One of the more surprising things about the Peak TV era we’re living in right now, with prestige dramas littering our cable guides, is that prior to last night, no show had set the major events of its season in motion using a bloody waffle-related massacre that ended with a hit-and-run and possible UFO sighting. I mean, just going by the law of averages, you’d figure someone would have stumbled across it by now. One thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters, etc. etc. etc.
But nope, it took Fargo to make that happen, back for a second season with an all-new cast and a plot about two crime organizations dipping their toes into war. It feels right, though, this waffle-massacre situation, if only because I don’t think another show — say, Mad Men or Masters of Sex — could have pulled it off with quite the same panache. (Bug spray, Bible quotes, and so on.) It really had to be Fargo. Welcome back.
Beyond just providing with us our first waffle massacre of television’s golden age, the season premiere of Fargo’s second season mostly went about putting the all its new chess pieces on the board. Players include:
The Gerhardt crime family
Previously led by patriarch Otto Gerhardt, who suffered a stroke in the middle of threatening to grind someone’s bones, as one does. Now led by one of (or some combination of) the following: Matriach Floyd, eldest son Dodd (who, as portrayed by Jeffrey Donovan, won me over forever with his pronunciation of “You kiddin’ me?” moments into the episode), and large son Bear.
The Kansas City Crime Syndicate
One of many nice touches in the premiere was the way the audience was introduced to the Kansas City mob. Whereas the Gerhardts were shown sitting around the family dinner table for their meeting, Kansas City was first seen in what looked like a gray, mind-numbing conference room (the kind you’d see in any gray, mind-numbing office building) where Brad Garrett was giving a very businesslike, middle-manager-y slideshow presentation to his superiors. We’ve heard from the beginning that this season would pit a mom-and-pop crime family against a more Wal-Mart/corporate one, and I don’t know if the show could have set that up any better.
The cops
Led here by Lou Solverson (our only carryover from season one, save a very young, pajama-wearing Molly Solverson) and his father-in-law Hank Larsson. We’ll get to Lou in much greater detail as the season progresses, but I think this would be a good opportunity to make two points about Hank: One, there are not enough lawmen — fictional or real-life, I imagine — whose first reaction to a bloody murder scene in a diner is “Well, this is a deal.” Two, there’s something remarkable about Ted Danson playing law enforcement officials on two different shows in October 2015, especially because one of them features him as a folksy, bearded Midwestern sheriff in 1979 and the other features him using a Roomba to investigate murderous computer hackers. Big month for Danson.
The Blomquists, Peggy and Ed
There is something very Nygaard-y about Peggy Blomquist. The similarities between her and Lester are numerous: They’re both seemingly polite, fair-haired Midwesterners who quickly find themselves in the position of trying to cover up a homicide, and in doing so reveal a very, very dark streak. But there are differences there, too. Lester, as you may recall, bonked his wife on the head with a hammer, killing her and sending him down a dangerous path with one Lorne Malvo. Peggy smashed a stranger with her car, went about pretending it didn’t happen (and pretending the stranger wasn’t bloodied and dead or dying in her garage), then left the dirty work of finishing things off to her sweet, sad-sack husband. Which brings us to this week’s discussion question: Would you rather be dead or forced to murder a stranger by your spouse? Please send your answer in by mail or telegraph.
All of which is to say this: Aaaaaaand we’re off. This looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Other observations:
• That black-and-white flashback to the fictional set of an old Ronald Reagan film — remember, Bruce Campbell will be appearing as Reagan this season, because Fargo loves you dearly — was a heck of a way to start, wasn’t it? I’m not sure if it’ll tie back to anything or not (and a big part of me hopes it does not, making it just a crazy fever dream of a scene), but it sure was fun.
• A big shoutout to whoever selected the music for this season. When you do that right, it can add so much to a show, and Fargo definitely did it right in the season premiere.
• We only met Rye Gerhardt briefly before he went to the great, snow-covered tundra in the sky, but I feel like we got a pretty good grasp on him. It says a lot about a guy that he was tying his future to typewriters on the verge of the personal computer revolution.
• In conclusion, let’s go ahead and award the Episode 1 MVP to Nick Offerman for his brief appearance as a conspiracy-touting anti-government bingo-hall patron, thanks mainly to his use of the phrase “dipshit pissant” and his beard. It’s a very good beard. I look forward to seeing more of it.
