Fargo 1.01 “The Crocodile’s Dilemma”

This is quality television. This is a great script, great characters, drama, tension, a huge dose of dark comedy, and evil, lots of evil, all folded into one long intense hour that keeps you staring at the screen and asking for more when the episode ends.

This is the first episode of FX’s Fargo. The first of a 10 episode-season which pays homage to the world the Coen Brothers created with the movie by the same name in 1996.

I came to Fargo with high hopes because of my love for the Coen Brothers movie and because of the high level of the talent involved, and not only was I not disappointed, but the end result was so near-perfect in its gruesome, violent way, that I have to encourage everyone to watch it, DVR it, and then watch it one more time.

The episode centers around three main characters: An eager police officer named Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman, who is pitch perfect in her role and recalls Frances McDormand’s portrayal in the 1996 movie), surviving the “red tide” of evil and death that seems to engulf her little town, at least for now; a quiet, evil and merciless assassin named Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) whose presence in town exceeds his assignment and ends up being the thread that ties together all the characters’ lives – and deaths – with a dark, twisted and sometimes funny sense of primordial justice. Finally, poor Lester Nygaard (played by The Hobbit and Sherlock‘s own Martin Freeman) who travels a dark road from being bullied and treated as the lowest thing on Earth to… well, nothing very pretty. Let’s say his wife finally shuts up when poor Lester, corrupted by Lorne Malvo’s character, succumbs to his own dark, violent self, after a life of just “taking shit.”

It is clear from the start that the star of this episode is the character of Lorne Malvo, whose evil seems to know no bounds, even managing to keep scaring the crap out of the viewer with the very last scene, a terrific dialogue between him and policeman Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks), that leaves the officer petrified.

Billy Bob Thornton feels like an excellent choice to convey the dark, twisted and bloody world of the Coen Brothers, and it’s a pity that he will only star in half of this season’s episodes, as his stance brings to memory a devil or devilish-like creature having fun on the earthly plane; bringing mistrust, and planting the seeds for the darker side of every character to grow and, inevitably, explode.

Fargo has started very strong; establishing not only the characters and the setting in which they are going to move, but also a unique mood that’s a mix of pure evil — the most animalistic instincts that humans try to bury deep inside — and also a dark comedy thriller that manages to have the viewer rooting for both the really evil bad guy and the really innocent force of good; the one that just wants to solve the crime and go home with a loved one.