I’m surprised. I thought the show was coming to a climax in a very few days; instead nothing happens for a year.
It seems like they’re were trying to show us that a lot of nothing happened for a year. Chaz is in jail, Molly’s been nagging Bill non stop, Key and Peele are still in the file room. Everyone that has anything to do with Lester killing his wife is up against a wall…but now it’s about to come to a head when Molly meets K&P.
Also, near the end I was 99% sure that was Jimmy James (Stephan Root) in the background. Upon seeing the previews, it was. Between him and K&P, I really hope they keep the show serious, or at least dark. That’ll be three people that are much more known for comedy.
ETA, when they first skipped ahead a year and we saw Gus delivering mail and Molly pregnant, I thought maybe they were just showing us a dream. What Gus was hoping his life would be like if his date went well.
It’s interesting to note that a climax to a story might well occur after a year of nothing happens. There are several reasons why that might happen. But I don’t know the reason and might just make a few guesses instead.
I’m interested in the two stories that may be related somehow. The first is about the Sudanese kid (Tahir) who stole food every day for 3 months and was finally grabbed by Bill the partial fool.
The second is about the investigation into the original murders and how nothing was done for a year when the authorities obviously had the wrong man. In real life, this would not make for any story at all. But within the limits of this movie, the audience knows the wrong man is in jail and they fully expect that story to come to some kind of resolution. It’s just not acceptable for nothing to ever happen and for the story to remain unresolved. Movies are different from real life in that way.
But what is the connection between these two stories about long lapses? I really don’t know and can only make a few guesses. The showrunner would never show us these two stories - one right after the other - if there was no connection between them.
Maybe the deaf hit man will reconnect with Bill and his African kid (“ta hear”) who can hear and maybe some fluke of nature could occur that would break up this log jam. I know the odds are very low. But it doesn’t have to make sense to happen in this story.
I was very surprised to see that Molly would marry Gus and that Gus would somehow lose his police job and become a mail man. I can’t believe that Molly is really very happy or proud of her husband. But I could be wrong. Maybe Molly is smart enough to realize that Gus is simply not cut out to be a cop and maybe she doesn’t care because she loves him for other reasons - specifically because of his “goodness”. That would make Molly a higly exceptional lady. But of course, we already knew that about Molly. If that is true, I would feel happy and proud for Molly.
Another interesting puzzle is about Lester. Is he a wimp or isn’t he a wimp and was there a transition?
In the first episode, we are shown that Lester is a wimp and is easily bullied by Sam Hesse. But then, when he is cornered in the Insurance company office, he is not at all wimpy.
So, what happened? Is the presence of a pretty lady all that it took to convert Les from wimp to anti-wimp?
Also, in that scene in the office, did you notice the split second appearance of Les’s boss? The pretty lady did not fade away. If the two boys had started to beat on Les, I’m sure she would have joined in to help Les. But as for his boss? I think he would have disappeared right quick.
So, what is going on with Les? Is he a wimp? Or a hero?
Someone who murders his wife is not a hero.
Lester is a murderer and perjurer, having framed his own brother for a murder he committed himself.
Took me by surprise too.
Considering the time gone by, I’m curious how Lester reacts to his glimpse of Malvo.
Yes of course you are correct.
My inclination is to try and back peddle my way out of that but it seems there would be little point to that.
Of course Molly realizes he isn’t cut out to be a cop - the guy shot her! The point is that she loves him and realized that he was simply in the wrong job for him. I figure Molly as a supremely well-grounded woman who would be proud of her husband most of all for the fact that he was a good father.
A couple of episodes back, Gus and Molly were talking in the coffee shop and he admitted he never wanted to be a cop, he always wanted to be a mailman. But he applied for a job with the police because a friend told him they were hiring and he needed a job, but he never expected to actually get hired.
I saw Stephen Root’s name in the credits but don’t remember seeing him in the episode. Did he have a speaking part or was he just in the background somewhere?
Is it possible that he lost a lot of weight and he was the FBI management type that took those two agents to the file room? I will look again later.
I just watched the episode again (but I didn’t check for Stephen Root yet).
I got a good laugh from the police chief (Bill the Doofus) telling the story with Tahir - the part when Tahir talked about the nice lady who gave him some money for a coat and a bus trip. It’s as if Bill figures Tahir was fully redeemed because of this lady. He says, “So. It’s not all bad. Huh?” That was the thing that got Bill’s attention?
After losing his family, his tribe and spending all that time in freezing Minnesota and stealing food, a lady gives him a coat and bus fare and Bill acts as if he found heaven.
At one time I thought we saw some evidence that Bill was not a total fool. But now I’m pretty sure he must be very close.
And the co-incidence that Bill would be walking through a food store in another city and see a black man in Western clothes but be able to recognize him as the kid who was coming to stay with his family after - presumably - the only photos Bill had previously seen of him would have been in African garb. The odds of that happening would have been unimaginable.
