Wasn’t he driving Lester’s car at the time? That’s a pretty strong link to two murders.
Personally, I was kind of annoyed by Gus’s stealth approach. He had no way to know for sure when/if Malvo was going to return. The responsible thing would have been to call it in as soon as he spotted the red Beemer.
Yes - but Gus did not know that at the time.
true - and I said the same thing - out loud - however, Malvo would have likely heard it via his scanner - and had Gus called it in while Malvo was out - Malvo likely would have ‘been aware’ of it upon his return and kept on moving or something.
I was pretty impressed with Malvo’s setting of his own leg - <shudder>
Agree 100%.
The only difference it would have made had Gus tried to arrest Malvo the first time would be Gus would have been dead.
When he arrested him the second time he wasn’t Malvo, he was the Rev.
He didn’t know it at the time, but if he had had Malvo’s DL/registration and called it in along with the plates he would have been able to ask Malvo why he was driving Lester’s car. If Fargo PD was, at the time, aware of what was going on in Bimidji, they would have arrested him. Instead, he never ran anything. Malvo spooked him and he let him go. Do you think Molly would have done that if she pulled him over under the same circumstances? IIRC, Gus memorized the plates and ran them later on when he was back at the station.
When he grabbed the rope, I really thought he was going to amputate his lower leg.
Noah Hawley (the writer and producer) pointed out in The Hollywood Reporter that the used car guy was in Lester’s insurance office in the pilot and opted not to buy life insurance. (THR asked about a second season, but he seemed to sidestep the question.)
BTW, usually in movies and TV, the FBI guys are super-competent, often in contrast to the bumbling local cops. I kind of like that they made Key and Peele very ordinary.
Why Gus goes after Malvo alone: another factor. Gus has had prior experience with trying to get backup or help from Bill. Dismal failure. (Hitchcock often has scenes where the protagonists try to get help from the police, and they’re disbelieving and ineffectual. “Yep, that’s a bird alright,” says the sheriff in THE BIRDS.) So Gus thinks that going to the police is useless. Therefore he’s got to try to do something on his own.
What was he going to do, if Malvo came in hale and hearty? I suspect, lie in wait until an unsuspecting ambush. He knew that he couldn’t take Malvo in a “fair” fight.
BTW, all the discussion about what the law would do, what the courts or DA would do… we’ve already seen what they do. Nothing. They’re swayed by the political/friendship relationships, so Lester was always free from inconvenient questioning and Chaz was jailed on trumped-up evidence.
Having killed Malvo, Gus probably didn’t need to say anything except, “I got him.” No one would care in the slightest whether Greedo shot first. Malvo came from trying to kill Lester, from having killed the FBI agents, etc. Bill didn’t know that (presumably), but it don’t matter none. He would have got pats on the back and high praise for ending the situation quickly and neatly (no messy trial needed, no need to collect evidence that would reveal how incompetent Bill and the FBI were.)
I don’t get why the car salesman didn’t bolt the second Malvo was out of the car. That kinda broke credibility, I thought. Taped hands or not, the salesman appears able to operate the vehicle; why not take off?
Fanwank/WAG: Malvo got the car to the end of the driveway, then set him up in the driver’s seat and taped his hands to the wheel. At that point, he couldn’t really do anything ‘funny’. There was no where to go (forest on one side, yard on the other, that would require a very tight U-turn to get back out on to the road) and it would take him a few seconds to shift into reverse to back out.
Basically, if that was the case, if he tried to escape, Malvo would shoot him. Malvo probably promised him that if he played along he could go home, if he tried anything, he’d kill him.
At least that’s a good way to reconcile it in your head. I’m guessing Malvo didn’t set this up three blocks away and say ‘okay, meet me at this address, I’m gonna cut through the forest, and then kill you when we’re done’.
gus knew his father in law was guarding his girl…and Molly had promised to stay at the station…so everyone he loved were out of harm’s way. Gus had been a cop in Duluth, BTW, not Fargo, as some have said.
When he spotted the BMW (and, remember, he was familiar with all the residents on that road by virtue of being their postal delivery guy) he showed more than a little courage by approaching the cabin. More courage than he had ever shown before…maybe more than a normal person would be capable of.
How would he know that Malvo had a scanner? I don’t think he did. But, once he got into the cabin, he could see that Malvo fully intended to return to it – cases, weapons – so he knew if he waited there, he would have a chance to end Malvo once and for all. Calling the police and warning them might inspire a shoot out leading to Malvo lamming it without his cache of goodies…and with a bunch of people dead.
