# Fargo - S01E01 \[open spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 16, 2014, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239 "2014-04-16T08:09:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/61 "2014-04-18T01:49:49Z")
I think that was just a blood / fur stain from where the deer originally landed. Billy Bob’s character then moved it from there to the trunk of the car (presumably to confuse forensics). At some point a light dusting of snow partially covered the area, making the bloody spot less obvious. Those stupid deer really do seem to run across the road at the worst possible moment. Their only redeeming quality is that they taste good. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/62 "2014-04-18T02:10:56Z")
I’m waiting for Bemidji’s iconic Paul Bunyan and Babe [statue](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2006404_2006095_2006099,00.html) makes an appearance. They might have some copyright issues though. Does anyone know more details? The first part of the scene in Duluth shows the [Aerial Bridge](http://www.goduluthmn.com/aerial-lift-bridge.html), but I bet that’s just a short shot to set the scene. I didn’t recognize the street where the cars actually stopped; it didn’t look like anyplace in Duluth. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/63 "2014-04-18T02:27:32Z")
I was _really_ impressed with how fast Molly figured out what happened by speaking with the nurse, etc. It was actually dangerously close to being plothole-ish, but I’m willing to just think that she’s very smart. Still - wouldn’t a hospital emergency room get tons of head wounds each day? And would a nurse really overhear and remember a random conversation between two patients? For the deer, for some reason I thought that maybe it had something to do with replacing the weight of the man in the car, but I can’t see how that would make sense. It does seem more likely that it was to confuse the police. One thing I like about this series so far is how it allows you to shift perspectives and doesn’t tell you who to root for. No one involved is a “villain” - it’s more than just having an antihero as a main character, it’s having no clear hero at all. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/64 "2014-04-18T02:30:51Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > Still - wouldn’t a hospital emergency room get tons of head wounds each day? And would a nurse really overhear and remember a random conversation between two patients? Not a lot of head wounds in Bemidji. Nurse would remember the conversation because Lester bitched about the long wait and then dilly-dallied with Billy Bob, making the nurse wait. ---
**Author:** ![Orr\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ee59a6/32.png) [@Orr\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orr_G)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/65 "2014-04-18T02:32:33Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > I’m waiting for Bemidji’s iconic Paul Bunyan and Babe [statue](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2006404_2006095_2006099,00.html) makes an appearance. They might have some copyright issues though. Does anyone know more details? > > The first part of the scene in Duluth shows the [Aerial Bridge](http://www.goduluthmn.com/aerial-lift-bridge.html), but I bet that’s just a short shot to set the scene. I didn’t recognize the street where the cars actually stopped; it didn’t look like anyplace in Duluth. My wife was pretty confident that was somewhere along Hiawatha Ave in MPLS, which is one of her alternate commuting routes. She felt that the planes going overhead confirmed her guess (Hiawatha’s near the airport). ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/66 "2014-04-18T02:35:13Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > I’m waiting for Bemidji’s iconic Paul Bunyan and Babe [statue](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2006404_2006095_2006099,00.html) makes an appearance. They might have some copyright issues though. Does anyone know more details? > > The first part of the scene in Duluth shows the [Aerial Bridge](http://www.goduluthmn.com/aerial-lift-bridge.html), but I bet that’s just a short shot to set the scene. I didn’t recognize the street where the cars actually stopped; it didn’t look like anyplace in Duluth. The series is shot in Calgary. ---
**Author:** ![Orr\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ee59a6/32.png) [@Orr\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orr_G)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/67 "2014-04-18T02:51:58Z")
> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#): > > The series is shot in Calgary. Oops. I’ll break the news to my wife gently. ---
**Author:** ![vd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b19c9b/32.png) [@vd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vd)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/68 "2014-04-18T03:32:39Z")
> [@Orr\_G](#): > > My wife was pretty confident that was somewhere along Hiawatha Ave in MPLS, which is one of her alternate commuting routes. She felt that the planes going overhead confirmed her guess (Hiawatha’s near the airport). Here’s the spot where Hanks was parked initially, without the bridge added in. https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=%213m2%212sen%214v0%216m8%211m7%211sshXVE1qff5OVddCnCWMeFw%212m2%211d51.023167%212d-114.022958%213f281.0%214f8.597%215f0.75 ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/69 "2014-04-18T06:59:11Z")
> [@interface2x](#): > > Neither. The movie isn’t a true story and presumably the show isn’t, either. There’s an interview on the DVD of the movie where one of the actors asked the Coens to tell him more about the “real case” and they said “Oh, we made it up.” He said he replied “But at the beginning of the script, it says it’s a true story.” They said “Yeah, it’s not.” He replied “Can you do that?” They said “I don’t know, we’re doing it.” > > The reason they said it was a true story at the beginning is so that you’d be more likely to go along with the story if you believe it actually happened. I took both the movie and TV show ‘true story’ claim to be a satirical swipe at Hollywood, where every ludicrous tale of demons, aliens, whatever is solemnly claimed to be a ‘true story’. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/70 "2014-04-18T11:51:55Z")
