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Fargo's back!

Well I'm over my disappointment because the season has gotten a lot better. Last night's episode was fantastic.
 
Great TV! The way the story line has played out this season has been top notch drama.

Lots of great characters as well, with Hanzee being one of my favorites along with Mike. Yes, I know they're the bad guys with few redeeming qualities, but I'm talking about the creation of the characters and how good the actors are at fleshing them out.
 
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Far and away, THE BEST show on television this fall. Hands down. Also, better than season one, and you're right, last night's episode was exceptionally well done.
 
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Great TV! The way the story line has played out this season has been top notch drama.

Lots of great characters as well, with Hanzee being one of my favorites along with Mike. Yes, I know they're the bad guys with few redeeming qualities, but I'm talking about the creation of the characters and how good the actors are at fleshing them out.

These characters are pulp fiction level casting and writing.
 
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This week's episode was one WTF moment after another. Peggy is priceless.

I want to strangle her with piano wire, but she is too damn fascinating!

Edited to remove spoilers.
 
Far and away, THE BEST show on television this fall. Hands down. Also, better than season one, and you're right, last night's episode was exceptionally well done.
Wouldn't dispute this at all, but Homeland is running STRONG this season as well. Watched them back to back last night and one holds up to the other.
 
Wouldn't dispute this at all, but Homeland is running STRONG this season as well. Watched them back to back last night and one holds up to the other.
Gonna hijack here but there is no way they let Quinn die right?
 
No, no way. That's what the atropine was for. Rest assured he'll get to somehow someway kick all their asses by the end of season.
 
Awesome! Just seeing if I could make the spoiler thingy work.

This is a test. It is only a test. Had it been an actual spoiler, you would have been notified.
 
Another awesome episode, but I have one reservation about the plot now. This appearance just seems so unnecessary. See spoiler.

Well crap. I guess there's no spoiler button on my phone. I'll wait. If you saw the latest episode, you know what I'm talking about.
 
Another awesome episode, but I have one reservation about the plot now. This appearance just seems so unnecessary. See spoiler.

Well crap. I guess there's no spoiler button on my phone. I'll wait. If you saw the latest episode, you know what I'm talking about.

I think it's a metaphor and really just a wtf thing. No way it really factors in. Wild episode. Excited/sad about finale
 
Yes! I hate to see it end. My wife never gets into shows like this but she is miserable having to wait a week between episodes this season. She's watching the second airing of tonight's episode right now and mad as hell about having to wait until Monday for the finale.

She actually binge-watched season one with me a few weeks ago. She wanted to see EP1 about 10 pm, then watched six more in a row -- on a work night. I was proud of her.
 
Re: the plot...seems similar to the way the Coen Bros threw it into one of their movies, The Man Who Wasn't There (which is great if you haven't seen). It's a noir, btw which is unique.
 
Re: the plot...seems similar to the way the Coen Bros threw it into one of their movies, The Man Who Wasn't There (which is great if you haven't seen). It's a noir, btw which is unique.

Well, that makes sense. I read that they're trying to work in a nod to all of the acorns' (Coens', @thereson gd it! @TheRedSon) work this season. I haven't seen many of their films. Obviously need to.
 
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I'm wondering if the aforementioned seemingly extraneous plot element figures prominently in season #3.
 
Noah Hawley, the series creator, has revealed that season 3 will be set in/near present day. So could potentially feature Molly Solverson from season 1.
 
This season (2), set in 1979.

Movie, set in 1987.

Season 1, set in 2006.

So, it will be interesting to see where they place next season in the time continuum.

I didn't really think about it, until I noticed the credits at the end giving Martin Freeman a "Special Guest Star" credit, then I was wracking my brain trying to figure out if he was on-screen at some point and I missed him. Then it hit me that he was the narrator at the start of the episode reading out of the book on crime in the Midwest.
 
Hollywood I thought that too!...didn't think about him being the narrator.

As for season 3 plot, I thought the cop staying with Ed & Peggy might have given a clue when he said "It's Rapid City all over again." So maybe they will do another prequel...but also heard will be more present day/modern.

