Well, it looks like Lester has a plan!
Was the real estate guy someone? I didn’t recognize him, but he sounded really familiar.
Lester always has a plan and he’s really relying on Just Call Saul to help put the plan into motion. One tiny little shred of evidence and Chaz is locked up. The mountain of circumstatial evidence against Lester should more then outweigh the hammer.
Also, as we discussed last week, there’s no reason Chaz’ house should have been searched just because the kid brought a gun to school. Suspend the kid, sure. Call CPS, whatever. But I’m pretty sure that was an illegal search and seizure, I think they really bent the rules on that one.
Also, did the chief say “3 murders in 2 days, including the cheif”? That means in Fargo time, Lester murdered his wife yesterday, that doesn’t sound right. I got the feel we’re about 2-3 weeks out at this point.
Wow! Very, very powerful episode.
Yes, there are a lot of unrealistic elements. But I don’t care too much. They don’t destroy the show and so I’m certainly willing to accept them in return for a great show.
Wow! Most powerful episode yet!
Glad to see that Molly’s doing well, but disappointed that the episode was a little shorter than the first six. The TV news mentioned that the fish were pulled out of the lake by a tornado but no mention of the car crash and loss of life.
Enjoyed seeing Lester get it on with Hess’s wife though.
Cleaning service hung up on Lester when he said there was a lot of blood to be cleaned up. 
These have been all over the board from an hour six to, I think, an hour and (maybe) eighteen minutes. They’re really going to have to lop off a lot of material when they put them into syndication and have to knock them down to 50 or 60 minutes. I haven’t noticed a whole lot of filler. There isn’t even an excess of commercials.
Ya know what, they’re going to have to go the other way and syndicate them as 1:30 with extra commercials. Normally I think that would be an issue, but for a (hopefully really good) mini series, they should be okay. A regular network probably won’t take it. I’m going to guess that either FX will keep the syndication rights or Netflix (or Hulu or Amazon) will buy them.
I don’t think he meant in the last three days. Just that they had three murders (Sam Hess, Lester’s wife, Police Chief) in two days which is highly unusual for a town like Bemidji. The murders were definitely a few weeks back at this point in the story.
Rethinking what I said, I’m sure he meant that they had one murder one day (Sam) and two murders the next day (the wife and the chief). That would be three murders in two days.
I wish new chief would have said "and I can’t help but to think they’re related. That would have shown some real character development. Maybe even added on “…I know you and Sam have always had your differences” That would have told us that he’s starting to listen to Molly and even if he doesn’t beleive a word she’s saying, he could test her theory (which she did at his office with the picture of Malvo) that if you put some pressure on him he’ll start squirming. If he hadn’t seen Sam since high school, bringing up that name shouldn’t mean anything, but if he had an altercation with him and then had him killed (kinda), he’s going to start doing his thing that’s he’s become pretty well known for doing on this show. New chief will probably notice how he suddenly changes from the Lester he’s always known to this new George Costanza like person.
This was a good episode, although obviously not as big as the last one, since I don’t know if anything could be. I guess it’s kinda resetting as the show builds up again for the finale.
Glad to see that Molly is alive. Molly was great this entire episode, especially when talking to the deaf guy, and at the end after she found out Chaz was arrested.
We might have seen the real estate guy in the previous episode where Malvo called in to headquarters and got his assignment, but I don’t remember if that was who Malvo talked to on the phone then.
You’re right about the stuff with Chaz is not quite kosher. His house shouldn’t have been searched, and I would think a half-decent lawyer could get the charges dropped.
I really like Bill, the new police chief. He’s not a bad cop or chief, but these are the types of things no one has had to deal with in that area before. The last episode with the storm showed that Bill was good at handling the preparations for that. He’s probably good at other usual cop things- arrangements for parades and other street closures, dealing with rowdy people from bars or hockey games, smaller crimes like breaking and entering. But all the murders, including the former police chief, he’s way out of his depth. He might realize the truth about Lester, but it’ll take some pretty big evidence.