Why are our TV shows now always about murderers? What the hell is going on with entertainment? ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/71 "2014-04-18T13:46:26Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I didn’t think Thornton conveyed menace very well, but perhaps he was leaning more to the crazy than the evil. I didn’t like the basement disappearing act at all; it was just too pat. However, I liked the first ep and the cast of largely unknown actors, who give it a sense of realism. I see Thorton’s character as being bored with being a killer. Kind of an world-weary outlook. There was no reason at all he needed to call the woman at the hotel desk when he put the kid up to pissing in her gas tank. It seemed that was more of a reflexive action, and had absolutely nothing to do with his ‘job’. I’m looking forward to following this. I’m glad it’s a mini-series and not a 9-season drawn out money grabber. Even without Martin Freeman, it already has the air of a BBC series. (And did anyone else think that Freeman really nailed his William H. Macy impersonation?) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/72 "2014-04-18T14:50:00Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Is it just me or is [Billy Bob’s hairdo](http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1737907/thumbs/n-BILLY-BOB-THORNTON-FARGO-large570.jpg) a bit too (or possibly not enough) goofy for the character? He was funny lookin’. More n’ most people, even. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/73 "2014-04-18T18:58:27Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Why are our TV shows now always about murderers? What the hell is going on with entertainment? Murderers sell. (Cars, e-cigarettes, fast food, toilet paper, insurance, soft drinks, pizza, …if you want to sell any of those things to an audience, then you give the audience what it wants to see.) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/74 "2014-04-18T19:32:04Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Why are our TV shows now always about murderers? What the hell is going on with entertainment? They’re not “always about murderers” although shows like this one are. If you didn’t want to watch a show about murderers, why were you watching this one? BTW, Billy Bob Thornton’s character reminded me of Loki (the mythical one, not the one from the Thor movies). Basically, he was just stirring up trouble. (And I think, to a certain extent, he was causing trouble just to keep the police busy and not looking for him.) ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/75 "2014-04-18T20:03:04Z")
> [@Charlie\_Wayne](#): > > One other mysterious event (at least to me) was that they seemed to uncover the deer in the snot first. Then they seemed to find it in the trunk. > > Was there more than a single deer? > > Or … did they not find a deer under the snow but maybe only found some blood and a few small body parts and assumed that was the entire deer? * * * Very sorry! I meant to say “snow” instead of “snot”. A most unfortunate error. Please excuse me. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/76 "2014-04-18T21:57:57Z")
I just rewatched the basement disappearing scene. Malvo does indeed go in at the basement door, but Lester walks away at that point to watch the police car containing Molly arrive. Malvo must have popped right back out again at that moment to leave the way he came. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/77 "2014-04-19T00:49:02Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > If you didn’t want to watch a show about murderers, why were you watching this one? I had no idea what it was about until I watched it. I have never seen the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/78 "2014-04-19T02:35:02Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > …One thing I like about this series so far is how it allows you to shift perspectives and doesn’t tell you who to root for. **No one involved is a “villain”** - it’s more than just having an antihero as a main character, it’s **having no clear hero** at all. Well, Malvo is pretty clearly a villain. He killed a cop, a father-to-be who was just doing his job, in cold blood. (He is also a Loki-like troublemaker, e.g. inciting the kid to pee in the gas tank, and later pretending to be a lawyer telling one of the sons that his dad cut him out of the will). Lester is becoming a villain, too. Granted, he was sorely provoked, but hammering your spouse to death is pretty villainous in my book. Likewise not reporting who killed a cop in your presence. The trucking company owner/organized crime figure/former high school bully was pretty clearly a villain. I don’t think he had any redeeming features at all. He, in Texas slang, “needed killin’,” so I give Malvo a pass on that one. And the female cop is, it seems, going to become a hero(ine), just as Marge did in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/79 "2014-04-19T02:54:51Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Well, Malvo is pretty clearly a villain. He killed a cop, a father-to-be who was just doing his job, in cold blood. (He is also a Loki-like troublemaker, e.g. inciting the kid to pee in the gas tank, and later pretending to be a lawyer telling one of the sons that his dad cut him out of the will). > > Lester is becoming a villain, too. Granted, he was sorely provoked, but hammering your spouse to death is pretty villainous in my book. Likewise not reporting who killed a cop in your presence. > > The trucking company owner/organized crime figure/former high school bully was pretty clearly a villain. I don’t think he had any redeeming features at all. He, in Texas slang, “needed killin’,” so I give Malvo a pass on that one. > > And the female cop is, it seems, going to become a hero(ine), just as Marge did in the movie. This is all true, but even so, it’s not quite so cleanly split. Sure, Malvo is pretty much a psychopath, but he also appeals in a strange way to the audience - we _want_ him to kill the bully, we laugh when he lies about the will. If he was a real person, we’d be disgusted, but somehow he does all the things that are morally wrong but really entertaining. With Lester, it’s also confusing - in our culture, we’re trained to root for the underdog, and Lester is pretty much the most underdog underdog that ever lived. The bully and Molly are probably the most clearly cut villains/heroines, but even so, when the bully’s sons and wife hear about his death, there’s a little part of the viewer somewhere that feels pity for them. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239/80 "2014-04-19T03:00:49Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > This is all true, but even so, it’s not quite so cleanly split. Sure, Malvo is pretty much a psychopath, but he also appeals in a strange way to the audience - we _want_ him to kill the bully, we laugh when he lies about the will. If he was a real person, we’d be disgusted, but somehow he does all the things that are morally wrong but really entertaining. Maybe that’s why it didn’t quite work for me. There was no part of me that was rooting for Malvo. No part of me that thought any of the murders were in any way sympathetic or remotely justified based on what was presented. Yes, the gas tank and brother beating was clever in its chaotic effect for the sake of chaos. But it wasn’t amusing as a result. Now, I’m ok with a show about villains and don’t requite that they be in some small way redeemed or sympathetic. But if they aren’t I better be damned interested in where the path they’re on. And after one episode I’m not yet. It is mostly my faith in the endorsement of the Coen Brothers that I’m going to give it some time to hook me in that way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fargo-s01e01-open-spoilers/686239.md?page=5)