They still need to include a Paul Bunyan statue as in movie and season 1.
 
I haven't been keeping up in this thread because I'm always about a week behind on my DVR. Finally caught up. This season is up there with my favorite things on TV the past 3 or 4 years. Freaking outstanding.
 
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So what are we expecting in tonight finale? Seems pretty straight forward we are down to Hanzee after Ed & Peggy with Lou trying to catch up and Mike Milligan has to convince Kansas City that his master plan has worked out. We know somehow Lou get shot but survives in the big showdown. Fate of Ed & Peggy unknown. My guess is they make it. At this point the fates of Betsy and Hank are unclear although it's not looking good. I keep wondering if there is going to be some life changing event for Molly that leads her down her path.
 
I'll wait til I can get to a machine with a spoiler button. I will say it was interesting to hear Lou and his wife come down on opposite sides of the fence on Camus.
 
If you get to the bottom of this thread, you deserve spoilers.

I loved this season. Absolutely loved it. But I expected more resolution tonight. Hanzee seems like the big winner I guess. Milligan (my favorite character) expected to be a conquering king and became a corporate accountant. No idea what became of Peggy (my next favorite). Ed's dead. As I predicted, the ufo was a non factor.

Just hoped for more tonight. The episode two weeks back set the bar pretty damned high.
 
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"Anticlimactic" comes to mind for EP10. I'm glad they wrapped up the story-lines they did, but a little more finality on some would have been nice. I guess Ed died in the right place.

I knew we were in trouble when Mike Milligan took seven minutes to kill the Gerhardt's man from back east. Who knew he was even still alive, much less cared what happened to him?

I thought if it takes this long to off this guy, they're not going to have time for a grand finale shootout. Sure enough.

I think the whole season was a students' worksheet on Camus' Myth of Sisyphus. Betsy said his idea that knowledge of our own mortality makes life absurd was "foolish."

But husband Lou explained to Peggy that men call "pushing the rock" their "burden," but that it is actually their "privilege." And that's exactly Camus' point.

Pushing the boulder back up the mountain every day sucks, but that's what life is. The challenge is to see every hardship and absurdity of life as a joyous blessing and revel in every minute of it. Yes, everyone dies, but only because they lived first.

Mike Milligan kills bunches of people to end up in a closet-sized office answering to the accounting department. Ed kills people and dies trying to fix his wife's f-ups. Betsy apparently gets the "right" drugs but they're going to kill her before the cancer does.

Plenty of absurdity to go around. That's life.
 
Episodes 5-9 were about as good as any TV show I ever watched.

The first 3 or 4 and the finale were pretty big let downs for me. Still an overall great season.

Looking forward to season 3.
 
Hanzee get's a new identity and wants some plastic surgery to get a "new face." His new name? Moses Tripoli. In season 1, Tripoli was the mob boss who put out a hit on Malvo (as Malvo had killed his employee Hess) and eventually gets killed by Lee Malvo during Malvo's raid on their headquarters. Remember the two deaf killers who took on Nygard and Malvo in season 1? Now think of the two deaf kids who Hanzee/Tripoli defended on the playground from the bullies. The foreshadowing there was the conversation about how you build an empire and eventually someone comes along and kills you to build their own.

The cook was Hanzee's mother, he was actually a Gerhardt and thus the "Half-Breed" comment that was the straw that broke the camel's back and lead him to shoot Dodd Gerhardt. It also explains why he knifed Floyd, the Gerhardt mom and basically lead the rest of the family into what he knew would be their doom. The family had treated him and his mom poorly and he finally got sick of it.

Ed basically ends up telling his deranged wife that he wants a divorce (away from her and her special brand of crazy) and she's still as delusional as ever wondering if she can get convicted under "federal" law so she can be sentenced to prison in California.

The dream sequence of future events was straight out of Raising Arizona, where H.I. (hi) dreams of a future where he and his thought to be infertile wife end up with kids, grand kids, etc.

