Fargo 2.10

Palindrome

This the final episode of the season and this story. The episode get quieter as it progresses and does not build to a climax the way the finale to the first season did. It is a double episode in a way. The first part of the episode deals with the aftermath of the previous episode. The second part wraps things up and hints at connections to the prior season of the show.

Fargo 2.09

The Castle

The episode opens with narration over a visual of a book: The History of Crime in the Mid-West. The narrator returns several times during the episode to point certain things out. I didn't recognize the voice. It sounded familiar but I couldn't pinpoint who it was until a good half-hour after I finished watching the episode. The primary job of the narrator seems to have been to try and explain things about Hanzee. This is supposed to be a true story. Not much is known about Hanzee or his motivations. He served the Gerhardts faithfully for a couple decades but then, starting last episode, he starts to turn on them.

Fargo 2.08

Loplop

This episode fills in the holes from the last episode and carries the story a little further down the road. It opens with and for the most part follows Ed and Peggy. Peggy has already tied up Dodd. She has a vision while she is sitting on the steps leading down to the basement. She is looking at Dodd but seeing someone else. She has a conversation with the man she sees and comes to a realization that she needs to stop thinking and start being. Ed gets home. He has just escaped from the police, Lou and Hank. He knows who Dodd is. They load Dodd and and themselves in Dodd's car and take off. Dodd is in the trunk.

Lou and Hank arrive minutes after Ed and Peggy leave. They look around the place. They find two bodies in the house. Both are the henchmen who were killed in 2.06 (Rhinoceros). Hank has to sit down. He isn't feeling so good, probably due to the blow to the forehead that he received from Hanzee. Lou calls an ambulance. Hank is taken away, presumably to a hospital and Lou also leaves the Blumquist home. Hanzee steps out of the shadows behind the house as the sirens fade in the distance.

Peggy and Ed head to his uncle's cabin, near Vermillion, SD. Dodd gets belligerent on more than one occasion. The first time Peggy zaps him with the cattle prod. The second time she stabs him with a knife, in the chest. She doesn't stick it all the way in, just enough to hurt. He's a little more cooperative after that. Ed goes to a convenience store near the cabin to try calling the Gerhardt compound but as was shown in the last episode Bear didn't want to talk to him.

Hanzee digs through the Blumquist house and finds a letter about Peggy's upcoming trip to Sioux Falls for the Life Spring seminar. He takes it with them and heads there. He tries asking for information once he gets there in a bar. The bartender and some of the patrons give him a hard time, because he's an Indian and so he shoots them. The cops pull up and he shoots them too. All this was mentioned in the last episode.

Ed tries calling the Gerhardts one more time before the end of the day, without any luck. This time no one picks up the phone. He returns to the cabin. Before he gets back Peggy calls Constance, her friend from the hair salon. Hanzee has already gotten to her. Constance does her best to get Peggy to reveal where she is. Peggy is reluctant but she drops enough information to give Hanzee a good idea where to look next. It is unclear what happens to Constance after Hanzee is done at the hotel in Sioux Falls.

The next day Ed drives back to the convenience store and tries calling the Gerhardts again. Once again no one will help him. Ed notices a newspaper article about the gang war in and around Fargo. It mentions the name of the hotel where the head of the Kansas City crew, Mike Milligan, is staying. Ed tries calling the hotel and is put through to Mike. Once again, we see the conversation that ended the previous episode. He comes to an agreement with Mike. Ed will hand over Dodd to Mike. He just wants the Gerhardts off his back. They make an arrangement to meet near a hotel in Sioux Falls.

Ed leaves the convenience store and heads out. A few minutes later Hanzee pulls up to the convenience store. He interrogates the owner who isn't very helpful at first. Hanzee's demeanor seems to intimidate the owner and he tells him what he knows about where to find Ed. Once Hanzee leaves the owner sees the front page of the newspaper, recognizes Hanzee, and calls the police.

