I watched Fargo (the movie) in one of the lowest moments of my teen-aged life.  I was a dumb 16-year-old kid thinking he was fresh off a catastrophic heartbreak.  Obviously, in the scope of my life, it was absolutely nothing.  But, for a wannabee emo/definitely nerdy kid with limited opportunities at any form of physical or emotional contact with the opposite sex, it was devastating.  I felt like someone had ripped my aorta out of my chest, shoved it down my throat, and danced the Mexican Hat Dance around my double blood fountain of a body.

When I woke up on that dreary Saturday morning, I wanted to be transported into another world.  I had bought a bunch of movies from MovieStop (cause I hated pirating movies and clearly hated money even more), and figured I’d just marathon all of them.  I started with Fargo.  And I honestly cannot tell you what other movies I saw that day.

Fargo transported me to a land that seemed tangibly real, yet so brutal.  When you think about it, any sane person could easily find themselves in a Fargo-like plot (see also: just about every other Coen Brothers movie); one wrong decision by a desperate person and everything turns upside down on an uncontrollable roller coaster ride to hell.  The fact that it can occur from basically nothing is what makes it so horrifying.  And at the same time, so compelling.  All surrounded by the “aw shucks” nature of the upper mid-west, yoop-ing their way to an adorable massacre.

So, when Fargo the TV Series was announced, I did the natural thing and…wait, I didn’t watch it?  I waited over a year?  Shit.  Well, it’s true.  I can’t claim I was there from the start.  But fittingly, I came home after one of my lowest points of this year and blasted through Season 1 on Hulu (it’s still there if you have Hulu…or you can torrent it like a fucking felon).  And it was phenomenal. You don’t need to watch Season 1 to enjoy Season 2 though, since it is just a prequel, with an entirely new cast with only two characters (so far) from the first season.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Now, Season 2 has been probably one of the greatest seasons of TV in this golden generation of TV dramas.  It still has 4 episodes to go, but we’ve reached a pivotal point of the season.  Last year, at this point we had just witnessed probably the best episode of the season, Buridan’s Ass, which really amped everything up leading to a great conclusion.  Well, this past Monday’s episode, Rhinoceros, didn’t need to do that.  This whole GD season has been more amped than the My New Haircut guy drinking protein shakes mixed with Surge.  I have a lot of thoughts, so I’m just going to spill them all out and get it over with.  This post will contain NO UNMARKED SPOILERS (and those that exist are in white text, so you need to highlight it to see it). But, if you haven’t watched Season 2 of Fargo, fix that pronto.   You’ll thank me later.  It’s all on FX’s website as long as you have access to someone’s cable subscription.  Or again, torrent it like the larcenist your mother warned you about.  So, starting off with what you probably have already heard:

The cast is ridiculous

Somehow, there are only five cast members that get star billing (oddly, Jean Smart is one of them, even though they hoard her from the screen like your weird aunt did with Beanie Babies in the 90s).  Patrick Wilson and Ted Danson act like they’ve been together for years.  Kirsten Dunst gets her first real role in like 10 years (more on that later).  And after watching Jesse Plemons portray probably the most hated person I’ve watched in the past 5 years or so, it’s so enjoyable to watch him bumble his way through the train derailment that Fargo always delivers.  Everyone plays their part brilliantly, but it’s one man who I’ll admit I knew nothing about that stands above the rest.

 

Mike Milligan is killing it, ya’ll

Bokeem Woodbine’s IMDb page is less than impressive.  The only thing that stood out was playing Massive Genius on a Sopranos episode, and that part was not exactly memorable.  But his portrayal of Mike Milligan this season is just crushing.  If you’ve ever watched Firefly, picture Jubal Early (the bounty hunter from the last episode) in the 1970s with more charisma and even more sadism.  He has more great lines than the rest of the cast put together (and that’s saying something), and seems to be putting Billy Bob Thornton on notice on the runaway best villain of the series.  If Milligan had cologne, I’d buy it.  Buy it in a heartbeat.  I don’t even wear cologne, but I’d shower in that shit.

This season goes 0-60 in about 30 minutes.

