Monday, November 9, 2020

FARGO 4.08 - "THE NADIR"

 


 

“The Nadir” continues the trend of the mob war progressing with twists and turns (and plenty of automatic gunfire) that are exciting in their own right, even as it keeps crowding out some of the most intriguing characters and plotlines the season has created.  This is not a travesty in every case; I have no more burning desire than Josto himself to be spending more time with his betrothed or her politico father. I can't claim to have been on the edge of my seat when Ethelrida's mom had a drink with Loy's wife and planned a funeral for a kid we know is still alive. Nor am I particularly disappointed to not get more extensive misadventures with Mr. “I see myself as management” Leon before he comes back to pull a Benny-Blanco-from-the-Bronx after Loy has managed to eke out a win over the Faddas. 

On the flip side, I am disappointed to have Rabbi and Satchel completely absent for two straight weeks after their storyline reached its explosive turning point.  And it’s getting to be criminal how little Ethelrida has appeared or actually done all year.  Despite being clearly positioned as the heart of the show and primary POV character (the season opened with her voiceover guiding us into this world, remember), two-thirds of the season have passed and she is still sitting well off to the side of all the criminal goings on that occupy 90% of the show’s focus.  Her only interactions with any of that stuff come from a brief flirtation with Lemuel, who is himself only around because he’s been lodged at her funeral home specifically to keep him on the periphery of the main conflict.  


"Put me in, Coach!"

At the least, we are starting to get more than a single scene with Oraetta per episode.  Here, she spurns Josto’s declaration of love after a darkly funny exchange of the most traumatic childhood secrets imaginable (being that he was molested by the enemy his father gave him away to, and she was systematically poisoned by her mother in a case of Munchausen By Proxy) that both parties completely fail to even register.  In her case, she is understandably preoccupied by the news that the man she poisoned has survived and attempted murder charges are very likely coming her way.  She prepares to skip town, which may be the most reasonable response she’s had to anything all season, but stops short when she finds Ethelrida’s journal in her murder closet and pieces together who wrote the letter snitching on her murder spree.  Which is mostly to say, this storyline has basically caught up to where we knew it was going since episode 4. 

As I mention every week, the gangland stuff is choice enough that I don’t want to gripe about it overmuch.  But if you want a clear demonstration of the imbalance between the storylines, look to Odis.  You can’t say his time has been totally wasted, since this week he finally chooses a side and murders Deafy and Swanee on Loy’s orders, following a shootout that leaves a patently absurd number of cops and bystanders shot dead.  This is a suitably explosive payoff to “justify” the screentime devoted to Odis thus far, but the fact remains that he has gotten as much as Rabbi, Ethelrida and Oraetta combined – and is still not as good a character as any of them. 

"Heck, I'm a better character, and I'm just a worse version of another great character I played."

I could make a similar case about Gaetano, but he at least is exhibiting more dimension as time goes on.  Loy’s ploy to release him to tear his own family apart backfires spectacularly when it actually serves to bury the hatchet between the brothers.  In the deepest display of thinking we’ve seen from him, the big little brother susses out that if he knows exactly what his enemy wants him to do, maybe he should think twice about doing it.  That he is actually proud of his brother for having the stones to attempt murdering a child in order to get him murdered in turn  may not be the reaction of an actual human being, but it does fit with the caricature he's been so far.  And he may give Josto a little too much credit for strategic genius, as this plan was as much a failure as Loy’s when it came to execution (though I’d maintain it was conceptually sound given the hand he was dealt up to that point).  But thinking back on his little speech about how everyone in America wanting to be president someday gets in the way of just doing the job they actually have, it does also track that he would embrace his own role as simply "the bull", once assured that his brother has the requisite ruthlessness to be “the snake”.

Or maybe none of it makes any sense, and I’m just inclined to accept this development because I find the brothers presenting a united front against the Cannons to make the conflict more interesting.  That’s certainly possible.  But I consider it a good sign that my biggest complaint about the season is that there are multiple characters I want more of.  Also, there's a freaking zombie running around creeping on people.  Fuck if I know what he's on about, other than being a general harbinger of bad vibes.  But I like the spice it brings.




COEN BINGO AND OTHER RANDOM SHIT

  • Ebal remains aloof from the family reunion, continuing to set him up to be the key to integrating the crime families once the Fadda brothers (and probably Loy) are out of the picture. 

  • When they talk jazz, Lemuel touts the untethered musical approach of Charlie Parker while Etherlrida appreciates the more classically structured approach of Louis Armstrong.  It strikes me that he might be more of a fan of Noah Hawley’s other FX series Legion, which is a psychedelic, incoherent orgy of style. Whereas of course she would embody the meticulously-plotted rigors of Fargo.
  • The face Zelmaire makes at Deafy when they spot each other in the station is one of those things that make it impossible for me to understand how anyone can’t love this show despite any legit flaws it might have.
  • It could be I just haven't brushed up on my Coen minutia in a few years now, but I haven't been clocking  a lot direct references.  I did get a touch of Miller’s Crossing’s “Danny Boy” scene in the way Gaetano fearlessly repels a gang of machine-gun toting assassins.  Although they missed an easy opportunity for him to pick up one of the attackers’ guns and fire it after their car as they flee.

2 comments:

  1. Not sure if it's a sign of me becoming a more astute viewer or the show not holding its cards as close to the vest as it'd hoped, but I saw Odis' betrayal coming a mile away. And I'm generally _terrible_ at predicting that kind of stuff.

    Good for Hawley for not playing favorites and letting Deafy die, but bad for the audience for losing Olyphant for the next couple of episodes.

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  2. I don't like losing Olyphant any more than you do, but as I was getting it, it at least creates more room for the most interesting characters - Etherlrida, Oraetta, and Milligan - to become more central for the home stretch.

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