Peggy watches a move, Operation Eagle's Nest, on the little black and white TV in the cabin, while she waits for Ed to return. She really gets into it. When she looks up Dodd has freed himself from the ropes. Ed comes in and sees the same thing. Before he can do anything Dodd gets a rope around his neck and suspends him from the rafters. Dodd gets a little too confident and Peggy stabs him in the foot with a knife and then whacks him over the head with a fireplace poker. She gets Ed down before he is strangled to death by the rope around his neck.

The Blumquists start to truss up Dodd. Before they get him all tied up Hanzee shows up. Dodd angers Hanzee, calls him a half-breed and a mongrel. Hanzee shoots Dodd in the forehead. He asks Peggy if she can cut his hair. The request seemed a bit weird at first but I guess he knew there was a picture of him out there with long hair and wanted to change his appearance. Ed looks off to the side and notices two people heading toward the cabin. Hanzee follows Ed's gaze and sees Lou and Hank coming through the trees. He fires off four shots with his pistol.

Ed stands up. Hanzee points the gun at Ed and pulls the trigger but he is out of bullets. Peggy stabs at Hanzee with the scissors she was about to use to cut his hair. They bounce off his shoulder and he retreats from the cabin. Lou and Hank enter the cabin from the opposite side that Hanzee left with their guns drawn. The Blumquists put up their hands and the episode ends.

One interesting thing to note is that both this and the previous episode were directed by the same person, Keith Gordon. That isn't too surprising considering how they are are both structured and how they work together to tell the part of the story that unfolds over the course of these two episodes. Usually directors direct back to back episodes of this show but this is the first time I can recall being so aware of how one episode fills in what was only hinted at in the previous one.

This episode has all the tension that was missing from the last episode. There was also some humor, dark humor, mostly surrounding the way the Blumquists were treating Dodd and his behavior towards them. I didn't mind at all that some of the facts were already known. There were plenty of unknowns and plenty of curiosity on my part. It wasn't a done deal. I wanted to see how it would all play out. It wasn't done when the episode ended. I was so into it. I shouted. I was stunned when they cut it off. I wanted to see more but that will have to wait for next week.

Fargo 2.07

Did You Do This? No, You Did It!

The episode opens with a montage of scenes that involve both sides in the war between the Gerhardts and Kansas City making hits on the other side. The montage happens for the most part without words but with Locomotive Breath by Jethro Tull playing in the background. I thought it was a little over done. I'm not a big fan of using music in that way. I think it is just a little too cute and has been done to death, here, there, and everywhere.

The only casualty on the Gerhardt side from the attack at the end of the last episode seems to be Otto. He and Rye get buried at the same time in adjacent graves. Technically there is no burial for Rye since they never recovered his body. Floyd wants to know where Dodd is. Bear seems happy enough that he is out of the picture for now, even if he doesn't know what happened to him. The police, Lou Solverson and Ben Schmidt, show up right after the Gerhardts are done with the burial ceremony. They want to take Floyd in for questioning. She goes with them willingly.

Bear is left in charge at the Gerhardt compound. He has some help from some goons from Buffalo, led by Ricky G. Someone calls a couple times claiming to know where Dodd can be found but Bear refuses to take the call. Ricky G tries to encourage Bear to take the call but Bear doesn't care much for being told what to do by the likes of Ricky.

Simone runs off after the funeral, just as the police show up. She goes to see Mike Milligan. He is getting tired of her crap. She is angry because they killed her grandfather. She only wanted them to kill Dodd, her father. Before the scene gets very far there is a knock on the door. It is the police. Simone screams. Lou and Ben bust in and take control of the situation. Ben escorts Simone out of the hotel room while Lou stays behind to chat with Mike and ask him politely to go somewhere else and not make war in their neck of the woods. Ben recognizes Simone. She knees him in the groin once they are on the elevator. She leaves, while Ben returns to the hotel room, obviously in some physical pain. Does Lou know who Simone is? I'm not sure.

