This excellent episode of Fargo makes the first explicit reference to the original Coen Brothers‘ film of the same name. In the opening scene, set in the same year as the movie (1987) a man and wife are driving through the snows of Minnesota when their car runs out of petrol. They are fighting, and broke, though towing all their possessions with them, aiming to start life afresh in a new town. The wife is worried that their baby will freeze to death while they wait for her husband to think of a solution to their predicament. The man tries to wave down a semitrailer but is blown over by the speeding truck. On the ground he prays for help from God, and then notices something odd in the snow alongside a fence line. It is a red paint scraper sticking out of the ground. Anyone who remembers the film in some detail will recall that this is where a bloodied Steve Buscemi buried the million dollars in cash he received during a bungled kidnapping. He buried the money in the snow and used the paint scraper as a marker in the white landscape. Here the man digs and does find the money, and takes this to be a sign of intervention from above. “God really does exist” he tells his wife.
There is a cut to 2006 and we realise that this has been a flashback to the making of supermarket king Stavros Milos (Oliver Platt) and his empire. The reference to the film Fargo is nice because it is fairly subtle. The scene also helps to reveal the nature of the Milos character and the extent of his religious faith in more detail.
Early in the episode, Billy Bob Thornton’s character is arrested by Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks) when he spots him while driving. Next we are treated to some great scenes of Billy Bob pretending to be a small-town priest, oblivious to the world of crime and mortified by the accusations thrown at him by the young sergeant. In this episode Billy Bob’s character name is learnt for the first time by the police, and when he is arrested Lorne Malvo predicts that Grimly will say the words “you are making a mistake” in a few hours. The smug shit-eating grin on Billy Bob’s face when Hanks does eventually deliver the line late in the episode is priceless.
Grimly calls Molly Solverson (Allison Tollman) to explain that he has apprehended Malvo, and her boss (the incompetent Bill (Bob Odenkirk)) decides to drive and handle the interrogation rather than have his subordinate do it. You know that Molly would get much further with Malvo, but Bill falls for his priest performance and agrees with his counterpart in the other police district that they should let the seemingly victimised man go free.
Meanwhile, Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) is still being pursued by the two heavies from Fargo, who believe that Lester killed their boss and is sleeping with the man’s wife. Lester is kidnapped by the men, and eventually breaks free just before they can murder him. Lester manages to taser one of his attackers (Adam Goldburg) even though his right hand has a festering wound and still contains buckshot from the shotgun blast in the first episode in which Malvo killed the sheriff. This wound is a constant visual motif representing Lester’s guilt and partial culpability for the sheriff’s murder. However, it is hard not to constantly question the likeliness that Lester would have been able to keep such a wound a secret, particularly after having spent time in hospital and in jail. But with Fargo, it is much better to look past what seem to be a few small plot holes and simply enjoy the ride. For example, in order to get to safety after escaping certain death, Lester punches a cop with a facial jab and allows himself to be arrested. Hidden in the tree-line, the two heavies watch Lester be driven away with distain.
Aided by his moronic lackey, who was a personal trainer in the last episode but here appears to also work as a plumber (or is he just posing as one?), Malvo continues the blackmailing of Milos once he is released from the police station. As Malvo seems to enjoy working out what makes people tick and then preying on their weaknesses, (always playing games) his plan for Milos has a religious angle to it. We know that a younger Milos believed he received divine intervention in a time of need, but here he is starting to think that God is sending him warnings that he should pay the blackmailers in order to repent for some imagined sins. Last episode Milos began to unknowingly take the drug speed, and was also horrified to take a bloody shower – Malvo now has his plumber lackey drop hints that imply that the shower was some strange biblical-like occurrence. Towards the end of the episode, thousands of locusts invade Milos’ supermarket, and chaos ensues as shoppers try to flee the store. Incredulous, when Milos receives an anonymous phone-call he numbly and without fuss agrees to pay his extortionists. Malvo seems to be winning his little game.
The episode closes with a classy moment of black humour. Lester is seen trying to work out how to sit comfortably on a concrete bench in his jail cell. All of a sudden, a previous barfight scene between the two heavies from Fargo, which seemed strange and possibly unmotivated at the time, now makes hilarious sense. The two men have followed Lester’s lead, and allowed themselves to be arrested also, so they can continue to harass their quarry. Adam Goldburg’s character beams at Lester, and the show ends with Lester’s wry side-of-the-mouth smile back at his tormentor.
Fargo airs Thursday nights on SBS1. See more episode recaps here.
