Margaux and I are starting to wonder if anyone is real on this season of Fargo.
Trevor: Before we get into the meat of “The Law of Inevitability,” which I liked, I just want to touch on that opening scene, and remark that V.M. Varga is close to surpassing Lorne Malvo in terms of Fargo villains. What a blackly funny set piece, him opening up the Stussys’ Christmas presents with a switchblade. And I love the touch that he will, from time to time, let himself into Emmit’s house. Malvo was pure evil and it was impossible to take your eyes off of him – but Varga is so goddamn weird.
Margaux: Varga is so often depicted inside Emmit’s house lately that I wondered if they were roommates at this point. Albeit, roommates through coercion, but still. I liked the cold open because Varga is so disconnected from human emotion that watching him open Christmas gifts was like watching an alien experience the holidays for the first time. And I’m not sure if this is intentional or not, but when Emmit comes home to Varga post-Goldfarb dinner, all the presents seem to be wrapped (again).
Trevor: Like I said: what a goddamn weirdo (and I love your alien analogy). When I first watched “Inevitability” I found it kind of slow, and very concerned with table-setting, but the more I think about it the more I like it. Noah Hawley (and episode director Mike Barker) can do wonders with limited sets, which I think is one of the successes of this season (Gloria’s sojourn to LA notwithstanding). This is the point in every season of this show at which the noose starts to tighten, no more so than around the neck of Emmit Stussy, who in his inability to keep cool under pressure really recalls the film’s Jerry Lundegaard, which is a point I’ve made before, but I find it interesting because the show typically eschews characters analogous to those of the film, save for its women cops.
Margaux: If there is one critique I can level against “The Law of Inevitability” (and that’s what we’re here to do, I suppose) is that it felt like it was written by three people, which it was. It was a stop-start, but everyone finally seemed to get on the same page by the end there. Parts of it felt unbalanced, and even though I appreciated the cutting between the storylines, some of the repetitive scenes with almost-new-Captain Moe versus Gloria and Winnie felt like deliberate stalling. I get it, he’s an asshole unconcerned with asking (and answering) hard questions, but some of his stupidity can be hard to buy into. I understand he’s an antagonist to Gloria therefore the audience will always disagree with him, but when he wouldn’t allow Gloria to talk to Nikki in St. Cloud, it stopped making sense to me.
Trevor: I’ll agree with you there. As much as I love Shea Whigham, Moe Dammick is the biggest stubmling block this season; he perpetually seems like he’s about to demand Gloria’s badge and gun.
Margaux: Beverly Hills Cop-style.
Trevor: He seems ported in from a different, more straightforward show. One thing I did like, however, was his calloused interrogation of Nikki (“He’s dead, as you can see”) which shows the audience just how truly screwed she is. She has bruises she can’t explain, was caught trying to escape through a window, and is a likely – and, in Moe’s words, plausible – suspect for Ray’s death. This is, of course, laying the foundation for the Gloria-Nikki teamup we both want so badly. Obviously I want Winnie there as well, because I am #TeamWinnie, but she might be back to traffic for good. I hope not, because Carrie Coon and Olivia Sandoval play so well off of each other.
Margaux: Highly doubt Winnie will go back as willingly to her post after the piping hot tea she was served by the guiltiest of motherfuckers himself, Emmit Stussy. Was he grinning as he walked over to Winnie at the restaurant? It sure looked like it. And Emmit has absolutely no chill upon hearing what should be devastating news about his brother’s untimely passing. “Was it a heart attack?” “No, we’re suspecting foul play.” I loved the symmetry between Varga and Emmit’s post-mortem conversation with police with Malvo and Nygaard, except I don’t think Emmit is truly as free as he says he is.
Trevor: I loved Emmit’s response to being told his brother was dead: “I’ve been here since six!” I think we both agree that Ewan McGregor plays Emmit better than he did Ray, and it comes out here because Emmit’s eternal optimism – this time, in his unshakable belief that Varga will fix things for him – lends him absolutely no poker face. He doesn’t know how to act in extreme situations because he so seldom finds himself in them. Compare his reaction to Nikki’s, who didn’t give Moe what he wanted (a tearful confession, I’m guessing).