Hank Larsson and another senior police officer have a chat with Floyd back at the police station. She is very reluctant to give them anything. They want an end to the war. They are more or less willing to help the Gerhardts if it will bring an end to the war. They cannot put it exactly that way but that is the implication. It takes a while but eventually she starts to give them what she knows about the Kansas City mob's local operations.

Bear and Ricky intercept Simone as she is leaving the hotel. She knows how it looks. She tries to lie to them and tell them she was there trying to score some weed. Bear takes her for a drive while Ricky drives her car back. Bear doesn't take her to the Gerhardt compound. Instead he takes her off into the woods. He know she has been consorting with the enemy.

Betsy has some unwanted guests, Karl Weathers and Sonny. Lou wants them to keep an eye on her while he is off on this case. Betsy grudgingly accepts their presence. She tells Karl that she's pretty sure she got the placebo and asks him to keep an eye on Lou and Molly. She goes over to her father's place, alone, to feed Snowball, his cat. She is looking for Snowball when she opens a door and finds herself in a room filled with weird symbols. She doesn't know what to make of it.

Bear and Simone get out of his truck and walk quite a ways into the woods before Bear pulls out a gun. The scene reminded me of a similar scene from Miller's Crossing. Bear is pointing his gun at Simone the last time she is seen. There is no gun shot. She is pleading for her life. He gets back to his truck alone. He smashes the cast on his left hand in frustration. Did he do that because he couldn't get himself to pull the trigger and kill his niece? Did he do that because he is frustrated about the situation he has got himself in by killing his niece, even if she did betray the family? I don't know but I'm leaning toward the former.

Floyd returns from the police station and asks to see Simone. Bear says that she ran off. Before the conversation can go any further Ricky interrupts to tell them that someone is on the phone claiming to have knowledge of Dodd's whereabouts. Presumably this is the same person who called before.

Mike Milligan's boss is getting impatient. Mike wants a couple weeks to clean things up and get the Gerhardt situation squared away. His boss gives him two days, then he is going to send someone known as the Undertaker to take over the situation. Mike apparently didn't make enough an effort because within a day the Undertaker shows up. Mike and the surviving Kitchen brother kill him and his two flunkies. He then gets a phone call from Ed Blumquist. He says he has Dodd Gerhardt in his trunk.

Hanzee is not in this episode, except very briefly. The same is true for Ed, Peggy, and Dodd. Hanzee's name does come up in connection with a shooting in Sioux Falls. Two police officers were shot and the suspect's description sounds like Hanzee. Towards the end of the episode Lou and Hank head to Sioux Falls without Ben who doesn't want to stick his neck out any farther than he already has. Lou lets him know what he thinks of him before he and his father-in-law take off.

This isn't a bad episode but it also is by no means my favorite. It doesn't have any suspense filled scenes like there was in the last couple episodes. It is the quiet before the storm. What I really want to know is what Ed is trying to pull. Is his plan to sell Dodd to the highest bidder? I can't wait to see how this plays out. I would be surprised if Ed and Peggy come out on top in the end but considering that they killed Rye, ground him up, and are now holding Dodd hostage, after zapping him with his own electric cattle prod, maybe I shouldn't be surprised by how far they've made it up to this point or how far they wind up getting.

Fargo 2.06

Rhinoceros

Lou takes Ed into custody. Ed protests that he is innocent and hasn't done anything wrong. Lou knows better and doesn't listen to his lame brain excuses. Ed asks for a lawyer. He says if the lawyer advises him to talk to the police then he will. Ed calls for the only lawyer in town: Karl Weathers.

Hank stays behind with Peggy. He tries to get her to tell him what she knows. She insists that she and Ed haven't done anything wrong. Hank tells her that they are going to be experts there in the morning to inspect her car, the one she sold to the mechanic.