I wish they had handcuffed his other arm. The way things were set up, he could have grabbed at her. OTOH, maybe they did that on purpose. She’s proven herself to be very, very calm in these situations. That just went to show that even half doped up (and I know he was too) that she wasn’t scared.
I just mean in general. He just sounded familiar, who was he, IRL?
While that’s true, the damage has already been done. For example, if the cops walk past your house and decide that they think there’s people smoking pot in there and just come barging in, it’s illegal. Anything they find during that illegal search wouldn’t be allowed in court. However, it would be really hard to look past the dead body or the rape that was going on or the murder weapon that they’ve been trying to find for two weeks. If they did happen to find some people smoking weed in the bedroom upstairs, they’d probably get off though.
One more thing that I keep meaning to mention. I really didn’t like Key and Peele. That took me out of the show. When I saw one of them I was okay, but both of them together made me feel like it was the beginning of a sketch. It didn’t help when one of them said “Uh, maybe we should back up and pretend like we just got here”. Was it supposed to be like a K&P sketch. All the murder and mayhem going on and they didn’t even notice it?
Oh, maybe it was Brian Jensen? I’m not sure though, I don’t remember his character name.
That’s true about it would be hard for the cops to ignore the murder weapon and other evidence they found, regardless of how or why they were looking. And Chaz was acting suspicious, even though that was because he didn’t want them to find the big giant gun in the hidden backspace of the gun locker. There’s just no telling what will happen to Chaz now.
Key and Peele did stand out a bit. That definitely could have been a sketch from their show. I don’t know if they’ll be showing up again, but if they do, maybe they’ll be fleshed out more and fit in the show better.
I agree. We’ve disagreed about the unrealistic parts of The Americans, because IMO that show sets out to be realistic. But Fargo is clearly part fantasy, so I’m much more willing to go with the flow.
I’ve been trying to think of another show Fargo reminds me of with respect to the fantasy elements, and it finally came to me: 666 Park Avenue, a show I liked that was cancelled after just a few episodes, a couple of years ago. It was more overt in its supernatural elements, but Malvo would have fit right in.
He reeled her in quite well with his line about being the insde help she would need to collect on her claim - which we know has already been denied. Was she a high school classmate like most of the other characters (Sam, Bill and Lester) or just a trophy wife?
I really enjoyed the look on Lesters face as he was pounding away to his grand finale!
She was a trophy wife. I think she told the story to Lester the previous time- she was a dancer or stripper at a club, maybe in Vegas? Hess came in and was a big spender, and she didn’t realize that she’d end up in the frozen wasteland.
Lester is an interesting character. He went really quickly from doing what he could for survival to taking advantage of people for his own gain and for spite. Walter White could justify many of his terrible actions as saying its for the family. They were bullshit justifications, but still justifications. Lester doesn’t have that at all, he’s becoming more like Lorne Malvo.
No, because his wife let them in and gave the permission. She was royally pissed, and fully willing to believe that Chaz had given their child a gun. There was a sense that Chaz wasn’t going to make bail any time soon.
I am willing to admit you have every right to choose exactly where an individual show will set their boundary for realism vs non-realism.
I think you contribute some fine posts and I hope that next year we will be able to come closer on issues involved in The Americans.
Oops.
I said, “will set their boundary”.
I meant to say, “should set their boundary”.
Loved the sequence with Malvo going on the killing spree - very interesting portrayal. And it was really odd seeing Key and Peele as the FBI agents!
She didn’t let them in OR give them permission. She opened the door, new chief flashed a piece of paper (presumably a search warrant) in her face and they all marched in. No words were exchanged during that scene.
That means that someone (a judge, right?) authorized a search of the house based on the kid having a gun in his backpack. WRT, see what I said previously. What were they hoping to find?
If it’s well known in the community that she was hammered to death, maybe Lester should have put the bloody hammer/pictures/underwear in the backpack.
The gun really screamed “plot device”.