Which, in TV time that would be the equivalent of a car doing it in about 1.9 seconds.  Like, I barely had time to reminisce about my favorite Keiran Culkin lines from Scott Pilgrim before he (highlight the white text for spoiler) was already completing a triple homicide and getting acquainted with Kirsten Dunst’s windshield.  Season 1 does this by the end of the first half of the first episode, and it felt necessary and left an indelible mark on the rest of the season.  It acts like an episode of CSI, with all the action happening at the beginning of the episode.  I half expected to hear Roger Daltry scream “YEAH!” after Peggy started driving away.  Now, I’m not sure how I feel about (highlight for spoiler) Keiran Culkin seeming kinda zombie-ish at the end of episode 1 (remember Lou’s quote in season 1 “It wasn’t so much a who…more of a what”), but regardless, that first episode gave everyone their roles and sent them on their way with a greased up rocket stapled to their ass.

Missing some Ron Swanson in your life?  May I present to you more Ron Swanson.

Nick Offerman may very well be stuck being typecast the rest of his career.  The only non-Swanson-y character I can think of that he portrayed was Metalbeard from the Lego Movie, which was a really weird move since he has such a velvety voice, but that character was still great.  The Fargo version of Ron Swanson may be missing the trademark mustache (which may elicit more than a few gasps from those who recognize him), but don’t be fooled.  If you wanted to see Ron Swanson as a late 70s auto mechanic, look no further.  And that is only one of his many talents…he is also an accomplished esquire.

Can someone please give Cristin Milioti a role that doesn’t end in tragedy?

Cristin Milioti is damn near perfect.  She’s can sing, she can act, she’s smart, adorable and hilarious.  And her character in Fargo is one of my favorites.  But, her character has cancer (this is established right away, so not necessarily a spoiler).  Now, that doesn’t make her character bad (it actually makes her stronger in a lot of ways).  It’s just she can’t seem to catch a break.  In Wolf of Wall Street, she finds out Leonardo DiCaprio is cheating on her (though, to her credit, props to getting Leo in the first place).  In the Sopranos, her father is arrested and later dies of cancer in prison.  In A to Z, her show gets cancelled.  And in How I Met Your Mother…just…no.  I can’t talk about that.  Look, we know she’s not around in the future.  So it’s unclear at this time whether or not she survives Season 2.  But it’s destined to be tragic.  If I’m an inspiring petite Italian girl and there’s a biopic about to be made about me, I just destroy her audition tapes and save myself the trouble.

Welcome back Kirsten Dunst!

Okay, I know what you’re thinking.  “Kirsten Dunst never left!”  Okay, sure, that may be true.  Remind me, what’s your favorite Kirsten Dunst role of the last 5 years?  I’ll wait…

Did you come up with anything?  That episode of Portlandia maybe?  Point is, Kirsten Dunst has been out of the spotlight for a while now.  She’s had a weird career.  An accomplished child actor, she starred in a bunch of mid-90s roles (Jumanji probably the most memorable), then went on to have a moderately successful run in the late-90s (Virgin Suicides).  She then went on to cult classic Bring It On before landing her biggest role as Mary-Jane Watson in Spider-Man at age 20.  Twenty!  When I was 20, I was a college tour guide that enjoyed being awful at ultimate frisbee and definitely not drinking Miller High Life’s every weekend.  Kirsten Dunst was the female lead in what would become one of the most successful movie trilogies of all time.  She also grabbed a role in cult classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and then followed that up with Spider-Man 2, which many believe to be one of the best comic book movies ever.

Then she hit the mid-00s or as I like to call it, the Marie Antoinette phase. She started with Elizabethtown, which created the negative connotation of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, then Marie Antoinette,  Spider-Man 3, stumbled into How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, before basically going radio dark.  Honestly, the only role I’ve seen her in the past 5 years of any substance was Bachelorette.  If you’re wondering what Bachelorette is, picture the Hangover but instead it’s Zach Galifinakis getting married, and he’s barely in the movie.  Also, Bradley Cooper is super dumb, and Ed Helms is a total unenjoyable dick.  Kirsten Dunst played Ed Helms.  The only thing that saved that movie from being a complete waste of time was Lizzy Caplan.

Anywho, after that rant contrived to create an excuse for a Lizzy Caplan GIF, you understand what I mean.  Ironically, Kirsten Dunst is playing a character that has never had her shot, rather than one seeking redemption.  She wants to get to Sioux Falls no matter what to pursue her dream of attending a seminar (something I accomplished when I was 20…suck on that one Dunst).  But there’s gonna be a slight problem.  See, sprinkled through Season 1, Old Lou Solverson, as well as a few cops, mention the absolute shit show that occurred in Sioux Falls in the late-70s.  So that’s where we’re headed.  And I cannot wait to see what happens.