Dodd shows up at the Blumquist home with a bunch of his men. They are there for Ed. Hank tells Peggy to find a hiding spot in the house and not come out. Hank tries to talk reason to Dodd. Dodd isn't listening. Hank is getting ready to go for his gun when Hanzee shows up and knocks him out with a rifle butt to the forehead.

Charlie has already been arrested. He is given a chance to make a phone call. He calls Bear, his father. Dodd and Bear left with their men at that point. Floyd orders them to bring back Charlie and deal with the butcher. Bear and his men head to the police station, while Dodd and his men investigate the Blumquist home. Simone calls Mike after her father, uncle and the rest of the men have left. She tells him where they have gone.

Dodd and his men don't find anything upstairs. One of his men is hit in the head with a heavy piece of porcelain, possibly a sink, while they are searching the basement. Dodd shoots one his own men accidentally when he hears a noise. He finds the other man unconscious or dead as he makes his way through the maze of stacks of old magazines. Peggy gets the drop on him and hits him with an electric cattle prod. Dodd had one with him but it is unclear if he put it down or if is another one. It looked longer than the one he had. She keeps zapping him with it until he is unconscious.

Lou calls for backup when he sees the Gerhardt men, led by Bear. He only has a couple other policemen at the station with him. He calls for backup but they won't be there for about an hour. Ed has the lights turned out, the blinds drawn and then sends Karl (as Charlie's lawyer) out to talk to Bear. Karl talks sense into Bear while Lou sneaks out the back with Ed.

Hanzee left the Blumquist house after dealing with Hank and is sneaking around the police station looking for a way in. He knows that Ed and Charlie are both being held there. He isn't able to stop Lou and Ed from escaping through the woods but he follows them. Lou and Ed run into Hank who has regained consciousness and is on his way to the police station when they run into one another. Ed takes the opportunity to take off running. Lou decides to let him run. He knows Ed will head for home.

Mike and his men act on the information provided by Simone but they don't go after Dodd, Bear, and the rest of the Gerhardt men. Instead they hit the Gerhardt compound. Floyd, Otto, and Simone are the only ones home, aside from a handful of guards and other servants.

Hanzee emerges from the woods just after Lou and Hank take off in Hank's police car. He takes off after Ed.

This episode is filled with all kinds of tension: Hank's standoff with Dodd, Dodd's search of the Blumquist house, Hanzee sneaking around the Blumquist house and then the police station, Lou's encounter with Bear, Karl's successful attempt to talk Bear into backing off his demands, Lou and Ed's escape from the police station.

There are a lot of unanswered questions and situations to resolve just from the actions of this episode alone: Is Dodd dead or just unconscious? What will Peggy do with Dodd? Will Mike kill everyone including Floyd and Otto or use them as bargaining chips? Who will get to Ed first? Hanzee or Lou?

Fargo 2.05

The Gift of the Magi

Hanzee explains to Floyd what he found in the last episode. Dodd insists that the butcher is working for the guys from Kansas City. Hanzee backs him up.

The Kansas City crew prepares a hit on the Gerhardt clan but the Gerhardts strike first. Everyone on the Kansas City side is killed except one of the Kitchen brothers. Hanzee is the only survivor on the Gerhardt side.

Simone goes to visit Mike Milligan, who wasn't present at the shootout. He has the head of Joe Bulo in a box which was presumably detached from the body by Hanzee. Mike insists that she start producing some information if she wants to live.

Peggy tries to talk Ed into listening to what Lou said about the Gerhardts coming after them but he is too fixed on his dream of owning the butcher shop to listen. After he goes to work she packs up her things in a couple suitcases and goes to the repair shop to pick up her car. It looks like she is going to make a run for it but at the last minute she changes her mind. She sells the car to the mechanic for $700 so that Ed will have the money he needs to buy the butcher shop.

Dodd is about to send one of his men to deal with Ed when Charlie (Bear's son) steps in. He wants to be the one to kill Ed. Dodd laughs at first but then sends him with his man to the butcher shop. Charlie goes into the shop and winds up getting into a conversation with Noreen, the owner's daughter. They talk about Camus. Ed comes out from the back but Charlie panics. Instead of shooting Ed he buys some meat and returns to the car.

