Written By: Noah Hawley
Directed By: Adam Bernstein
Cast: Martin Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton, Allison Tolman, Colin Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Keith Carradine, Adam Goldberg, Russell Harvard, Oliver Platt
Synopsis: Deputy Solverson is starting to suspect Lester Nygaard in the murder of his wife and Sam Hess. Malvo takes on another job.
After last week’s fantastic first episode, the second had a lot to live up to. Luckily this episode didn’t disappoint!
Deputy Solverson has started to link the murders of Sam Hess and Pearl Nygaard with the frozen body from the crash. She knows that the key to finding the mysterious Malvo is Lester Nygaard. Unfortunately for her, new police Chief Olsen,played by Bob Odenkirk of BREAKING BAD fame, thinks it is all a coincidence. He is quite satisfied with Nygaard’s statement and thinks a group of drifters are responsible for the deaths.
However Nygaard is getting awfully twitchy about everything and seems to be crumbling under Solverson’s questioning. Luckily for him, but frustrating for us, Olsen takes Solverson off the case, due to her close friendship with murdered former Chief Vern Thurman.
We are also introduced to two new characters, hired killers, much like Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare’s bumbling characters from the film. Mr Numbers and Mr Wrench have been hired to find Malvo and will stop at nothing to kill him. After kidnapping the wrong man they kill him anyway in a rather horrible way. This time there is no wood chipper, but an ice drill. These guys seem really interesting, Mr Wrench is deaf and communicates with Mr Numbers via sign language which looks cool and seems to give them a bit of an edge.
Colin Hanks’ Officer Gus Grimly is given a better introduction. After his scary encounter with Malvo, we see that he is haunted by his decision to let him go. A subtle coversation with his teenage daughter reitorates that he needs to find him no matter what. I forsee a little private investigation coming up for him.
Malvo has been hired by sleazy supermaket owner Stavros Milos, played by Oliver Platt. Milos is being blackmailed and needs Malvo to make the blackmailer disappear. Malvo has taken on a new identity of a pastor, who is he getting his orders from?
It appears that there is something big going on in Bemidji, bigger than Solverson can ever imagine. Will Chief Olsen ever listen to her? Bob Odenkirk is such a great actor it would be a shame if his character is just the comic idiot. Just like it will be frustrating if Solverson is continuously trying to prove herself.
It is pretty clear that everything will all link together by the end of the series. There us rumours that the main plot of FARGO with be included in this. I’m not sure how, but I’m enjoying this show enough to wait and see.
[usr=4] Fargo is currently airing on Channel 4. Follow our full series blog here!
