The Romans, raised by wolves, they see a guy turning water into wine, what do they do? They eat him. Because there are no saints in the animal kingdom. Only breakfast and dinner.
– Lorne Malvo
If you love this quote, if you can read the inherent primal violence buried deep into each of the words above; you’ll start to understand what drives the insane and almost perfect character of Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton).
The beauty of it all is that, once again, Fargo delivers a great episode, each scene filled with drama, humor, tension, and the not-so-easy-to-convey feeling of wondering about what’s to come next.
As we reach the halfway-mark with this episode, some threads that had been building for quite a while come to a head. The true, bloody payoff is yet to be seen, but what we got here was a perfect and really interesting point regarding those confrontations I’ve been expecting since the very first episode.
The best thing about this series, and which is an important factor that explains why this episode shines as well, is how each character’s story threads are equally relevant to the overall plot. Even if they seem to be going their different ways, having different agendas with each of them working their own angle, they will all inevitably collide.
That means that the Fargo mobsters (Adam Goldberg and Russell Harvard) being thrown in jail with Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) is not just a priceless, very Coen Brothers-esque sequence, but a very intelligent way to advance the characters’ stories and the overall plot. After inflicting some pain on the one hand of Lester that still had a buried pellet as a reminder of first episode’s slaughter, now the mobsters have a name. Lorne Malvo. And a place: Duluth.
And that’s exactly where Lorne Malvo has been literally playing God on who was initially his blackmailed client, and is now is his blackmailed prey. A scared prey named Stavros Milos (played by Oliver Platt), who, out of fear of the ten plagues of God coming upon him, has gathered the one million dollars of Malvo’s blackmail. It is in the exchange between these two characters that we get some of the most intense and appreciated moments of the entire episode. Here the true, terrible nature of Lorne Malvo comes to light once more, and to the credit of the writers, they manage to do so without an ounce of blood being spilled. Just with a pure, creepy, exchange of words that show each of the character’s inner beliefs.
And as this particular plot point will possibly reach its conclusion in the next episode, there are more scary things happening with Malvo and in Duluth. Like how he manages to get ahold of a walkie talkie to spy on policeman Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks) and his daughter, and how he scares off Gus’ neighbor who tries to perform his neighborhood watch duties and ends up being threatened by an unruffled Malvo. There’s just something very scary about a man being so impassive, so emotionless, while threatening to kill other people. And that’s where the beauty of Thornton’s performance resides in each episode.
Gus, after his failed attempt to apprehend Malvo, tries his best to outdo himself, doing some web research on the guy – no use, Malvo’s got his tracks covered – and trying to investigate what Malvo is doing on Duluth. He manages to upset Malvo, which may not be that good for him… but he also will get the help of Bemidji police officer Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman), as hinted at the end of the episode.
And that takes us back to where we started. Lester in jail. An incident that at last has chief commissioner Bill Oswalt (Bob Odenkirk) believing in Molly’s instincts about the killings, and her suspicions about Lester.
It is really great to see how Molly’s character perseveres and grows with each episode, and how she lets Lester know that she’s hunting him, no matter whether he’s in prison or at the hospital. Loved that scene at the end where Lester, scared to death, pretends to be asleep while Molly watches him.
She’s beginning to unravel the whole mess between Lester and Malvo with a nonstop investigation of Lester’s and Malvo’s moves from the tragic day. And in doing so she seems to have earned her chief’s confidence back.
See? Many separate threads for the naked eye, but in the end they are all one and the same. One true story that will come full circle.
Because, inevitably, all great stories do.