Lou is more or less off the case for the entire episode. He is stuck with escort duty. Ronald Reagan (Bruce Campbell) is passing through on his presidential campaign. Ed has a couple conversations with Reagan which leave him shaking his head. He gets a call from Ben Schmidt about the remnants of the shootout from earlier in the episode. Lou promises to head to Fargo once he is off escort duty.

Charlie makes a second attempt at killing Ed. He goes in the back of the butcher shop. He shoots once but then his gun jams. Dodd's man comes in and tries to finish the job. Charlie seems to get hit by a bullet that is intended for Ed. A fire breaks out in the back to the butcher shop. Ed proves to be too much for Dodd's man. They wrestle around among the flames in the back of the butcher shop. The fight ends with Ed putting a meat cleaver into the man's forehead.

Ed and Noreen drag Charlie out of the butcher shop. The fire in the butcher shop is just getting worse. Ed takes off and goes home. He tells Peggy that he has changed his mind. He agrees that they should make a run for it. She tells him about selling the car. The episode ends with them hearing police cars outside their house.

The showdown between the Gerhardts and the men from Kansas City happened much more quickly than I thought it would. I was a little surprised to learn that Hanzee didn't kill both of the Kitchen brothers but looking back on it now I guess he had to leave someone alive to deliver the severed head to Mike.

I love how they keep throwing up these seemingly impossible situations. I half expected this to be Ed's last episode. I'm not disappointed that he survived the attempt on his life. I'm just not sure what to think now or what to expect next. I loved the tension surrounding him in this episode.

Fargo 2.04

Fear and Trembling

Flashback to 1951 when young Dodd helped his father murder Kellerman, his rival. It looks as though Kellerman has the upper hand when the scene begins. Dodd is his father's secret weapon. He stabs Kellerman in the back of the neck while everyone's attention is focused on Otto.

Dodd, in the present, antagonizes some of Joe Bulo's boys when he runs into them in a doughnut shop. It isn't clear if he went there just to do that but I prefer to think that he did what he did because the opportunity presented itself. He went into the doughnut shop with an electric cattle prod. When they tried to stand up to him he hit them with it.

Hanzee goes looking for Rye and finally finds evidence that points to his murder. He starts by visiting the scene of the crime, the Waffle Hut. He finds some evidence that the police missed: a piece of glass from Peggy's car. That leads him to check out the local repair shop where he finds the car. He spooks the mechanic who disapproves of him looking through the car. Hanzee is chased off my Karl Weathers (Nick Offerman) who shows up with a gun.

The check Ed gave his boss for the down payment on the butcher shop bounced. Peggy took the money intended for the down payment and spent it on the course she wants to take. Ed confronts Peggy about the money. While they are talking, around the corner from the beauty shop, Hanzee drives by and makes eye contact with Ed.

Lou and Betsy visit her doctor and sign her up for a drug trial. The doctor explains that Betsy might get the drug or she might get a placebo. Betsy and Lou don't rightly understand the purpose of giving her a placebo, a sugar pill, but they sign up for the trial anyhow.

Lou is tipped off by Karl Weathers to Hanzee's visit to the repair shop. He meets Hank and they look over the car. Lou starts to have flashbacks to the night he visited the butcher shop. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He knows that something is off and begins to suspect that Ed is the one who hit and killed Rye.

Mike Milligan gets some inside information from Simone Gerhardt, Dodd's daughter, about what to expect from her grandmother and her father. They have sex while the Kitchens play cards in the room next door. She also tells him about her grandfather's doctor's appointment. She seems okay with the notion of Mike killing her father. She is more interested in doing drugs and having sex.

