Ok, so this series is still doing what it does best: Advancing the plot while developing the characters and having them follow paths that, amongst all the crazy stuff going on, all the blood spilled over the snow, seem almost logical.
We get a lot of that with the unfair way that Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) beats jail and manages to fool almost everyone, by setting his own brother up and lying through his teeth to Bemidji Chief Police Commissioner Bill Oswalt (Bob Odenkirk).
Lester has completely embraced his new, darker self, one that to save himself puts his brother in prison, ruins his marriage and his whole life, and not only feels no remorse in doing so, but even bursts with an eerie happiness. Man, those smiles while being so evil gave me the creeps.
Lester, as I said, gets a lot of the spotlight, as we are shown how each of his acts have made him evolve into a whole new being, so far apart from the sad and bullied shell of a man we met on the first episode.
He wants revenge on everything and everyone that made him feel inferior and unimportant, and for now he’s getting it. Hell, he even screws the Hess widow thanks to a mix of false promises and a lot of scotch. That scene was, maybe, where Lester lost the last bit of humanity he had left in him. But I’m sure if you asked the man, he’d say it was worth it. Heck, he kept screwing his former bully Sam Hess even after having him killed!
To the credit of the writers, they have managed to make my feelings about Lester evolve with each episode, with each new layer we see of him. Now I just want him down for good, or rotting in jail forever.
However, it seems that’s only up to Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman), as she’s the only one that, even from the hospital, keeps drawing the connections between all the pieces of this big puzzle and, with the help of Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks) – the Duluth policeman who out of fear shot her amidst the snowstorm on the last episode – determines that there might be enough proof to throw Lester into jail. Bad news is that a lot of that proof might be circumstantial and overlooked by Bemidji police, now that Lester’s brother has been blamed for his crimes.
Molly is the ray of light through all the evil that spreads like wildfire through Minnesota, and once more we are reminded that she is a courageous and resourceful woman, who could’ve died but only has one thing on her mind: proving Lester and Malvo guilty, and catching them once and for all.
This episode moved at a much slower pace than the previous one, but that doesn’t mean that everything we get here isn’t good. There’s not a single wasted scene, as always, and the plot moves along quite nicely.
We now have a more determined and dangerous than ever Lester, who will surely have to face a reborn and more determined than ever Molly. As the list of characters who die grows, we are left with fewer characters, which leaves room for more development, as each of them gets more screen time than they might have on previous episodes.
The best scene of this episode, and definitely one of the most impressive and well-executed of the whole show so far, was the onslaught of all of Fargo mobsters right at their own headquarters, a bold move by assassin-for-hire Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton), who had just learned that Fargo was who had tried to get him killed.
The strength of the scene rests in how the viewer, on a crucial and bloody scene, where Malvo offs everyone he encounters, has to imagine the whole spectacle, as what we are given is an exterior shot of the glass building. We only hear the massacre, and that makes it stronger in our heads. And what’s better, each viewer will picture the scene in a different way. That’s the magic of imagination, and I loved that the Coen Brothers dared that part of the viewers’ brains to work, to explode. Just loved it!
And the way Malvo got away after all the killing, in broad daylight, with FBI and cops surrounding the building? Priceless, classic Fargo humor.
With only three more episodes to go, the countdown to see who makes it to the end has officially started.
3,2,1…Fargo!