And the thing that makes it so hard to watch is that I really like Emmit. He’s a good guy, you know? He’s not a budding sociopath like Lester Nygaard, who deserved to fall through that ice. I hope Emmit can find a way out of this, but it’s still Fargo.
Margaux: But it’s BECAUSE Emmit is such a good guy and is so desperate to be liked that he finds himself so deep in this very situation.
Can we talk about how Yuri (or is it Yuria? I’ve seen it both ways and no one corrects me, which frightens me) verbally bodied Donny – ostensibly, a cop – into leaving his own place of work? That scene was so tense, I genuinely wished he would’ve shot Donny. It was so much worse to watch their conversation painstakingly unfold (“But I’m not here”). Yikes, run to the nearest Arby’s, Donny! And while we’re on the topic, what’s up Yuri(a)’s wolf…hat? Is it a hat or a mask? Either way it’s fucking terrifying and I bet that’s a real goddamn wolf’s head because he’s a fucking lunatic.
Trevor: Well, if you want me to get all TV-critic about it, I think he is the wolf and Yuri is the mask. (I’m only half-kidding, I’m not quite that pretentious.) I loved that scene too, and your’e right, it would have been better to shoot Donny because at least that would allow for some kind of release for the audience. Barker wrung so much tension out of it, and it was beautifully shot, even by Fargo standards. And it tied back in to what seems like a big theme of season three, the impermanence of identity and even of existence, with Yuri insiting that he wasn’t in the library (“You asked me to leave and I left”). I know Hawley said that season three would have a focus on social media, which we haven’t seen much of, but it might be present under the surface, making a commentary about how we erase the actuality of ourselves by turning our lives digital. Ham-fisted, I know. But it occurred to me.
Margaux: So, there’s no easy way to say this, but DJ Qualls makes a cameo, and I gotta say, Strung Out Hit Man/Murderer really works for him. He looked utterly depraved, like, who saw him walk by in a uniform and thought, “he has very normal eyes, let him in.”
Trevor: I one hundred percent thought that was Nate Corddry at first, but I like the random inclusion of Qualls. Even if that’s his only scene – and it might be; we still haven’t seen Ray Wise pop back up – I really dug it. And I love the touch that the security tape cuts out right as Qualls shows up – Nikki might be headed for whatever netherworld Gloria and Varga live in.
Margaux: After Yuri(a) causes Nikki’s prison bus to crash on some icy bank in the middle of nowhere, I’m pretty sure the team up of Gloria and Nikki that we so badly want will be even harder to come by. And what makes it worse is Nikki’s possibly-final clue to Gloria is, “follow the money.” Okay, you saw All The President’s Men one time, how is that going to help Gloria? Especially if Nikki is dead and/or captured, what then? Gloria can’t even get a goddamn hand dryer to work, how is she gonna know what do with whatever information she may or may not dig up?
Trevor: I want Gloria to solve everything because I like the sense of closure, but I’ll be honest and say that my main interest is in Varga and his crew. I just looked back at my notes and I wrote “Yuri almost certainly died in a Siberan gulag and this is his spirit,” so I want to put that forward as my latest dumbass theory. He certainly looked spectral stepping out onto the road in front of that bus.
Margaux: You know what? I ship it. Any Coen Corner this week?
Trevor: I couldn’t catch anything! I had one idea, but it’s stupid, which is that all the talk of Yuri “not being here” could be an oblique reference to The Man Who Wasn’t There, but that’s a real stretch so I’m not going to include in the the Coen Corner Canon. You want to talk stars?
Margraux: Much like Varga’s teeth, I believe we’re just about done. After all the place setting done in “The Law of Inevitability”, it’s hard to imagine how this season will end without everyone dying, and I wonder if/when they’ll tie this season to season one, we’re running out of time.
Final Score:
4/5
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