from the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/arts/television/fargo-season-2-episode-3-review.html

Fargo S2 Ep 3: The Myth of Sisyphus

‘Fargo’ Season 2, Episode 3: Small-Timers and City-Slickers



Angus Sampson, left, and Jean Smart in “Fargo.”Credit...Chris Large/FX


By Scott Tobias
Oct. 26, 2015

Season 2, Episode 3: ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’



The odd names and funny accents of the Fargoverse are good for a punch line, but they serve an important thematic purpose, too, in making the Upper Midwest seem like a country within a country — and one with a harsh anti-immigration policy at that. The concept of “Minnesota nice” is a key part of it, suggested in a scene in “The Myth of Sisyphus” in which Mike Milligan talks about his polite-but-unfriendly encounters with Lou Solverson and Hank Larsson. But in this season of “Fargo,” the tribalist nature of the region runs a bit deeper still. There are barriers between the small-timers of Luverne, Minn., and the relative city-slickers of Fargo, N. D. And within the criminal underworld, there are codes that must be understood and respected, the law be damned.

The scenes involving Lou and Ben Schmidt, an officer with knowledge of the Gerhardt family, are some of the strongest in the episode and they bear out this theme. (Fans of the first season will remember Schmidt as a police lieutenant in Duluth, giving orders to Colin Hanks’s Gus Grimly. They might also remember that the elder Lou doesn’t remember him so fondly.) Lou comes to the big city in search of more information on the judge Rye Gerhardt gunned down, and Schmidt considers Lou’s description of the case so far. “When you put a dead judge, the Gerhardt family and some hitters from Kansas City in a bag together,” he says, “I’d go back to thinking it might be best to confess to the crime myself. Go live a long life in a cell somewhere, with hot and cold running water.” If the stakes aren’t clear enough to Lou already, that speech should send a chill down his spine.

And yet it doesn’t. When Lou heads out to the Gerhardt compound to ask questions about Rye, whose fingerprints were just identified on the murder weapon, he doesn’t follow protocol. Schmidt hands over his weapons to the Gerhardt security patrol and dutifully exchanges pleasantries with Floyd; if he’s not on the Gerhardt payroll, he’s properly intimidated. Lou rebuffs the order to disarm: “Am I the only one here who’s clear on the concept of law enforcement?” Lou isn’t the type to be intimidated; we learn that again later, when the Kitchen brothers have shotguns raised to his head and he still refuses to lay down arms. But there’s an element of incomprehension, too, with Lou as the small-town fish out of water who cannot understand the topsy-turvy notion of police officers showing deference to criminals. Having Floyd openly confess to bribery in her son’s defense (“We own all the judges. What would be the point of killing one?”) underlines that idea. The Gerhardt compound is a sovereign nation, and it has its own set of laws. Lou’s failure to recognize those laws is somewhere between willfully defiant and dangerously naïve. He’s asserting power where he has none.

There were other exciting developments in this week’s episode, too, including the emergence of Dodd’s daughter Simone as a femme fatale of the first order, and the sad fate of Rye’s hapless partner from the typewriter shop, who survived brushes with the K.C. crew and law enforcement before finally succumbing to Dodd Gerhardt and company. But now might be a good time to talk about where this mostly excellent show goes wrong. The scene with the typewriter salesman in the hole, begging for his life, vaguely recalls John Turturro in the woods in “Miller’s Crossing” (“Look into your heart!”) and Ed disposing of Rye’s body in the last episode vaguely recalls “Blood Simple.” Yet there’s a difference between evoking the Coen brothers and aping them directly, and the TV “Fargo” occasionally falls on the wrong side of it.


This week, Hank strolls into Peggy’s salon with a stack of “Wanted: Rye Gerhardt” fliers to pass out at local businesses. He engages the women in a little conversation about the murders at the Waffle Hut, and they all shake their heads and tsk-tsk about it. Then he says, “To kill all those people. And for what? A little money.” That line winks at the beautiful speech Frances McDormand gives at the end of the movie “Fargo,” asserting the basic morality of a place that’s never known such pointless violence. Hank and the Solversons are kindred spirits, so perhaps this was an attempt to associate them with McDormand’s Marge Gunderson. Having Ted Danson do the reading so matter-of-factly might have seemed like a clever move, but it plays more like a glib repurposing of the monologue. Much as I’m inclined to reject those who dismiss the TV “Fargo” as fan fiction, in moments like these they have a point.


Three-Cent Stamps

• Speaking of bad habits, the show hasn’t always been graceful in weaving late-’70s politics into the narrative fabric. After last week’s clunky exchange about Vietnam between Lou and Hank, we get a meeting at the Gerhardts where a foot soldier complains about Jimmy Carter and long lines at the tank. This tempers my enthusiasm over Ronald Reagan coming through town.

• Terrific exchange between Mike and Joe Bulo, first over shampoo and the “soft water” at the hotel, then over strategy regarding the Gerhardt offer. The show draws a subtle analogue between Bulo and Floyd, who would prefer to come to a peaceful arrangement, and Mike and Dodd, who are anxious to declare war. In both camps, the cool heads are still prevailing, but barely.

• Michael Hogan can’t do much as Otto Gerhardt, handicapped by a stroke, but his frozen scowl is open to interpretation. “He’s still the same lion inside,” his wife says, shortly before Dodd seeks his approval on the plan to strike.

• Peggy wants to go to the “Life Spring” seminar. “I want to be the best me I can be,” she says. The narcissism and denial run deep.


• Bear’s sensitivity to his mother and his instinct to protect his son suggest a deeper conflict down the line, when the violence he anticipates threatens the family from within and without. Not easy being a gentle giant in the Gerhardt clan.

• Mike Milligan and the Kitchen Brothers. “You make it sound like a prog rock band.”