First Impressions: Fargo

Fargo
Developed for television by Noah Hawley
Premieres 4/15 at 10pm ET on FX
Watched for review: first four episodes

In the 2014 television landscape, Fargo represents just about every recent television production trend, a collection of executive-friendly, audience-grabbing buzzwords to draw hype. It’s got big actors lured away from film (Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman) and the ever-popular ‘anthology’ suffix attached to its description – not to mention it’s an adaptation of another popular piece of media (the single biggest trend in dramatic television right now), telling the story of an emasculated white man choosing to violently fight back against the failures of his adult life.

Sound familiar? It should; when it comes to the bare-bones thematic and narrative construction of FX’s Fargo, there really isn’t anything new to see. Set in Bemidji, Minnesota (though it bounces around to Duluth, and makes mention of the titular North Dakotan city), Fargo is an attempt to adapt the sensibilities and quirks of its movie counterpart, while creating some sort of fresh dramatic tension that makes the show worth watching. Quirky gangster-types, small-town conspiracies, Minnesotan accents (“uff da!”) and lots of murder; like the movie, Fargo presents a quiet rural world mucked up by the relentless darkness of the big city (the snowy white backdrop contrasted with the dark colors the various killers on the show find themselves wearing), thrown into a series of tragic, ironic events that sends lives unraveling.

In other words, it’s what most people expect from an “original” adaptation of Fargo, including plenty of winks and nods to the source material writer Noah Hawley (The Unusuals) is bringing to the smaller screen, set nearly twenty years after the original. This goes right down to the opening titles and score, which open each episode with the same “This is a true story” tag made iconic in its film counterpart (and you better believe it’s accompanied by long, static shots of faraway cars driving down snow-covered roads), opening each episode with the same majestic, string-laden score that is Fargo at its most melodramatic.

Through the first four episodes, the nods to the original are copious, intentionally drawing parallels between Martin Freeman’s Lester Nygaard and William H. Macy’s Jerry Lundergaard, like their penchant for saying “Oh, jeez” and their agitation with the constant emasculation they’re faced with on a daily basis. Like many, many prestige dramas to come before it, Fargo is (initially) very concerned about the cosmic balance around Lester’s life, pointing and silently laughing as a disillusioned husband experiencing a Walter White-like frustration with his life finally decides to take control back.

When Fargo is focused on Lester, it’s really not that interesting of a show. Not only does Martin Freeman’s English accent (which he does not hide very well under the local quasi-Canadian diction of Bimidji) pull him out of scenes with other characters, but his journey of “Confused man embraces evil for a moment, with devastating results” isn’t exactly anything new. To his credit, he tries to make Lester his own character – but it’s a much thinner, stupider character than his spiritual predecessor, presenting us with a helpless jag goaded into acting out (his “moment of truth” comes when his wife chides him about his life and love-making, the most predictably masculine thing they could write in that scene) by his inability to stand up to the evils around him, or within himself. Macy’s Jerry was a man who was losing control of a plan, which gave him a certain level of intelligence to respect, even as he lied and failed,  condemning his soul in the process: with no family and no plan, Freeman’s Lester is a funny straw man to which Hawley treats like an imbecile, a comedic touch much more overt and superficial than what I think the show is intending to create.

Now, all of this is not to say watching Fargo isn’t a pleasure: thanks to the presence of other fantastic actors, there’s plenty to laugh at and think about, in Fargo. The obvious highlight of it all is Billy Bob Thornton’s Lorne Malvo, less of a character than an incarnation of the Devil himself (he’s literally introduced in a sea of red, driving down a dark, snowy road, the only color in the shot the red tail lights bleeding up into his car’s rearview window), a man who embraces this Biblical parallel with vivacity. In the pilot, he presents our protagonist with a choice (make a deal with the devil, or don’t; “You didn’t say no” Lorne later tells Lester, after their first meeting) – and in later episodes, proceeds to do things like unleash plagues of cockroaches and fool others into showering in their own blood.