Floyd has a sit down meeting with Joe Bulo (Brad Garrett) from Kansas City. She makes a counteroffer. Joe questions Floyd's ability to control her sons and cites the incident from earlier that morning in the doughnut shop. While they talk Mike and the Kitchen brothers visit the doctor's office where Otto is taken. They leave Otto alive but kill his bodyguards and the nurse who was helping to care for him. Joe gets word of Mike's work. He rejects Floyd's counteroffer and lowers the offering price.

Hanzee's investigation eventually leads him to Ed and Peggy's home. They are not home at the time. In the living room he finds Rye's belt buckle in the fireplace. He is examining it when Lou comes looking for Ed and Peggy. Lou is there to talk to Ed and Peggy. He doesn't see Hanzee who slips away unnoticed. Lou asks them to come clean. He seems sure that they are lying but they refuse to change their story. Their car, according to them, was damaged when it skidded on some ice and crashed into a tree.

Floyd gives up on peace and tells Dodd and Bear that they are going to war with the Kansas City mob.

The gloves are finally about to be removed. War is on the horizon. Ed and Peggy's future doesn't look good. Will the Gerhardts be too busy with war to deal with Ed and Peggy? Will Peggy play dumb and frame Ed for the murder of Rye in the same way that Lester framed his brother for his wife's murder in Seasons One?

This episode  is a bit of an in between-er. There's a lot of build up to things to come in the future episodes. If this episode belongs to anyone is is Hanzee. He kind of gets the spotlight as he searches for and finds Rye's killers.

This was an excellent episode.

Fargo 2.03

The Myth of Sisyphus

The Gerhardt family meets with some of their top lieutenants. They want to make sure that everyone in their organization is aware and on board with them not accepting the offer on the table. War is a possibility but Floyd, who is still running the show while Otto recovers from the stroke he suffered in 2.01 (Waiting for Dutch), doesn't want to start it.

Mike and Joe, the Kansas City men ponder their next move. They have yet to get a response from the Gerhardts. Mike and the Kitchen brothers start digging around. They are still looking for Rye.

Lou goes to Fargo and talks to Ben Schmidt, in the district attorney's office. Lou delivers the news that Rye Gerhardt's prints were found on the gun. Schmidt doesn't seem too happy about that. It sounds like trouble to him. They spot Skip Sprang, Rye's business partner in the courthouse. They question him. He says he is there to see the judge about a past due tax bill. They don't know about his connection to Rye.

Hank crosses paths with Peggy when he stops by the beauty parlor to drop off a wanted poster for Rye Gerhardt. Betsy is there getting her hair done, wondering what will happen to it after she starts getting chemotherapy. Peggy gets very nervous after Betsy theorizes that maybe Rye was hit by a car and that they should be looking for the car instead of Rye. Betsy runs out to tell Ed and convinces him that they have to get rid of the car right away.

Ed drives the car a ways from town and crashes it into a tree. It was Peggy's idea. Her uncle used to do something similar. Ed gets whiplash but for the moment at least it looks like their problem is solved. I doubt that it is going to stay that way.

Lou and Ben visit the Gerhardt compound, in Fargo. They are there to ask about Rye. Ben is known to the Gerhardts. He acts very deferential towards Floyd and Dodd. Lou refuses to hand over his pistol when he enters the compound and stands up to Dodd. I thought for sure that something might happen. They can't kill Lou but there were other possibilities. Lou and Ben leave the compound empty handed but alive and intact.

When they get back to town Lou decides to check out the typewriter shop. He finds someone else already in the shop, someone other than Skip. He finds Mike and the Kitchen brothers. It is their first up close and personal encounter. Both sides draw guns but no shots are fired. They talk for a few minutes before Mike and the Kitchens leave. It is a very tense few minutes.

Skip continues to look for Rye. He goes by Rye's place. There he finds Simone (Dodd's adult daughter) and Hanzee (Dodd's right hand man) but not Rye. They take him to a meeting with Dodd who asks for Rye's whereabouts. When Skip doesn't have the answer Dodd has him killed in a pretty gruesome manner.

