Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Allison Tolman, Colin Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Keith Carradine, Joshua Close, Adam Goldberg, Russell Harvard, Glenn Howerton, Brian Markinson, Tom Musgrave, Joey King, Rachel Blanchard, Peter Breitmayer, Barry Flatman, Oliver Platt, Spencer Drever, Lori Ravensborg, Gordon S. Miller, Allegra Fulton, David LeReaney, Graeme Black, James Dugan, Peter Strand Rumpel, Paul Braunstein, Sarah Elias, Mart Ronaghan, Leah Cairns, Crystal Brooke, Liam Green, Eve Harlow, Chad Stanley Martin.

It may be the thought, especially in the eyes of those on the European side of the Atlantic Ocean, which nothing really happens in that patch of land between New York and California which makes people believe that tales of murder and mayhem only appear in the dark seedy street or light bursting avenues of America’s greatest city and the port which welcomes all from the world of the far east. Not for them a tale of intrigue in which straddles the American Mid-West, for surely nothing really happens there. Nothing perhaps except Fargo!

The second episode of the series, The Rooster Prince, calls foul on the manic speed for which episode one was absolute belter and instead relies on the thought of progressive story-telling, no matter how surreal, no concern to keeping the break neck speed on high tempo; this was natural, as accepted and effortless, as you would expect from a murder investigation in which you already know the identity of the killer/killers.

What changes is how the viewer recognises and isolates the character traits in each person. For Lorne Malvo, played with swaggering style by Billy Bob Thornton, the job is done and dusted and he has moved on to the next payday. A job finding out who is trying to extort money from a supermarket chain owner and someone who believes in making a name for himself by tying up his life story in a book, conveniently for sale at his own store. The viewer, although understandably wary of the contract killer, knows where the boundaries are and in the scene where Lorne Malvo goes to collect a package that has arrived, the small standoff between in control devilish lunatic and post office worker is a marked contrast to Martin Freeman’s Lester Nygaard, who as proclaimed by the new police chief, is a mild as a lamb avoiding the sight of a dissection class, could now blow disastrously at any second.

The difference between the two men is captured superbly by the aforementioned actors and heightens the relationship and blurring of good and bad, of moral evil and depraved decency.

With Lester seemingly gettting away with the killing of his wife, it is up to the police deputy Molly Solverson, played with great respect to the part by Allison Tolman, to get to understand the lengths that Lester might go to and what is he hiding.

With some characters joining in the fun and bleakness, namely two wonderful additions in Mr. Numbers and the silent Mr. Wrench, played the vastly underrated Adam Goldberg and Russell Harvard, Fargo may well have slowed down to the point where a horse ambling along pulling a cart would overtake it but it doesn’t mean it has lost any of
its intrigue or powerful connection to the viewer.

Ian D. Hall