Earlier in the season, there was a phone call from Mike to Kansas City and he was referred to as "Mike from Accounting." As I noted earlier, the KC thing was about how the mob was becoming "corporate" and embracing the corporate culture as there was actually more money in being "legit" in many aspects (or at least having a "legit" front) than continuing the old school mobster way. Although Mike looked like he would have rather jumped out the window than sit down to use that newfangled IBM Selectric (typewriters are not just for women anymore) which was featured earlier in the season.
 
Something else I hadn't thought of:

All the survivors of the Shootout: Hanzee, Lou, Hank, and Ben Schmitt (Fargo Detective), with the exception of Peggy, were all combat veterans.
 
Overall, Iiked season 1 better than 2....and the movie better than both.

I did enjoy watching all, but thought season 2 really tapered off with the final 2 episodes. Kind of like, if it isn't broke don't fix it. Was going along just fine, then it's like they thought they needed to try new things.

I do agree the show represents The Myth of Sisyphus in many ways. Problem with Camus was I believe he thought the universe was devoid of God....so IMO, that would ultimately lead to thinking life is meaningless. Since, if we are here because of random chance instead of a creator, meaning hard to find. Doesn't mean you still can't try to have the best life possible (but "best" means many things to many people). So at the end of Camus' reasoning, he wondered if he should just kill himself....but within that worldview of no creator, it did not matter if he did or didn't.

Will definitely watch season 3 when it comes out.
 
Don't read if you don't wanna know what happens!


The UFO ruined what to me was an absolutely amazing overall piece of work, and up until that point it was equal to or better than True Detective season 1.

Like Mega, I felt devoid of any kind of conclusion or closure.

I did like that in the end Milligan for all his grandiosity ended up nowhere but a low level office employee.

Peggy and The Butcher of Laverne ended up just how they should have. She's bat shit crazy and devoid of any concept of reality, and he's dead for being such a pathetic rube.

I really wanted to root for Hanzee but the ruthless killing of innocent civilians left me irritated.

I would have liked to have seen the teenage grandson and the girl from the butcher shop materialize rather than just disappearing him to prison. Could have been an interesting subplot there.

Who knows, maybe he'll reappear. He's the only one left.
 
I thought it was a perfect, realistic ending. The scene with Mike at "corporate" was priceless. There is no doubt the two deaf kids in the scene near the end were intended to be the same two from season 1.There was a bit of a flub, when Adam Arkin's character mentioned a 401K.

401K plans didn't catch on until the early 1980's after a benefits guy figured out how to exploit a new IRS code that wasn't really (originally) intended to operate as 401K's have become to be known.
 
I thought I was just a total nerd for question the 401(k) reference. However they played pretty loose with their timelines and culture references all season. Alcatraz closed in 1963 although Peggy wouldn't necessarily have known that. John McCain wasn't elected to congress until 1983 and didn't become a national figure until much later so it's unlikely Karl would have known who he was. Lou's time and events in Vietnam seem to move all over the place. Molly was six in 1979 but he was in Vietnam as late as 1975. She certainly could have been born while he was in the service but he seemed to have a State Trooper for longer then five years.
 
Oh, and the connection to Moses Tripoli of season 1 is definitely real. If you'll recall Moses Tripoli made a statement quite similar to Hanzee's when he ordered a hit on Malvo: "Don’t care extramarital, don’t care not related, kill and be killed. Head in a bag. There’s the message."

I think we've got a good idea of the outline for season 3.
 
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FM Poke,

McCain was fairly well known to Vietnam Vets in 1979. His capture and captivity, along with his refusal to accept being the first prisoner released (due to him being the ranking officer at the prison where he was held), instead insisting he would only agree to being released as the last man was fairly big news from that era. His father was an admiral, so his story got press and his release was covered by US media quite extensively. Karl, was if anything a "history" buff and a Vietnam Vet, so no surprise to me he would know the story of McCain.

And yep, lots of guys left behind pregnant wives on leave. I got the feeling Lou was pretty early in on his job with the State Troopers as his judgment was dismissed by so many other more "veteran" cops. If he got out in '75 (there to witness the helo event described, which was in fact a true story) he would easily be a 3-4 yr member of the state police by 1979.
 
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