When it ended, with that familiar haunting tune playing out
the image of Gus, Molly and Greta watching Deal or No Deal, I was not sad that
the miniseries was over. I was overjoyed, I was ecstatic, that it happened. It
never should have worked. You don’t need me tell you that, the internet, ahead
of its premier, told you that. Here was a beloved movie, one of the more
famous, and most unique films made by one of our generations most beloved
filmmaking duos. It was a film that was famous for its peculiarity, its odd
sense of timing, rhythm and scene. There was no way to copy it. They didn’t
copy it. They took its world and made it all its own, and somehow just as good.
Noah Hawley did it. He took Fargo, changed all the characters, the motives, the
violence, the story, the plot, but made it something just as special. Fargo,
the TV series, will never get the acclaim the movie got, but even had it never
tied itself to the iconic film, it deserves just as much. That was incredible
television.
There is a strange, but ultimately nice, movement in TV
happening, a shift, really, back to the days of the Anthology format. One
season, one story, one cast. Next year, all new people, all new stories, all
new cast. The most obvious recent example was True Detective. Now, I realize that American Horror Story has been doing this for years, but few shows
in recent memory have ever gotten the publicity in its first season than True Detective did. It became a
phenomenon I was not expecting. It really fit all the marks for being a great
show, but also took advantage of every part of the anthology format. First, it
allowed viewers to know that the story was going to end in full form in this
season. It wouldn’t drag, because it couldn’t drag. Also, it allowed a tv show
to have Hollywood-caliber stars work it. You can’t get Matthew McCaughnahey to
do a television show for four seasons. But one season? Sure. You can get him
and Woody Harrelson. True Detective
was a great show. It launched this anthology trend. Fargo, however, was better. That was a perfect season of
television.
I like the movie Fargo
a lot. I find it, aside from The Big
Lebowski to be the Coen brother’s most lovable and re-watchable movie. The
cast of characters, the weird accent that doesn’t really exist, the strange ‘true
story’ of it all allowing for absolutely pointless, but lovable scenes (like
where Marge meets Mr. Nagarita). Fargo
is brilliant. The TV show? About as good. I’m shocked really that someone could
have taken something so unique and done it well without pandering to everything
that made the movie great. No, Fargo
the tv show was good on its own, it holds up if you’ve never seen the movie,
but it also holds up brilliantly if you have. Noah Hawley, the
writer/creator/Don of Fargo is a
genius, and this was his magnum opus.
What I loved the most about Fargo wasn’t the incredible performance of Billy Bob Thornton in becoming
the brilliant character that was Lorne Malvo, a bad guy that was deserving of
everything True Detective pretended
what ‘The Yellow King’ was. It wasn’t Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard (which was
so hilariously close to the name Jerry Lyndegaard), or even Molly Solverson
(brilliant name), no it was the 20 characters that came after. Some didn’t make
it through the show, like Mr. Numbers and Mr. Wrench, or the hot single Israeli
woman who was tempting Gus, or Mrs. Hess. Some were comically disconnected to
the events of the season finale, like the whole side-plot with Stavros Milos,
his idiot son, Glenn Howerton’s brilliantly-stupid Don Munch, and the plagues.
That was a side-plot worthy of a Coen brother’s movie. The whole show was.
Brilliant character after brilliant character, all distinct and well-formed and
all with a place in a weird world that was Minnesota.
Fargo, for 10 brilliant hours, was just a beautiful story
that was told and sold brilliantly. Every actor bought into the little quirks
in their characters. Martin Freeman probably had the hardest role to play, going
from a whipped husband to evil strategist (his thought process to ‘escape’ and
pin his new wife’s murder on Malvo was brilliant if not successful), and he was
so good. That accent even was so well played, as he did it slightly more subtlety
than William H. Macy did on the movie. Billy Bob was awesome, as we all know,
but how good was Allison Tolman as Molly. She also had to play essentially the
analogue of one of the most loved character from the movie in Marge, and she
sold it well and made that character her own.
The story was just as good though. Because of the length, it
had the time to go far farther than the movie went. It became a real character
study about how good and how evil people can be, and if evil is a product of
situation (Lester) or innate personality and lifestyle (Malvo). It was about
two hunts, the one was obvious, Molly knowing that Lester has a role to play in
the murder of his wife and Mr. Hess and fighting her life to find out how, and
then the one that was forgotten halfway through but brought back with Gus
making up for the fact that he let a murderer drive away. The story went
through so many interesting turns as well, like poking into religion and karma
with the Stavros plot, or family archetypes with Gus, Greta and Molly. It wasn’t
as surface as The Wire and not as
brilliant either, but few things came as close in such a limited package.
I don’t know if the show will come back. Noah Hawley has
said he’ll do another season if he can come up with an idea that is as good. He
waited years to get his version of Fargo on air. He finally got his chance and
nailed it completely. In a way, I don’t want it to come back. It won’t be the
same characters, and it, sadly, won’t be as good. That was too perfect. Contrast
to True Detective which I want to
come back. I liked it less, but I want to see if Nic Pizzolatto can do it again
with a new cast. I want to see if the success of that show was more about the
setting, the camera-work, the ridiculous mysticism that amounted to far less,
or the amazing performances of McCaughnahey and Harrelson. For Fargo? I don’t care what made it so
good, all I care about was that it was. It was a perfect little ‘mini-series’
in its purest form. I don’t want to know anything more. The story was told, the
characters came and left and made a lasting impression. He accomplished what he
set out to, take an enduring piece of American Film in the movie Fargo, alter it just enough, enhance and
change enough things, and repackage it is something different but no less
awesome.
Mini-Series, or more aptly, Anthology-Shows may be a
recurring trend in the future of television. It makes sense. It allows you to
tell self-contained stories, it removes issues about serial nature of shows or
making sure people get continuity. It allows shows to capture big stars for a
year and getting performances that are rare on TV in terms of rawness and size.
There are so many great ways that Anthology Series have enhanced TV viewing. The
thing is Fargo just perfected all of
them. It told a self-contained story that doesn’t have to go any further. It is
rare I’ve seen a show finish and not ask ‘what next?’. Sure, the fact that I
know what could be next won’t be about these people, but I don’t want to know.
I just want to watch it again. Nothing felt so good than hearing the familiar
strains of the movie’s defining score play us out to black, or in this case
white, and thinking, “Man, that was awesome,” and knowing and not caring that
nothing more will happen. Nothing more needs to happen.
