Fargo S02 E02: Before the Law

                                                        

I’ve already told you my opinion of Fargo and why I think it’s one of the best dramas on television. I’m going to watch this show and do short reviews for all my friends. Enjoy!

Wives

We pick up where we left off on the end of episode one. Poor Ed Blumquist is so in love with his pretty wife that he’s even willing to go against his own conscience and civic duty: don’t call the cops; don’t let anyone know how the car got damaged; clean up the blood; get rid of the body.        

We don’t know much about their marriage except that Ed wasn’t getting any loving between the sheets and, if he did, it was only when he begged for it. Peggy looks like a girl who is comfortable telling lies. She tells Ed, she hit a deer when he heard movement in the garage. She stole toilet paper from her boss. Those lies are going to trip her up. Peggy may think she has everything under control, but she’s out of her league with Mama Gerhardt.                               

Floyd Gerhardt is a smart woman, certainly smarter than the three boys she gave birth to. She is very involved with her husband’s business and I’m guessing she knows the location of several bodies. She’s tough. With hubby out of commission because of a stroke, Floyd has to keep on top of things and that means speaking to her business associates and the Kansas City Mafia who wants to take over.                                        

Her son, Dodd, has no respect for women. He should move to Iran.  He has a bad temper and even disrespects his 19-year-old daughter, saying she’s too young to learn the family business. Floyd, bless her heart, reminds Dodd that girls grow up to be women who change little boys’ diapers. The meaning is not lost on Dodd.

Kansas City Mafia

Mike Milligan and the Kitchen brothers have to be both one of the funniest and scariest killers I’ve ever seen on the screen. Mike (Bokeem Woodbine) is a smooth talking young man, but his smooth tongue only softens the intended threats.
                                                           

 
Maybe, it’s the way Mike smiles as he’s handing out options that show just how dangerous this man is. His encounter with Sheriff Larson is outright scary, but luckily Larson understands what the smile means. I love Mike’s Afro hairstyle and disco clothing. The Kitchen brothers, who are obviously twins, never speak. They don’t have to. They’re busy scaring you to death with their silence and big guns.

Conclusion

While Ed puts his butchering skills to work making Rye-burger-meat, Lou stops at the Waffle Hut with his cancer-stricken wife, Betsy and little Molly, who is already proving to be a good observer. She finds a balloon that leads to mom finding Rye’s gun; the gun that killed the people at the Waffle Hut.          

The gun has Rye’s prints on it. Now, we have three separate teams looking for Rye. Lou and Hank the story’s protagonists are like sitting ducks in a pond filled with sharks, but they are smart law men who take their time putting the clues together.

This show, even with the gore and horror of dealing with gangsters, is easy on the mind. The scenery is a stunning contrast to the blood that drips on the floor of the butcher shop as Ed, his mind numb and probably regretting his choice of life partner, grinds Rye into the industrial size meat grinder. What I’m especially enjoying about this season is the use of the split-screen that shows what each character is doing at that same moment.

Loving Fargo on FX

                                                        

Unlike the big disappointment I had with HBO's True Detective’s second season, Fargo’s second season  on FX hit the ground, running leaving us breathless and in shock. I had the opportunity to watch the first three episodes on Halloween and I’m so happy that I did. On Fargo, we have our bad guys, the good guys and, a few good people who do dumb-ass stuff that makes them just as scary as the bad guys. The acting and script are superb, which makes it such a pleasure to return to good ole Fargo, North Dakota.
                                              

Waiting for Dutch S02 E01

The show opens with a snippet of film called Massacre at Sioux Falls. There are bodies everywhere; those of soldiers and Native Americans alike. Then we jump to a scene of Jimmy Carter speaking on television. It’s 1979 and there is a gas shortage. The Gerhardt family is North Dakota’s version of the Sopranos led by Otto (Michael Hogan), his wife Floyd (Jean Smart) and their three sons, Dodd (Jeffrey Donavan), Bear (Angus Sampson) and Rye (Kieran Culkin). People are afraid of this family and rightly so. They are cold-blooded killers who control trucking distribution for the entire Northern Midwest and, they fear no one, not even the law.

