Fargo S2 Ep 2: Before The Law

from the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/arts/television/fargo-season-2-episode-2-crime-isnt-for-amateurs.html

Fargo S2 Ep 2: Before The Law

‘Fargo’ Season 2, Episode 2 Recap: Crime Isn’t for Amateurs





Brad Mann, left, and Bokeem Woodbine in “Fargo.”Credit...Chris Large/FX


By Scott Tobias
Oct. 19, 2015

Season 2, Episode 2: ‘Before the Law’

As the homemade cover of “Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby” that closed last week’s episode reminds us, Noah Hawley’s “Fargo” isn’t merely a play on a single Coen brothers film, but a comprehensive plucking of their entire oeuvre.

That song, a traditional, appeared in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” which itself is named after a proposed book about the common man in the Preston Sturges film “Sullivan’s Travels,” so Hawley’s references to the Coens lead us down the referential rabbit hole.

But there’s one Coens-specific idea that brings tonight’s thrilling hour all the way back to their debut feature, “Blood Simple”: Crime isn’t for amateurs. And a related lesson: Blood doesn’t sop up easily. One of the signature sequences in “Blood Simple” emphasizes the physical labor involved in covering up a crime by disposing of a dead body. Those pools of blood on the barroom floor are not like water, but a viscous mass that spreads across the hardwood as it’s being wiped away. It stains the hands, the rags, the sink and the conscience, and that’s before the oppressive weight of a lifeless body comes into play.

Tonight’s episode moved like a shot — this season has a lot of narrative transactions to make — but Hawley (who directed) downshifts markedly when he gets to poor Ed Blumquist, who’s left to clean up his wife’s mess. Our first shot of Ed has him sitting glumly outside the garage, contemplating the moral complications of the crime before he sets to work on the practical ones. We don’t know what Ed and Peggy’s marriage was like before she struck Rye Gerhardt with her car and drove him “the back way” into their garage, but it’s safe to say that Ed has learned something about his wife’s capacity for misbehavior and deceit. He also has to contend with his own role in finishing Rye off in the garage — self-defense or no, he’s a killer now.




Amateur criminal though he may be, Ed is a professional butcher, so at least he knows how to break down a body. (His technique is certainly more methodical than that of Peter Stormare with the infamous wood-chipper in “Fargo.”) Still, Hawley emphasizes the slow, grisly process of turning Rye Gerhardt into ground chuck, and the emotional toll it must be exacting on Ed, who married into this particular torment. Meanwhile, Peggy displays the instincts of a criminal mastermind — in addition to the hit-and-run, she’s swiped toilet paper from the salon — but none of the skills. In just one short visit from her boss, Constance Heck, Peggy has to come up with a hasty excuse for her shattered car window (which she immediate contradicts) and she gets outed as a T.P. thief. Constance seems oddly aroused by Peggy’s bad-girl side, but she’s also the first to tug at the loose threads of the Blumquist story, which now seems certain to unravel.


In contrast, Floyd Gerhardt knows her criminal business. Though the timing of her husband’s stroke couldn’t have been any worse for the Gerhardts, who face the encroachment of corporate goons from Kansas City, Floyd continues to manage the day-to-day (“Give these to the Chinaman, usual disbursement”) while working to stifle the mutinous entitlement of her hotheaded son Dodd. When Dodd objects to the idea that his 19-year-old daughter Simone might be too young to listen in on a business meeting, Floyd seizes the opportunity to belittle him: “Girls grow up to be women,” she says, “and change boys’ diapers.”

There’s no doubting that Dodd has the strength and pitilessness to do the ugly parts of the trade — just ask the poor earless guy in the barn — but force alone does not make an effective leader in the long run. He’s all hammer, no scalpel.

At this point, Lou Solverson, a state trooper, and Hank Larsson, the sheriff, can only sense the storm coming. Lou’s itchiness over the crime scene leads him back to the Waffle Hut, which in turn leads his wife, Betsy, to discover the murder weapon while she is playing with young Molly Solverson in the snow. For Betsy and Molly to find this key piece of evidence is thematically significant: This is a crime that will reverberate beyond those responsible for it, and touch the lives of ordinary, innocent people. Hank feels the dread sinking in, too, when he stops Mike Milligan and the Kitchen brothers on the road outside the Waffle Hut. There are threatening undercurrents to both Mike’s faux-friendly chatter and the Kitchen brothers’ absolute silence. They want to rattle Hank and they succeed. And they won’t be taking that police escort out of the state.
Three-Cent Stamps

• A nice visual touch: Juxtaposing overhead shots of the river slicing through the Upper Midwest landscape with the fat running through a piece of butchered meat.


• It’s important to note that Floyd does not want to lead the Gerhardts in her husband’s absence, but rightly feels she’s the only one who can do it in a time of crisis. “I’ll turn my thoughts to the grave later,” she tells Dodd, promising the throne to him later if he concedes it now. But Dodd has no intention of conceding it, so thoughts may be turning to the grave sooner than expected.

• Anyone else as perplexed as Joe Bulo at Mike’s lobster metaphor? Which Gerhardt son is “the pincher” and which is “the crusher”?

• The deadpan exchanges at the Blumquist butcher shop are becoming a consistent comic highlight:

“Never trust anything that comes from the sea.”

“We came from the sea.”

• The series is occasionally guilty of voicing themes that are already embedded in the show. Like this from Hank to his son-in-law: “After World War II, we went six years without a murder here. These days, sometimes I wonder if you boys didn’t bring that war home with you.” Got it, Hank. No country for old men.

• This week’s biggest “Fargo” the movie callback: The typewriter salesman on the phone with creditors, which recalls Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) making assurances to his criminal cohorts. “I got the money, see.”

• The U.F.O. references continue with the radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” over the closing credits. We’ll see where this is going, but a commenter last week helpfully linked to this story of a U.F.O. sighting in 1979 Minnesota. Hmmm...