I love how this show is progressing. It is tense and intense. I love how it all revolves around the disappearance of Rye. The audience knows what happened to Rye but with the exception of Peggy and Ed no one else does. No one is going to find him. It is just a question of how long it will be until Lou figures out Ed and Peggy's connection to Rye's disappearance. How long will it be until the Kansas City mafia gets tired of waiting?

Dodd comes across in this episode as a force of nature in the same way that Lorne Malvo did in the first season of Fargo. He doesn't seem to have a conscience or care much what others think. His mother has been able to keep him in his place up until now but I don't know how long that will last.

This season of Fargo has yet to disappoint me. There is no fat on this bone. It is all meat: meat that I want to chew on and that I enjoy chewing on.

Fargo 2.02

Before the Law

The mob (from Kansas City, not Fargo) comes to town. They are their to talk the local heavies, the Gerhardt family, into selling their operation to them. The patriarch had a stroke. Floyd, his wife, does the talking. She calls her sons in after the men from Kansas City leave. She tells them about the offer on the table. Dodd, the oldest, tries to make like he is taking over. Bear sides with Floyd. Floyd sits down with Dodd and tries to talk some sense into him. Dodd doesn't seem very receptive and (after the meeting with his mother) begins to make plans but before he moves he wants Rye on his side.

Sheriff Larsson learns that one of the victims in the Waffle Hut was a judge from Fargo, ND. He shares that information with Lou. They aren't sure what it means, whether the judge was the target or just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Peggy Blumquist goes back to work the day after Ed killed Rye Gerhardt. Ed stays home to clean up the mess. He starts by cleaning up the garage and the car. There's a lot of blood and broken glass to clean up. He takes Rye Gerhardt's body into town after dark, to the butcher shop where he works. He waits until after the owner closes up for the night. He proceeds to start chopping up and grinding the body into hamburger.

Mike Milligan (Bokeem Woodbine) and his two flunkies, both named Kitchen, hang around town. They drive past the Waffle Hut. They are looking for Rye. They stopped by the typewriter store but were unable to get much out of Rye's business partner. Lou is taking another look at the crime scene when Milligan and the Kitchens drive past. Lou stopped there with Betsy and Molly. Betsy, his wife, was either coming from or headed to a chemotherapy appointment.

Lou has decided that he should take the case instead of Hank. Lou and Hank don't work for the same law enforcement agency. I think Hank is county police and Lou is state police, but that's just a guess.

Lou goes into the diner while Molly and Betsy play in the snow. He spends some time staring at the can of bug spray that judge used on Rye. Betsy spots something in a bush and reaches in. She pulls out Rye's revolver. She hands it over to Lou. It is just about then that Mike and the Kitchens drive past. Something about the car or its contents spooks him so he radios the details to Hank.

Hank gets the Kansas City thugs to pull over and get out of the car. He checks their IDs. It is a chilling scene. There seemed to be real potential for something violent to happen. Both sides seem fully aware of the potential. That night Hank meets up with Lou at the Waffle Hut. They exchange war stories. Hank's are about World War II. Lou's are about the Vietnam War.

The episode ends with another chilling encounter. Lou sees Ed's truck parked in front of the butcher shop and some lights on in the back. He knocks on the door. Ed isn't quite finished grinding up Rye. He opens up the shop for Lou. Lou doesn't seem suspicious but I've got to think he knows that something is up. He probably won't put the pieces together until an episode or two down the line. He asks Ed for some bacon. He somehow misses seeing the bits of Rye that are still intact. Ed seems very nervous.

This is another solid episode. There is so much going on. A good chunk of the thrill of a show like this is the voyage of discovery. It is about learning and watching characters in the show learn. There are definite parallels between this season and the previous one. I never liked Lester (Martin Freeman) in Season One. I don't feel quite so negatively about Ed and Peggy. They aren't inherently bad people but they are headed down a road that is making it harder and harder to see them as decent folks who have been backed into a corner.

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.