One of the privileges of being a TV critic, apart from working in my dressing gown, is being given advance copies of programmes.
Normally I use this privilege to send taunting texts to my sister (“Haha, I know who gets kicked out on The Apprentice!”) or to raise my eyebrows at friends (“Oh, you mean to say you’re only at Episode Four….”) but all my supercilious airs have been dropped when it comes to Fargo (Channel 4).
Fargo is so spectacular, so clever, so full of kinks and twists and shocks and nuances and sharp, clever, funny dialogue that I don’t want to watch it, so I can’t parade my little privileges anymore; watching it would mean using up an episode and so bring me closer to its conclusion, and I don’t want the conclusion. Let Fargo last forever.
I watched the first episode, naturally, but now Channel 4 keep pinging me with e-mails saying Episode 2 of Fargo is waiting for me! Episode 3 is waiting for me! and I just keep swiping them away. This series, as with its predecessor, is so good I don’t want to watch it. I want to keep is safe, snug and pristine in my e-mail folder and not drag it out into the real world, a world where the TV contains terrible things like the new series of Citizen Khan. I want Fargo kept pure and unsullied.
If anyone is new to Fargo, please don’t be deterred by its name. Yes, there was a film and a previous TV series called Fargo, but they are all unique stories, sharing the same style, flavour, setting and wicked black humour, so you can dip into one and it’ll be a stand-alone story. Don’t feel you’ve missed the Fargo boat if you haven’t yet worked your way through the others. There is still time to get immersed in its weird genius and the time is now.
The story is set in 1979 and it begins, as the film and previous series did, with the solemn promise that the story is true. A local crime family are shocked when their scowling old patriarch collapses at the kitchen table and he’s soon laid frozen and immobile in bed having had a massive stroke. His three sons are left to carry on the family “business”, but the youngest boy, Rye, happens to be an idiot or, as his eldest brother puts in, he’s the “comic in a piece of bubble gum”. His swaggering big brothers just won’t take him seriously and so the li’l punk decides to make his mark.
A local businessman owes the family some money but can’t release the cash because he has an ongoing court case. Rye, desperate to impress, decides to play the hard man and is convinced he can compel the judge to drop the case. She’s a female judge, and he’s one tough dude, so how hard can it be?
Rye follows the judge when she finishes work. She leaves the court house and stops at the Waffle Hut diner for a meal. Thinking he’s a cool guy in a noir film, Rye sits at the counter and watches her as she orders a burger, though he has to wave away the perky little waitress who keeps popping up and ruining his ice-cold image by offering him sugary coffee.
What follows is a scene so exciting and brilliant, the type of thing which genuinely brings you to the edge of your seat, that I won’t repeat for fear of spoiling it for someone.
In the terrible aftermath, Rye stumbles into a blizzard where he seems to glimpse a UFO coming in to land. As he’s watching the sky, a car looms out of the swirling snow and hits him, and so the plot veers off in another direction: a dizzy little blonde called Peggy (Kirsten Dunst) was driving the car and we’re soon in her warm kitchen as she serves dinner to her dim but loving husband and she seems awfully keen to dissuade him from going into the garage…
Fargo is like a firework which smoulders and sputters and then suddenly bursts into dazzling sparks, spraying off in all directions. Can I bring myself to watch Episode Two, and be one episode nearer its end?
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