                                                           

 

We also have our good guys Officers Hank Larsson (Ted Danson) and Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson) who eventually have to tangle with this crime family when the youngest son gets in trouble. There is one character that carries over from season one and that is Lou Solverson, who in season one played the diner-owning father of Deputy Molly Solverson, originally played by Keith Carradine. In this prequel, Patrick Wilson is playing the younger version of Lou when he was a Minnesota State Trooper who recently returned home from the war in Vietnam.
 

Rye, the youngest of the Gerhardt sons, wants a little more power than he’s given by his brother Dodd but that’s not going to happen anytime soon, especially because Rye owes Dodd money. A trip to Watson’s typewriter store promises some income with a newer self-correcting typewriter, but owner Skip (Mike Bradecich) needs a judge to forgive his case on back taxes in order to get the funding to purchase the stock. If Rye can accomplish changing the judge’s opinion, then he can get the money Skip owes him to pay Dodd. It’s the ultimate shell game.
                                                 

     

When Rye’s plans to talk to the lady judge go very, very wrong (I mean who carry’s bug spray in their purse?) Rye gets into a shootout. Now, this is why Fargo rocks! Once outside the diner, Rye is distracted by a UFO causing him to be hit by a car driven by Peggy Blumquist (Kristin Dunst). Does she stop? Does she call the police or an ambulance? No! She drives home with Rye stuck in her windshield.
                                                         

 

When her husband, Ed (Jesse Plemons) comes home from his job at Bud’s Meat Shop in Luverne, he’s wondering what the racket is in the garage. Peggy lies and says she hit a deer. Surprise! Rye is alive; badly injured, but alive. In an act of self-defense from a knife wielding Rye, Ed is forced to kill Rye.
                                                       

The fact that Peggy calmly drove home and made dinner gives a hint to her character. She’s the most dangerous kind of narcissist and we know from the get go that poor Ed is going to suffer.
 

Conclusion

Fargo did what True Detective didn’t do in their second season. It kept the formula the same. Why change what doesn’t need fixing. With the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joe at the helm and, Noah Hawley as the writer/executive producer/showrunner, Fargo remains an award-winning series.

                                                              

What Peggy doesn’t know is that Otto has had a stroke and the Kansas City Mafia is coming to town to take over the Gerhardt operation by force. The Gerhardt’s are going to be looking for their youngest and so will the police who investigate the diner killings.
                                                     

Her husband has Rye in the freezer for now, but they’ll have to get rid of the body and soon. The ground is frozen solid, so burying the evidence is out of the question. Oh, did I mention that Ed is a butcher?
                                               

The show comes on every Monday at 10 p.m. on FX. Watch it!

Gracepoint

                                                        Gracepoint                                                   

Steampunk Granny loves good drama and there is a new show on television and it has my full attention. Gracepoint is a ten episode American series based on the popular UK series Broadchurch. This is crime drama at its best following, True Detective and Major Crimes as my to watch show.

                                                                     

Gracepoint was created and written by Chris Chibnall who is also the brains behind the series, Broadchurch. It stars David Tennant as Detective Emmett Carver and Anna Gunn as Detective Ellie Miller.

The first episode has Det. Miller a bit pissed off over losing a promotion to lead detective to Carver while she was away. These two detectives are good at what they do, but they come to the crime scene with their own baggage of backstories and failures. The animosity between them must be put aside when the body of a young boy is found at the base of a cliff overlooking the ocean.

Was it an accidental death? Forensic investigation points to murder. Will they solve the case? That my friends, will be what holds us glued to our television sets, every Thursday night at 9 on Fox.

                                                                  

Watch the show, and if you can, watch the original series this show was based on, Broadchurch.