I was out of town last week, so I 'm just catching up. A couple of random observations on earlier posts:
I disagree that Malvo only kills people who somehow deserve it. For example, the Chief in episode 1 was just doing his job.
I disagree that Lester’s wife was an idiot. Not Mensa material, but just a sweet person who was blinded by love. She had no idea she was supposed to cover for Lester. As far as she knew, neither of them had done anything wrong. And she did give a pretty convincing performance to Molly, once she realized that Lester was trying to hide something.
I agree that Lester turned out to be a total shit by sending her in to get the passports. But I thought it was a very minor plot hole that Malvo just shot her in the back of the head, without saying a word. We know that he likes to play mind games with people, and it’s not in character for him to have shot her, whether or not he thought she was Lester, without saying anything.
Seeing both these examples in the same post draws a couple parallels: Lester’s second wife also didn’t deserve it, and Malvo also said nothing to the Chief. So maybe he doesn’t play mind games with people who don’t deserve to die? Consistent with this would be the three undeserving, non-mindfucked victims in the elevator.
Interesting. I thought the mind-games was totally random, he plays mind-games with people he’s not going to kill (Hess’s sons, the kids in Lester’s old house, etc.) and he certainly kills without the mind games frequently (the whole shoot-up in the crime syndicate HQ, say).
I don’t think he makes judgments about “deserve” to die. He kills, or not, based on either necessity or simply whim at the time.
“Deserve” is too strong a word, but you could say that most of those victims had at least done something they knew was wrong. Lester’s wife lied to Molly once she realized he was covering something up, and the victims in the elevator knew they were breaking the Witness Protection rules. And Malvo did sorta play a mind game with them — not verbally, but IIRC he said something to the effect that it was almost worth it to lose the $100K just to see the look on the dentist’s face before he shot him.
Of course he gets into situations, especially with armed opposition, where there’s no time to indulge himself, but that wasn’t the case with Wife #2. Even if he thought she was Lester, he had an apparently defenseless victim, with nobody around, and he had come 2000 miles to kill him. It just seems hard to believe he wouldn’t say anything to him, or even see his face — he likes to see people afraid and confused.
And if he did know it was Lester’s wife, it seems out of character for him not to destroy her world by telling her what a shit Lester was, before killing her. I think he would have especially enjoyed making it clear to her that Lester had deliberately set her up. In fact, I’ve now talked myself into thinking that he definitely didn’t know it was her, because he would have gotten more satisfaction from telling her about Lester and then leaving her alive.
Oh, one other thing. Somebody said that the scene between Malvo and Molly’s dad in the diner reminded them of another movie. The one it reminded me of was A History of Violence, where Viggo Mortensen was a diner owner who had better instincts for evil than your average diner owner, trying to be polite to a guy who was a walking red flag.
It reminded me somewhat of the coin-flip scene in the gas station in No Country for Old Men, between the station owner and Chigurh. Although Lou was a lot more savvy than the station owner.
I think Malvo sees himself as an evil superhero. He might even be delusional enough to truly believe he is Satan. He wallows in having the power of death as well as life. He occasionally grants the power of life (Gus in the snow, Lester in the elevator) and it supports his self view.
Seeing that some are discussing the origin of Malvo’s name I guess no one has really discovered it yet. My wife hit upon it watching a recent episode. Watch the rating box that appears at the beginning of the show. Mature Audience Language Violence.
So, I suppose one translation might be “bad value” or “poor value”.
But it would be best to find someon whose primary language is French and ask them.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that “Malvo” means “poor value” because of the spelling. If it were spelled “malvaux” then maybe that would be OK. But it’s difficult to say that something with a different spelling can be translated. I tend to doubt that.
Well, no matter what the derivation, the name was clearly chosen to signal to viewers that this was a bad man. If the character had been named “John Jones” we might have been in suspense. But as it was, we knew what to expect from him.