Sorry to say, people did die because Gus didn’t call in the information. Two FBI philosophers.
Someone else alluded to the trail of bodies that happened after Gus had a chance to confront Malvo in Duluth…and I can forgive him those because he actually helped arrest Malvo and had to bite his tongue when Malvo was released.
too sleepy to continue
I thought it was a total dud.
Clever detective work to prove Lester’s guilt? No, a confession tape appears in plain view.
Exciting final confrontation with Lester? He drowns while being chased by strangers.
Explanation for why Malvo didn’t just shoot Lester in the elevator? He just wanted to shoot him a week later.
Interest climax to conflict between Molly and her dumb chief? No.
How does Gus redeem himself? Cold-blooded murder.
They say writers should plan the ending before starting a project. I doubt it happened here.
(Don’t get me wrong. I love Coen Brothers, and liked Fargo Season 1. But Episode 10 was extremely disappointing.)
But it was pretty clear that there WAS no evidence, just Molly’s suspicion. And it was also clear that the incompetent police force wasn’t able to deal with evidence anyhow.
This was consistent with Lester’s behavior all the way along. He thought he could run/hide/deny/avoid being questioned and that it would all just go away. He was always skating on thin ice, I think this was a great symbolic representation of his life since Malvo.
I thought it was pretty clear that Malvo thought Lester was going to join him, be a henchman, learn the trade. When Lester fled rather than help with the clean-up, Malvo knew he had to kill the eyewitness.
I don’t know how much “interest” there could be, the choices are few. I thought it was telling that the chief didn’t admit to his own incompetence, but to an inability for his world-view to encompass such evil. And we had seen that earlier, he was able to handle snow-emergencies well, he just had no clue what to do with murder cases.
While that might not be exciting on its own, I think they did a great job of building up suspense leading to that confrontation. I thought it was well-done, and I can’t think of another ending that would be as satisfying.
On the contrary, I think it was well-planned. I love the bit that Dewey Finn discovered, that the car salesman was in the office in episode #1 declining life insurance. I think that the resolution was absolutely consistent with the characters and build-up all along.
I don’t think Malvo intended to take on Lester as a protege- I think he was just going to have Lester help dispose of the bodies and then kill Lester to tie up all the loose ends. He’d already done almost exactly that before, with the personal trainer and the car salesman.
I don’t remember if it was mentioned how she died (or left). When Molly’s father was talking to Malvo in the coffee shop, he talked about a killing spree in Sioux Falls in 1979. Later, on the porch with Gus’ daughter she asked if he had ever sat guard like that before. His reply was something like ‘once, in 1979. Your step-mother was four years old, asleep inside’. She asked if he came that night and he said no, he came a few days later.
Just to nitpick, remember this is set in Jan 2006. I doubt a small town middle aged man would have had a facebook profile up. [googling]Facebook wasn’t opened to the general public until Sept 2006.[/googling] eta: For some reason I thought Malvo heard Gus’ daughter on their personal walkie talkie. Not sure if I am remembering right though.
When my wife and I watch Fargo, she’s sitting there playing games on her tablet and only half paying attention, so I’m constantly commenting on things she misses. Last episode, when Lester was going through Chazz’s box of hunting gear, I saw the bear trap and said “There’s a bear trap in that box. That’ll be important.” Then in the final episode when we saw Lester carrying the box upstairs I said “Remember, there’s a bear trap in there.” Then as Malvo was walking into the bedroom with clothes strewn all over the floor I yelled “Bear trap!” Snap!
And I agree with the others who said Malvo coming back to life after he’d been shot was scary as hell. I was yelling “Go for the head!”
And Gus didn’t know how to power up his daughter’s PC. He used a PC at work, but not at home.
That’s good point, but still, it’s not all that difficult to figure out he had a daughter, even without a scanner. A good cop should have either brushed that off as a lucky guess or arrested him for making a threat against an officer (or whatever the violation would be).
Ah, that’s why he looked familiar. Karma being a bitch and all that.
I thoroughly enjoyed the finale and have no problem with unanswered questions. All the speculation about what would have happened in court, etc., reminds me of people I’ve known who, at the end of the punchline of a joke, always ask “And then what happened?”
Except that I don’t think Malvo killed the used car guy. When Lester looked out the window in the last episode both the used car and the FBI car were missing from his driveway. (And actually I think the corpses of the FBI agents were missing as well, so Malvo might have removed them.)
Yep, he dragged them behind the woodpile in the backyard.