Fargo 2.01

I most recently re-watched the movie Fargo a little over two years ago. I watched the first season of Fargo a couple months later in late 2015. I wasn't taking notes on what I was watching back then unless it was comic book related. I thought the first season was chillingly good. Every one in the cast was amazing. I was very impressed. In many ways it is better than the movie, which I also love, and at the same time it is reminiscent of the movie.

I recommend checking out Bald Move's Fargo podcast if you want some one else's opinion of the show. They have covered all three seasons of the show. I also recommend their Bald Movies podcast in which they discuss old and new movies.

Waiting for Dutch

The year is 1979. The month is February.

Rye Gerhardt, the youngest son of Minnesota crime lord Otto Gerhardt, is tired of getting pushed around by his two older brothers. He is trying to make something happen but needs to convince a judge to back off one of his business associates who has typewriter selling scheme. Supposedly it will bag them a lot of money if he can just get the judge to cooperate.

He follows her from the courthouse to a Waffle Hut in Luverne, MN. He tries talking some sense into her but she isn't willing to play ball. She tells him the story of Job, from the Old Testament. When he won't back off she sprays him in the eyes with insect repellent. He gets angry and shoots her. He also kills the only other people in the Waffle Hut, the cook and the waitress. He gets stabbed in the back by the judge before she dies.

The police get a call from a trucker who finds the bodies. Lou Solverson, a state policeman, is called to investigate. Lou Solverson also appeared in the first season where he was played by Keith Carradine. Something doesn't look right. There is one too many cars in the parking lot. He pieces together what he can and then hands the case over to a local policeman, Hank Larsson, his father-in-law. What neither man knows is that the killer was hit by a car.

Rye walked out of the Waffle Hut in pursuit of the waitress. She was not dead yet and was trying to get away. After he shot her he was distracted by some lights in the sky and got hit by a car. His head got embedded in the windshield of the car. Peggy Blumquist, the driver, panicked and drove off with him still on the hood of the car. She tried to hide it from her husband Ed. But he heard noise coming from the garage. Rye was still alive, despite getting stabbed in the back by the judge and then hit by a car. He pulled the knife out of his back before he went after the waitress and still has it when Ed finds him in the garage.

Rye tries to stab Ed who is a little too big and strong for Rye, especially considering his condition. Ed wrestles with Rye and then stabs and kills him with a trowel. Ed wants to go to the police but Peggy talks him out if it. She convinces him that she will be sent to prison and their chances for a normal life will be over if he does that. They dump the body in a large freezer in their house.

The final scene is of a meeting of a criminal organization in Fargo, ND. They want to take over the Gerhardt operation. They know that Otto had a stroke the day before.

The title of the episode seems to be a reference to the opening scene which is shot in black and white. It is from the set of a fictional movie starring Ronald Reagan. One of Reagan's nicknames was Dutch. In the scene the director and one of the actors are ready to shoot a scene but are stuck waiting around for Reagan to show up.

There are a lot of twists and turns in this episode. It got weirder than I thought it would on at least two occasions. I enjoyed it quite a bit and look forward to seeing how it develops from here. There really wasn't one central character in the first season. So far I'm don't think there is one here either. There are a number of players. Some will probably have bigger roles than others but I wouldn't be surprised if once again the story focuses as much on the bad guys as it does on the good ones.