Maybe like the odds that Lester would be in a diff city and see Malvo? I wonder if we will ever be shown some relation between these two events?
Frankly, I’m surprised Bill didn’t arrest Tahir for shoplifting after he admitted to it or maybe that was the reason that Bill “grabbed” him?
Criminals must be thinking they’re in paradise in Fargo (that is where Bill lives, isn’t it?).
I’m sorry for using the word “hero”. That was totally inappropriate and I’m sorry. I should have instead just asked whether Lester was going to buckle under to those two kids or whether he was going to stand up to them.
In any case, Lester’s future wife certainly did seem to be impressed with him. I think she told him that he was “wonderful” or words to that effect. But of course, the truth is that he was a murderer and a perjurer. There is no getting away from that.
For anyone interested in the dramatists covert intention, this episode was called “The Heap”:
eta: actually, maybe the Wikipedia entry is more accessible: Sorites paradox - Wikipedia
The Paradox of the Heap (a logical paradox)
A single grain of sand is not a heap; that’s obvious. A heap is a collection of things, you need several things to make it up.
The concept of a heap is fuzzy, though; there’s no precise number that marks the difference between heaps and non-heaps. It’s not as though 37 grains of sand aren’t a heap but 38 are. Defining precisely how many things one needs in order to have a heap is impossible.
This is what gives rise to the paradox of the heap (also called the “Sorites paradox”, sorites being the Greek word for heap).
Suppose that we have a collection of a million grains of sand. That is absolutely, definitely, undeniably a heap.
Because there is no precise number that separates heaps from non-heaps, removing a single grain of sand from a heap will never turn it into a non-heap. If you have a heap of sand, and you take away a single grain, then you still have a heap.
If you have a heap of a million grains of sand, though, and repeatedly take away a single grain of sand, doing so 999,999 times, then what do we have at the end of the process? Is it a heap or not?
Taking away a single grain of sand cannot turn a heap into a non-heap. We had a heap of sand at that beginning of the process. All we did was take away single grains of sand. Therefore what we have at the end of this process can only be a heap.
What we have at end of the process, though, is a single grain of sand, and, as we said at the beginning, a single grain of sand is obviously not a heap. The single grain, then, both is and is not a heap.
When Bill introduces Tahir to Molly, Tahir says he is from a place in The Sudan that sounds a lot like “Rassport” or “Lassport” or something like that.
Does anyone here know what the might have meant?
I looked up a list of the largest cities and other geographic names in The Sudan but found nothing like that.
Sudan: States, Major Cities, Towns & Agglomeration - Population Statistics, Maps, Charts, Weather and Web Information (I didn’t check this one too carefully)
The time jump took me by surprise. When Gus and Molly were on the phone and the camera panned away from Gus, I was expecting something terrible to happen, like Malvo would come out of the woods, not that the show would time jump.
Martin Freeman is amazing on this show. He’s done so well showing Lester go from the meek put-upon guy at the beginning, to the creep he is now.
Yeah, it seems like the smart thing for Lester to do would be to avoid Malvo. Malvo is the one person who knows the bad things that Lester has done. But I’m guessing Lester will want to show off to Malvo about how great he is now, and how he’s become an alpha male. (Also I guess they needed to run back into each other before the show ended. If I’m remembering correctly, they haven’t been together since episode 1.)
He was at Malvo’s table in Vegas. I’m guessing we’ll see him more in the next episode.
Pretty sure he said “Lost Boys” as in The Lost Boys of Sudan.
Eh, I just don’t buy that Lester could get out of his confrontation with Mrs. Hess and her sons that easily. She said, within earshot of his boss and his Asian coworker, that she’d repeatedly had sex with him, and was surprised and angry to learn that the insurance company wasn’t going to pay her. And after he stapled her two moron sons, she left far too quickly/meekly.
Freeman did a good job as a more confident, dynamic Lester (he even changed his hair!), but I also didn’t buy that beautiful women - Chazz’s estranged wife, the Asian coworker, the brunette in the hotel bar - would be so instantly smitten with him.
Wonder if we’ll see the supermarket king again, or is that plotline entirely closed? And will the deaf hitman indeed come looking for Malvo again? (Loved the scene of them in the hospital room).
They are indeed, but this is a TV show.
And also for Malvo’s murder of the police chief. Has Lester said anything under oath? He’s a liar, sure, but not a perjurer.
Me, too. When it read “One year later” I said “What?!?!?” And Molly’s expecting - another pregnant woman in a police uniform, just like in the original Fargo.
Yes, as the preview showed.
Exactly. And there are a lot of them in Minnesota, I’ve read.
“Hero” may not have been the correct word but you don’t need to apologize…the nagging b**** deserved it.
Prediction: Deaf guy took the kids bag cuz something had been smuggled into the country inside it without his knowing. Malvo wants it too and Bill wants to get it back for the kid which gets the gang all back together again.
I doubt it. I bet it’ll just turn out to have been a meaningless (to the plot, at least) story.