Twin Magic.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
At least initially, Fargo's Season 3 premiere has no ostensible story connection to the other two seasons. Because of this, it's already the most adrift season of the series. That's not to say there's no fun to be had, it's just that "The Law of Vacant Places" is, for now, noticeably untethered.
Season 1 was tied to the Coen Brothers movie, while also sporting a few characters that we meant to feel like (and even look like) iconic roles from the film, while Season 2 was connected to Season 1 by the Solverson family. Season 3 is at sea a little bit - the first Fargo run to be purely Fargo as a brand. Which also means that, perhaps, it's the most free in a way. That being said, it also starts off as the most toothless of the bunch. Sure, there's murder and foul play, but there's no cruelty at play - just bungling (which itself is a Fargo hallmark). There are no gangsters or hitmen at the start of Season 3, just bitter brothers, parolees, and ex-cons trying to make their way.
The gimmick of Season 3 is only something that could be done in a later season. Meaning, this wouldn't be the way to kick off a Fargo series. Ewan McGregor here has the cutesy task of playing twin brothers, both with different styles of prosthetic makeup - a gig that could only come after a show had established itself as being a comedically macabre "truth is stranger than fiction" style saga that often contrasts violence with bewilderment. It's as if now Fargo gets to play. Which means that it could continue to achieve amazing things or that it could go off the rails completely.
McGregor plays Emmit and Ray Stussy - brothers who, long ago, pulled opposite sized straws when it came to their family inheritance. Emmit now lives the high life while Ray toils away, in both looks and profession, wallowing in resentment. In this first chapter, "The Law of Vacant Places" (a bridge term for a method used to guess where a certain card might be), Ray is the most fleshed-out of the two. Emmit comes off like more of a caricature while Ray is given a lot more shading as the down-on-his-luck sibling who yearns to impress his beautiful and feisty fiancé, Nikki (a delightful Mary Elizabeth Winstead).
Unfortunately, Ray's desperate plot hinges on the acumen, and sobriety, of dense criminal Maurice (Scoot McNairy) and after a predictably fatal screw up -- akin to Season 2's murder mess by Kieran Culkin's Rye Gerhardt (who also bit the dust rather quickly) -- it's off to the races. Carrie Coon's cold weather cop, Gloria Burgle, is brought into the Stussy story and things start looking more and more like textbook Fargo. That's not to say that business won't pick up, but at here at the start, there's a familiarity to the oddness.
Coon stakes her claim as the "nice policewoman" of the story, though you learn right away that Gloria's someone who's faced down adversity in her life and has had to roll with more than a few punches. She's overly accommodating to her son, her crabby stepfather, and her ex-husband, but once she's on duty, she easily switches over into an authoritative mode. When finding her stepdad dead, Gloria assumes command, takes care of her boy, and heads into a potentially dangerous situation alone. We don't get much of her character here, initially, but I can't wait to spend more time with her and find out what she's all about.
Also, I wonder how long it will take for Gloria to somehow intersect with one V. M. Varga (a rotten-toothed David Thewlis) and his sinister organization. Varga was definitely the most menacing presence in this premiere, though he only delivered spare words of warning. We've only scratched the surface of whatever his story and side-plot contains, so I hope it injects the season with a bit of venom. Every other character, at this point, is trying to "do right," even if they're doing a lot of wrong so I was happy to see a monster in the mix.
Overall though, this opening bow belonged to Ray and Nikki and their unlikely pairing. From bridge tournaments to murdering people with plummeting air conditioners, these two are either on the way to the top or circling the drain. One might assumed that Nikki was the type who'd try and latch onto someone who already had their ducks in a row and because of this her devotion to Ray, who worships her, is nice and unique.
Odds and ends:
- I don't know how to play bridge. Do I need to know? For one, it's a huge bonding activity for Nikki and Ray. Secondly though, because it's Fargo, we could find out at the end of the season that the entire run this year was a big metaphoric bridge game.
- Was the discovery of those sci-fi books under the floorboards an indication that Season 3 will also dabble in the errant UFO? Hank's language may come in handy.
The Verdict
Fargo returned with its most standalone and gimmicky season to date, though it was still laced with humor, beauty, occasional oddities, and sideways tragedies. Many of the puzzle pieces feel familiar to the Fargo formula in this opener though that doesn't rob the show of its mirth and majesty.
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