He’s the sadistic, mythology-building (more on that in a second) foundation of Fargo, a man who presents people with apples from the Garden, and revels in their decisions to eat it (or at the very least, not fight back when he’s shoving it in their mouths) – and although his nihilistic, Satan-inspired behavior occasionally sells the show’s brands of humor and drama a little short (numerous episodes end with fancy, syllable-soaked speeches by Thornton’s character, an unnecessary touch), Thornton is a pleasure to watch, one of the best actors in the world putting his singular touch on the show’s twisted representations of morality.

The rest of Fargo‘s world is a white-drenched sea (with no Key and Peele in the first four episodes, it feels really white, even for its setting) of terrific characters major and minor; it’s outside the main narrative of Lester fucking up his life that Fargo finds its real charms. Bemidji (and its big Paul Bunyon sign) feels like a living, breathing entity, a small town being invaded by forces it can hardly understand, much less respect or communicate with. Kate Walsh’s over-the-top performance as the widow of a local gangster/businessman is wonderful, as is Adam Goldberg and Russell Harvard as two mobsters investigating the larger interests endangered by the death of Walsh’s husband, the murder that opens the investigation and begins building the complex web of Fargo‘s world, which includes a corrupt supermarket mogul, a dim-witted personal trainer, and a deaf, mute gangster who likes to talk.

It’s also worth mentioning how awesome Allison Tolman is as Deputy Molly Solverson (ok, not the most subtle name), the show’s version of Frances McDormand’s intelligent Maggie, an intelligent woman trapped by the confinements of a man’s dumb world. To the show’s credit, they do a great job establishing Molly as a different type of character than Maggie, a single, career-minded woman trying to work around the incompetence of her new boss (played by an underutilized Bob Odenkirk) to connect the dots between Lester, Lorne, and the strange murders of the pilot that kick off the events of the series.

Fargo lacks not for interesting moments or fun visual clues (like the cockroaches, or Lester’s orange coat, the trouble he put himself in literally swallowing himself when he bundles up) – but unlike the film, it frequently lacks the subtle touch that made the film such a delicious experience. Whenever Fargo gets overly concerned with its plot or trying to recapture something from the television show , it feels facsimile, less of a show trying to create its own world and atmosphere than attempt to adopt itself into one that already existed.  When it’s at its best, it takes the trappings of the film (the setting, the dark humor, the idea of “choice”, and the appreciation for small talk), injecting it with the heightened absurdity of the local accents, Thornton’s scene-stealing performance (led by him toying with Colin Hanks’ Deputy Gus Grimly), and a keen eye for the disgusting underbelly of human nature, in a fully-realized, hilariously half-assed rural world.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

– I’ll be covering Fargo weekly over at Sound on Sight throughout the first season, so head over there tonight for an in-depth look at the pilot, “The Crocodile’s Dilemma”.

– yes, there’s a mythology-building moment in the pilot that could provide the basis for possible future seasons – we’ll leave that alone until we get to the end of the season (in involves a man answering phones; that’s all I’ll say).

– there’s something to be said for the many similarities and nods in Fargo to its cinematic predecessor; in some scenes, it helps recreate a very “time is a flat circle” kind of feel. However, there are moments that feel a little too meta – and one in particular that could potentially disrupt what the show’s trying to do.

– Goldberg and Harvard’s characters are a particular personal highlight, for one very specific reason I don’t want to spoil (and since they don’t appear in the first episode, I really don’t want to ruin it).

– On top of the great cast I already mentioned, Fargo also stars Oliver Platt (in a very important role, at least thus far), Joey King (as Colin Hanks’ daughter), and Key and Peele (who haven’t actually appeared yet).

– Episode four opens with a moment that could ruin the entire series for me. I really, really hope it doesn’t, but there is a particular narrative choice that I think does a disservice to the show – though not having seen any of the other six episodes, it’s hard to tell how important it is. We’ll talk about it in a few weeks.