No one was expecting that a 2014 crime drama set to air on FX that was loosely-based on by a 1995 Coen brothers’ film, but with none of the stars, characters, or Coens involved would become what it has. Yet somehow, creator and showrunner Noah Hawley expertly crafted his TV adaptation of Fargo, and made a smart, compelling crime drama that utilizes the same blood-splattered snowscape aesthetic, with the harsh, binding winter a sharp contrast to the warm-hearted friendliness of (most of) the towns’ residents. Though it does downplay the accents quite a bit.
With the second season set to premiere tonight with a prequel story set in 1979, we took a look at some of the homages, callbacks, and Easter eggs littered throughout the show’s first season.
The bleak opening, complete with disclaimer
The movie opens with a shot of Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) hauling a tan Cutlass Ciera to Fargo, where he carries out plans to fake his wife’s kidnapping. The cold, harsh conditions on screen are accompanied by a stirring orchestral score and an unusual disclaimer that states the movie is based on a true story, and the events therein unfold “exactly as they occurred.” The show pays homage to this during the opening of its first episode, complete with the disclaimer, which ran word-for-word (aside from the year in which it takes place) before every episode of the first season.
Jerry Lundegaard/Lester Nygaard
Jerry Lundegaard is a disheveled, barely competent sales manager at a car lot who found himself desperate for money. On the small screen, Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) is a hen-pecked insurance salesman who’s looked at as a failure by his wife, little brother, and even his former high school bully, Sam Hess (Kevin O’Grady). The two both find themselves in over their head, and their actions and incompetence end up driving much of their respective stories.
Marge Gunderson/Molly Solverson
Another clear parallel between the film and the show, Marge Gunderson (Francis McDormand) was the local police chief for the city Brainerd who, while seven months pregnant, is tasked with solving a sudden surge of homicides in her town. In the show Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) is promoted to chief of Bemidji after the retirement of Bill Oswalt, and becomes pregnant after the show’s time jump, and her marriage to Gus (Colin Hanks) is reminiscent of Marge’s marriage to Norm (John Carroll Lynch).
While they both also have a knack for detective work, and regularly prove themselves sharper than their male colleagues, they also share a brief reunion with an old high school classmate at one point — and both get awkward. Molly even echoes the same post-shootout sentiment as Marge did in the movie when reflecting on the reason for the crimes that had been committed, asking simply “And for what?”
Gaear Grimsrud/Mr. Wrench
Of the two criminals hired by Jerry to help fake the kidnapping of his wife, Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) is the gruff, chain-smoking, pancake-loving, and nearly silent of the pair. His lack of conversation drives his much more talkative partner, Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi), to frustration throughout the film, even down to his last words.
When the show brought in a new pair of for-hire criminals with Mr. Numbers (Adam Goldberg) and Mr. Wrench (Russell Harvard), they made the latter a literal mute. Using sign-language to communicate with one-another, particularly in aggressive, shake-down scenarios, it adds a a certain absurdist quality that would seem at home in a Coen brothers film.
The ransom money
It was this moment that cemented the two firmly in the same universe. In the movie, Carl, sees that the ransom money is actually $1 million, not the $80,000 Jerry had led them to believe. Pulling out enough to settle the score with his partner, Gaear, he buries it, using an ice scraper to mark its location.
It’s a young Stavros Milos (Carlos Diaz in the flashback, Oliver Platt in the present day) who sees it there, in an event told as a flashback from the show’s perspective, flat broke and out of gas, he leans down and begins to pray for help. Spotting the ice scraper, then using it to dig out a briefcase full of $920,000. He uses the money to become the “Supermarket King of North Dakota,” while becoming a devout Christian and framing the ice scraper in his office. He also has an argument with a parking garage attendant, harkening back to ones Carl had in the film.
The wood chipper
We’ve brought this up before, but given that the wood chipper scene is usually everyone’s go-to reference for the movie, it’s worth noting again that Hawley managed to work in a wood chipper covertly during the show’s first episode.
