously unstable elements here, but the one I have my eye on is Ben Wishaw’s Rabbi Milligan.  His semi-spotlight is the one area where the episode does flirts with top-tier FARGOdom, as his unique backstory is highlighted and he is thrust into a compellingly horrible dilemma.  But despite his tormented position, and that he successfully shuts down the assassination, we get less of sense of his interior and motivations than we’re invited to think.  His actions may look fairly heroic on the surface, and his affection for Loy’s captive son seems genuine, but we aren’t given definitive indications as to whether his attempt to stop Gaetano from starting a war is born from altruism, actual loyalty to Josto, or just practicality (in that being the triggerman would make him a convenient, not-really-par-of-the-family scapegoat, should the Faddas decide to make up or that they want to deescalate with the Cannons after the fact).  I am still wondering if Milligan is really going to be a Good Guy, or that impression is an optical illusion brought on by Wishaw’s sympathetic performance and proximity to monsters like Gaetano and Callamitta.  If you recall the early going of season 2, Hanzee seemed pretty reasonable standing silently in the shadow of his crude, vicious boss, before revealing a vicious streak of his own when he stepped out. 

But has FARGO reached a point, four seasons into its lifespan, where it will repeat itself with that type of arc?  My gut says no, but despite this being largely a place-setter episode, I am still eager to find out.  In any case, this is not a show that I mind spending time with, even when it is idling in second gear.  

 

 

COEN BINGO AND OTHER RANDOM STUFF

• There’s something bizarrely full-circle about Schwartzman having a handjob essentially forced upon him in a car in this, arguably his best role since he began his began with lying about getting a handjob in a car in RUSHMORE.

• “Hubris to think you can control things.  That’s why god created tornadoes, to remind us.” The Coen’s A SERIOUS MAN ends with a massive tornado bearing down on the son of the protagonist, seemingly a divine retribution for his failing a moral test.  Given the already-heavy themes of the sins of the father coming down on the children with the attempted Lemuel hit and general child-swapping conceit, and KC’s location in Tornado Alley, I’m guessing we see a twister pop up in the season’s conclusion similar to how S2 worked in the UFO sighting from THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE.

• Speaking of A SERIOUS MAN, the way Loy muses about fully control vs tilting the odds in your favor while gazing at the money lines calls to mind some of the oversized chalkboard imagery from that film, and its representation of the Gopnik brothers’ attempts to reduce the randomness of life to equation form.  I’m starting to think that film may end up being the primary thematic influence here.  Right now, I’d lay even odds on a dybbuk turning up before the end.

• “Girl, you got a panty on your head” is of course cribbing one of the most famous lines in RAISING ARIZONA, and all Coen-dom proper.

•  Doctor Harvard deserves to be rubbed out just for his overpronunciation when declaring he is “pawr-seeee-awl to the mah-cu-roooon.”