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Fargo, Ep. 1.04, “Eating the Blame” another wildly entertaining and symbolically rich hour

Fargo, Ep. 1.04, “Eating the Blame” another wildly entertaining and symbolically rich hour

fargo 1.4

Fargo Season 1, Episode 4 “Eating the Blame”
Written by Noah Hawley
Directed by Randall Einhorn
Airs Tuesdays at 10pm ET on FX

 

As Lester’s infection grows deeper and a large storm heads straight towards Bemidji, “Eating the Blame” thoroughly conveys a world slowly descending into Biblical chaos, all orchestrated by one Lorne Malvo, the man with intricate plans and riddles to spare. And there’s no image more fitting than when director Randall Einhorn’s camera fixates on a dirty pile of snow, slowly rising to meet Gus as he enters his car: the only hope to fight the gathering momentum of evil is with an equal force of good, the “real po-lice” of snowy Minnesota.

In order to defeat this seemingly invisible ‘evil’, however, Gus has some important lessons to learn about the world. Some of these are simple matters of biology (humans seeing more shades of green so we can be aware of predators), other are a little more metaphysical: “Blame” is essentially Gus Grimley watching the devil convince the world he doesn’t exist, even as ‘believers’ like Molly and Gus stand by insisting he’s real. He may find out the man’s real name (Lorne Malvo), but that doesn’t stop him from walking out free while Gus gets banished to desk duty for the next three weeks (for daring to pull his service weapon on a minister): as Omar Little once said, you come at the King (of Darkness, in this case), you best not miss – and miss does Gus, putting the carriage before the horse and arresting Lorne with no charge or convincing evidence (convincing enough) that he actually did anything wrong.

Of course, all of  these events are given a new, heightened context by the opening scenes, where a young, already-in-debt Stavros happens upon a red ice scraper poking out of the snowy landscape. There’s been hints of connections to Fargo the film already in the series (last week’s ice scraper painting, the opening text and credits sequence, Molly’s father is named Leo, etc.), but “Blame” explicitly places them in the same universe, creating a very “time is a flat circle” like quality to the world. It also continues to add layers to the show’s metaphysical exploration: Stavros attributes his discovery to a show of faith from God to Stavros, again highlighting the simple difference in perspective that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ really are.

Is he a ‘good’ man for taking that money and building an empire out of it? One certainly can’t blame a man down on his luck for making the best out of the opportunities placed in front of him. But once we start believing that what we do is “good” or “bad”, it’s very easy to be manipulated. Someone like Lorne can’t be swayed to one side or the other: as an agent of chaos, he “likes to watch the world burn” the way Batman’s purple-suit wearing nemesis might suggest. And like Bats and Joker, Molly/Gus and Malvo are two sides of the same coin: people willing to work in the shadows, lying to their superiors and betraying those around them in pursuit of their ultimate goal, be it justice or chaos (respectively). They’re also people who are willing to admit who they are: Gus is all-too-willing to recognize his flaws as a non-confrontational police officer, while Molly makes no qualms about her resistance to orders from her chief (who wears the most hilarious snow boots in this episode, a tiny detail I found hilarious for no real reason).

Knowing how straightforwardly Lorne views himself and his behavior, it re-establishes the symbiotic dynamic between pure good and pure evil. And it makes for another fascinating hour of television, as Lorne towers over Stavros’ empire, the force of evil playing on Stavros’ steadfast belief in God (after all, He brought him a great “fortune”, right?), imitating the presences of plagues and blood as Biblical justice for a supposed moral transgression thought long forgotten. It really allows the metaphysical underpinnings of Noah Hawley’s Fargo sequel to take hold, surprisingly giving even more literal context to the film that long preceded the series. Embracing evil is often the easy choice – and in the cases where it’s the more difficult choice, can easily be viewed by those who embrace it as the better one (Lester murdering his wife, for example: not a simple solution to his problem, but one Lester thinks is more effective than letting her live). It’s only those who choose good, even in the face of evil, that can prevail and save their souls: and while time is running out for Stavros to “get right with the Lord”, the tests for Molly and Gus (our beacons of “good”) are only beginning.

 

Other thoughts/observations:

– what did you think of that opening scene? Upon first viewing, I feared it would undercut everything that came before it: but watching through it a second time as it aired, has actually enhanced what the series is aiming for. Risky move by Hawley, but one I’m thinking paid off well (though with six hours left, we’ll have to see where things go).

– Lorne, to the Duluth PD: “This is a boondoggle, plain and simple.”

– Molly sits down to her computer and is greeted by multiple pop-ups of Asian girls in swimsuits holding big fish? WTF?

– “Eating the Blame” is a reference to another Buddhist tale, about a man cooking for a zen master. A snake accidentally gets cooked in the soup, and it’s only when the master confronts the cook that he admits to his mistake, snatching the snake head from his hand and eating it, thanking him in the process. In other words, take responsibility for the mistakes you make: the longer you wait to seek redemption, the more arduous a journey it will be.

— Randy

 

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