Thanks. Never noticed him before.
There are a number of character actors whose presence in a project is a pretty reliable indicator of the project’s being worth viewing. Wigham is one of them. (This because reputable producers and directors like to hire people who can act, of course.)
I’m enjoying this stage of the mini-series; the court-room stuff is being well handled, with the exception pointed out by Elendil_s_Heir (of actors being placed so as to obscure the view of the jury members).
I now see that Wigham played a chauvinistic jerk of a Minnesota sheriff in S3 of Fargo. I didn’t know who he was at the time.
We know Della, Perry , Drake , and Burger survive. Unless they want to change it from the TV series. I guess Drake quits or he could be fired.
Another great episode – getting better and better, and can’t wait for the finale.
SPOILERS for the latest episode:
Near as I can tell, this is the most likely explanation for the baby “miracle” – Alice is at least partially a true believer, and she really thought she was going to resurrect the baby. Her mother is a cynic and a con artist, and she knew her daughter couldn’t… but once the announcement was made, she scrambled to make it possible. She dug up the baby’s body and probably burned the remains, leaving the casket empty (like Jesus’ tomb, since she couldn’t leave a live baby in a casket for days), and somehow acquired a baby, arranging for it to be left or placed on Virgil St (or wherever they ended up). And maybe Alice is finally tired of her mother’s bullshit.
We also learned what happened to the baby and why he was kidnapped.
Right.
But there are still some mysteries – was Alice or her mother involved? I think Alice was not, but her mother may have been. How much does the DA know, and if he knows the truth, why does he want to cover it up? Is he involved? Is the judge wholly on the take, or just partially, or does he just naturally favor the prosecution?
If S1 ends without Ennis being confronted on the stand I will be disappointed.
It looks like the baby switch theory is off the table, but if Alice’s mom was somehow able to dig up the body without anybody noticing the grave was disturbed, I’m certainly not liking that explanation. I’m just wondering if the body was taken out before burial to avoid any kind of toxicology testing. And is the suture thread itself no longer an investigative topic?
Another thing; what is the status of the baby’s father? Is he being tried separately? Because he really was guilty of something and yet the entire trial is about the one person who was wholly innocent.
I don’t see the need to make Burger gay. I guess we are to think her mother let Alice be raped as a child when they had no money?
I can never figure out how spoilers are supposed to work in this thread, but in any case, yes, that’s what we are supposed to think. that was an effectively creepy scene given how friendly and helpful the guy seemed at first.
What was he guilty of? He wasn’t part of the kidnapping plot. He’s just as innocent as Emily.
I did roll my eyes a bit that of course when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, the one person who passes by just happens to be a pedophile.
Oh, and a baby that nurses once from a woman while she’s high on heroin will suffocate? Is that a thing? That doesn’t sound remotely medically accurate…
I also wondered about the historical accuracy of making a Chinese woman (albeit a Californian woman) a Heroin addict (capitalized 'cause it’s a brand name…). I thought that in the mid-war period opium smoking was still popular in the Chinese community.
In any case, no, people in Heroin withdrawal don’t suffocate. Worst case, they dehydrate.
Anyone: was the ‘suffocation’ inherited from the book?
Also, if I had been sisters mother, I would have just gone with the empty grave: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: " (Luke 24:5-6)
I imagine the baby’s issue wouldn’t have been withdrawal, but overdosing.
If we’re just understanding the cause of death now, doesn’t that mean that no autopsy was ever performed? That seems really unlikely in a murder case.
Most people who die of heroin, die of suffocation. Essentially they just stop breathing. The baby’s death seems very plausible.
With respect to the autopsy, I’m just assuming the coroner saw the suffocation and assumed it was asphyxiation, and did not do toxicology.
I do have to say I was very confused at the crowd becoming angry when the casket was empty. That seemed exactly, as someone noted, like the resurrection.
I also agree with the comment that it was a little over the top to have the one Good Samaritan be a predator. It’s part and parcel of the series enjoying rubbing our noses in pretty much anything.
I thought the father staged the kidnapping to cover his gambling debts. Or was that just the theory that the police had to explain the crime?
I think when they outlined this episode, it was: “casket is empty. Chaos ensues”. But they went a bit over the top.
Following up on the language discussion from last week: describing the deceased prostitute as a “hop-head” is maybe the only purely 1930’s slang they’ve used so far.
That was the theory at the time. It now seems that the kidnapping involved church leaders, to cover the church’s debts.
I think there were two groups of fanatics at the cemetery – the pro-Alice and anti-Alice fanatics, and violence/chaos was pretty much inevitable.
One thing I’ve noticed, the 30’s LAPD is terrible at crowd control.