"What's enter?"
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
"The Principle of Restricted Choice" (you betcha, another bridge term!) felt more or less like the natural follow up to the season premiere. Which his to say, nothing overly shocking happened and everything just extended naturally -- and perhaps a bit too predictably -- out of the events from last week.
Even more to the point: These two episodes could have been positioned into one double-sized season opener, though I'm usually against that type of bloating. With this follow up, we got a better handle on some of the characters who weren't Ray and Nikki, who seemed to hog the spotlight a bit in the premiere. I feel like this chapter and the first one together complete the whole picture of this new Season 3 world.
Carrie Coon's Gloria got a better showing here, as did Ewan McGregor's Emmit, who found himself scrambling to understand the terms of his new "deal" with Varga. Varga, who seems totally uninterested in not making waves on almost every level. It's bad enough that he's suspicious looking -- or "funny lookin'" as they'd say in the Fargo-verse -- but he also doesn't care much about the attention he brings with his bluster. Especially if he thinks nervous yammerers like Emmit and Sy will smoothly cover for him.
The actual crime story elements of this season are playing out rather flatly thus far, though the character work is great. With the murder case, it's only an episode or two more before Gloria connects her Stussy (aka her stepdad) to the other Stussy family, and the whole thing with Vagra and Emmit's forced business merger feels more and more like a Lester Freeman situation. Which is to say that, after a while, Emmit will start to play ball more. And once more money starts coming his way he may begin to like it. Heck, the one guy he and Sy told about Varga is dead now, thanks to them telling him about Varga, so he's somewhat in the clear.
I'm not saying that I know how things will play out, just that there's a noticeable Fargo formula at work. Granted, with Fargo also comes the element of "true story" randomness and that can strike at any time. That's always the wild card. Again though, the characters are starting to shine through a bit better now and there are some great performances to watch. We caught a glimpse of Gloria's over-accommodating self, and beleaguered life, last week, but now she faces all new opposition in the form of new police chief Moe Dammick (Boardwalk Empire's Shea Whigham).
It's another situation where she's instantly taken for granted/treated unfairly, though in Moe's marginal defense, her "precinct" was a quaint little joke. And the show's emphasis on the locals not knowing a damn thing about computers is funny, but it also makes you wonder how screwed up things will get, or have already gotten, because people weren't versed on the proper technology. Someone's already died because they were clueless about the dangers of clicking on on a strange link.
I also wonder if, in real life, Carrie Coon has issues with technology as both Gloria, and Coon's established role on The Leftovers, Nora, are currently experiencing their fare share of "glitches as metaphors." For Gloria, it's as if the machines can't get a read on her at all (which accentuates the smallness she must often feel). Either that or she's some sort of star child whose waves are interfering with the tech. Maybe that's what her stepdad was writing about on those novels he wrote as Thaddeus Mobley.
McGregor had another scene with himself this week as Emmit and Ray sat across one from one another on rather purposefully placed benches outside of Emmit's house (at the ungodly hour of 10:30pm) and unexpectedly made up. They buried the hatchet. Of course, both of them come with some side baggage and their close confidents, respectively, seem dead set on making sure the Stussy brothers never see eye to eye. Both Sy and Nikki are becoming (or in Sy's case it's probably been in him all along) rather territorial about their Stussy.
Nikki's hot-headed, and boldly bloody, retort to what she felt was an insult from Emmit then led to retaliation - from Sy! In the form of a verbal confrontation with Ray and then a somewhat bungled Corvette mashing. Sy's definitely one of those close business partners who considers himself a more a member of the family than actual family, who he then looks down upon. And while Emmit may rely on Sy for many matters, there's no real indication that he holds him as close to his heart as Sy may hold Emmit. It's a pretty interesting dynamic.
Odds and ends:
- Stan Grossman! Loved this Coen Brothers movie callback to everyone's favorite local parking lot wheeler dealer.
- We finally met this season's strange bedfellow heavies - Yuri and Meemo. They're "in charge" while Varga is away.
- There's no indication, thus far, that the opening scene of last week's premiere, from East Berlin in 1988, has any real connection to the characters. Except, possibly, to illustrate the theme of story vs. fact. Which is something Fargo toys with as a fake "true story."
- I demand that "Toronto Cain: Psychic Ranger" become a movie franchise.
The Verdict
Fargo's Season 3 delivers a second episode that helps shine the spotlight on a few more crucial characters while also presenting us with a world that feels even more behind the times than usual in terms of antiquated methods of information gathering and communication. The crime through-line feels a touch flimsy at this point, but the characters are all still really fun and engaging and they keep the heart of the season pumping.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire