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Wafflecopper posted:What the actual gently caress? No wonder America is so overweight if that's what you call a loving salad At least when you see that it's not pretending to be healthy. Now, if you go down to McDonald's for a nice Kale salad on the other hand...
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Jun 23, 2017 02:27
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Wafflecopper posted:What the actual gently caress? No wonder America is so overweight if that's what you call a loving salad  its the most american thing possible, dude invents a lovely factory designed dessert, starts distributing cookbooks, then sponsors recipes that arent desserts to gain more marketshare; the 'perfect salad' is the result of pure, forced marketing. and america ate it up. blame utah.
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Jun 23, 2017 02:46
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Another thing about the ending. Varga was going to be charged with five murders. I can't recall if they specifically mentioned which five. Was Emmit included? Gloria did ask if he was involved in that slaying.
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Jun 23, 2017 02:49
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Wafflecopper posted:What the actual gently caress? No wonder America is so overweight if that's what you call a loving salad It's a weird hold over from the 1960s when cookbooks went insane. To wit: liver pâté en masque:  It's chilled liver-green bean purée with pepper-gelatin glaze. These recipes are like something out of a Markov generator written by a gelatin-salesmen.
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Jun 23, 2017 02:51
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Accretionist posted:It's a weird hold over from the 1960s when cookbooks went insane. oh no, it is far, far older than the 60s my friend
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Jun 23, 2017 02:52
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Another reason to never take a time-machine past 1980. I mean, just look at this:  Like, you can. Reminds me of that line about, "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a gelatin." Edit: I really like the bone-in chicken.
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Jun 23, 2017 02:57
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Christ I just had a repressed memory about my mom's obsession with jello salad, thanks a lot. Queasy.
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Jun 23, 2017 03:04
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Maybe I missed it mentioned elsewhere, but it was fitting that Varga got caught by technology. He made such a big deal about being anonymous, but in the end his face gave him away. Also this was a bad Fargo season. That said, a bad Fargo season is still better than anything else on at 10pm. I'd gladly take 2 more seasons just as bad.
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Jun 23, 2017 03:26
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Very bad season overall. This was one of my favorite shows but I doubt I'll watch if it's renewed.
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Jun 23, 2017 03:31
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Kataphract posted:Ray and Nikki's scheming got an innocent murdered I don't recall Nikki having anything to do with Ray hiring Maurice to steal the stamp back. NetflixAndRichHill fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 03:57
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NetflixAndRichHill posted:I don't recall Nikki having anything to do with Ray hiring Maurice to steal the stamp back. yeah, Ray did it and then the guy hired showed up out of nowhere while the couple were taking a bath together. Nikki had no idea what was going on.
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Jun 23, 2017 04:45
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mary had a little clam posted:Poor Sy Hey. He.... hey...... He's go.... good. Good as new. 
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Jun 23, 2017 05:54
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Jerusalem posted:Really enjoyed that final scene, and I think it was poetic that Emmit managed to claw his life back and got killed when he felt like he had regained everything he'd lost that was important to him. I think it's less ambiguous than people are making it out to be. Varga is a total liar. And I mean that as a character trait, not just an opinion on the kind of person he is. Varga even lies right in the beginning of this episode to get the gun away from Emmit. "Guns can even be equipped with fingerprint scanners. You can feel it, right on the grip." This is obviously a lie because if it did have a fingerprint scanner, they'd just take the gun away from him, not spray him in the eyes and hit him in the back of the head. And it's strongly hinted that Varga isn't actually part of a huge criminal conglomerate, he's the boss-man that uses criminality to maneuver around various fraudulent schemes. He's a corporate fraudster with gunmen to make sure people sign where they need to, not a moneyman for a huge criminal organization. This pointed out both by the IRS man in this episode, and by Nikki in the last episode. And then 5 years later, Gloria Burgle finally gets her man. She's never been shown as anything other than competent and honest, while Varga has been shown as being willing to lie about just about anything. So while the end does come down to which ones reality manifests itself in the future, we have every reason to doubt Varga, while we have absolutely no reason to doubt Gloria. (plus the wolf gets put behind bars at the end of 'Peter and the Wolf')
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Jun 23, 2017 05:56
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When are the Cohen brothers going to make Blood Meridian, goddamnit?!
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Jun 23, 2017 06:23
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Work Friend Keven posted:Very bad season overall. This was one of my favorite shows but I doubt I'll watch if it's renewed. Yeah you will.
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Jun 23, 2017 06:34
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PAN PAST KEVEN AS HE FADES INTO DARKNESS. WE WATCH A CALENDAR SLOWLY MOVE THROUGH THE DAYS. WHO IS RIGHT? FADE TO BLACK. CREDITS.
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Jun 23, 2017 06:38
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Tumble posted:I think it's less ambiguous than people are making it out to be. Varga is a total liar. And I mean that as a character trait, not just an opinion on the kind of person he is. Nah, I'm pretty sure that Varga is part of a much larger crime syndicate than what we saw during the season. Dude just had way too much reach, global connections, and way too many varied, seemingly unlimited resources and specialized skilled aspects of criminality at his disposal to be just a huckster that hired a goon squad. It's been a running theme throughout the previous two seasons of how organized crime kept becoming much more ubiquitous, entrenched and farther reaching as it adopted an ever expanding business and corporate practice, method, philosophy and culture, to the point that it was taking the joy out of being a criminal mastermind for some of the most ruthless and competent criminal characters throughout the show. This season it was just a global criminal organization, hence the various little scenes in other countries, references to events in them, and even the various nationality makeup of Vargas's crew. The IRS guy even said that someone high up had stopped his investigation dead in it's tracks this episode. That doesn't sound like something Varga could make happen on his own. Anyway, did anyone else notice that Mr Wrench hadn't seemed to age at all when he took out Emmit. I wonder what his purpose is to still remain as a magical undead assassin and if it will be a part of a season 4?
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Jun 23, 2017 10:35
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Yeah, the IRS guy said that Emmitt was "protected at the highest levels" and his investigation had been stopped by "Washington" the year before. Varga is or works for someone with truly terrifying power; but that doesn't mean he's right in the final scene. Real life is full of people who think they're untouchable but get caught.
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Jun 23, 2017 10:47
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Tumble posted:I think it's less ambiguous than people are making it out to be. Varga is a total liar. And I mean that as a character trait, not just an opinion on the kind of person he is. Yeah, it reminds me of Anton Chigurh's last scene in No Country for Old Men (the car crash one). It shows that Chigurh wasn't some inscrutable, superhuman manifestation of evil or something, he was just some deranged psychopath, just some dude. Once a random distracted driver runs a red light, Chigurh goes down just like anybody else. In the same way, Varga isn't some evil inscrutable manifestation of uncontrolled economic exploitation and excess, he's just some dude. A great talker who bullshits and scams people, but if you don't let him intimidate you with his empty ramblings, you can arrest and lock him away. The last scene feels like it's trying to destroy this facade that large companies/capital can just engage in economic exploitation and that they/it are totally untouchable to normal people due to their size and structure.(Gloria "Fried Snickers bar" Burgle is the average American personified here) It also kinda reminded me of Trump a little bit. Once you look past his facade, there is no great businessman there, just some lazy incompetent fool who scams and bullshits people and who inherited everything he has. The criminally rich and the rich criminals are not special or smart, they are just random dudes like everyone else. There are no mysterious Illuminati behind the curtain. Tax or lock up shitheels like Trump and Varga and everything will instantly be better. They can be defeated, if we really choose to.
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Jun 23, 2017 11:49
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:It also kinda reminded me of Trump a little bit. Once you look past his facade, there is no great businessman there, just some lazy incompetent fool who scams and bullshits people and who inherited everything he has. The criminally rich and the rich criminals are not special or smart, they are just random dudes like everyone else. There are no mysterious Illuminati behind the curtain. Tax or lock up shitheels like Trump and Varga and everything will instantly be better. They can be defeated, if we really choose to. That certainly works with my appreciation of the ending. It's left up to the viewer to decide wether someone comes through the door or if Gloria's values actually prevail. The show doesn't say if the glass is half-full or half empty, you decide. That deterministic approach leads to a good ending if you're an optimist that views the glass as half-full, and a shitworld gratifying the worst self-hating subhumans if you don't (aka: "hey Obama did lead to some progress" VS. "Build A Wall"). So I took the ending to mean, "you have the power to make it good or bad." as it relates to the show but I believe also in regard to the actual world. 
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Jun 23, 2017 12:15
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:Yeah, it reminds me of Anton Chigurh's last scene in No Country for Old Men (the car crash one). It shows that Chigurh wasn't some inscrutable, superhuman manifestation of evil or something, he was just some deranged psychopath, just some dude. Once a random distracted driver runs a red light, Chigurh goes down just like anybody else. I interpreted that scene in No Country for Old Men basically the opposite. It reaffirmed Chigurh as an unstoppable force because he gets hit by a car and instead of going down he buys a T-shirt off a kid and hobbles away, alluding capture, as always.
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Jun 23, 2017 12:23
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Jerusalem posted:Hey. 
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Jun 23, 2017 13:12
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savinhill posted:Nah, I'm pretty sure that Varga is part of a much larger crime syndicate than what we saw during the season. Dude just had way too much reach, global connections, and way too many varied, seemingly unlimited resources and specialized skilled aspects of criminality at his disposal to be just a huckster that hired a goon squad. It's been a running theme throughout the previous two seasons of how organized crime kept becoming much more ubiquitous, entrenched and farther reaching as it adopted an ever expanding business and corporate practice, method, philosophy and culture, to the point that it was taking the joy out of being a criminal mastermind for some of the most ruthless and competent criminal characters throughout the show. This season it was just a global criminal organization, hence the various little scenes in other countries, references to events in them, and even the various nationality makeup of Vargas's crew. The IRS guy even said that someone high up had stopped his investigation dead in it's tracks this episode. That doesn't sound like something Varga could make happen on his own. That could just mean he has dirt on the right people. He's shown to have a mobile crime HQ that has all needed stuff to commit a shitload of fraud. Which is why I think my theory is correct: he wasn't engaged in human trafficking, drug distribution, or even money laundering like he claimed - the IRS guy flat out says that he's doing shady leveraged buyouts, which just means taking out loans in the businesses name and leveraging them to the hilt with debt before making them declare bankruptcy. The IRS guy flat out said they took out a few hundred million in loans, so if he's done this a few times that explains why he has the money to hire goons and give himself seemingly unlimited resources. If you have a few hundred million dollars it's very easy to have global reach. Off-shore banks and international hideouts are easily bought with money, you don't need mob connections to park money in tax havens. Plus, we have to keep in mind that the IRS agent was informing Gloria about his untouchability while she was still a regular old cop - she had known about his resources, connections, and ability to lie for 5 years before she took him in to custody as a DHS agent. So I really think that Varga is going to jail, because Gloria crosses her T's and dot's her I's. Tumble fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 14:10
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Didn't he trip up when he talked about a guy waking up one morning and killing people because of a similar last name? Gloria hadn't mentioned which murders yet. I guess it wouldn't matter if someone high enough got him released, if only temporarily. He'd just disappear as quickly as possible. The ending made for a nice bookend to Malvo outsmarting the police in S1.
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Jun 23, 2017 14:38
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Krispy Kareem posted:Gloria hadn't mentioned which murders yet. How many henchmen were killed at (inside) the warehouse? Maybe she'd try to pin those on him as she has his photo when he was on-scene.
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Jun 23, 2017 14:42
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:Yeah, it reminds me of Anton Chigurh's last scene in No Country for Old Men (the car crash one). It shows that Chigurh wasn't some inscrutable, superhuman manifestation of evil or something, he was just some deranged psychopath, just some dude. Once a random distracted driver runs a red light, Chigurh goes down just like anybody else. I appreciate your reading (and I agree) but... the scene doesn't destroy his facade. It's left open, so it's really up to the viewer.
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Jun 23, 2017 14:59
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FuhrerHat posted:When are the Cohen brothers going to make Blood Meridian, goddamnit?! Coen, not Cohen. Don't make the same mistake Bill Murray made!
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Jun 23, 2017 15:26
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frenton posted:I interpreted that scene in No Country for Old Men basically the opposite. It reaffirmed Chigurh as an unstoppable force because he gets hit by a car and instead of going down he buys a T-shirt off a kid and hobbles away, alluding capture, as always. Yeah, you can definitely read it both ways. I interpreted it that way because to me it demonstrated Chigurh's helplessness. The only reason he survived was just pure luck, a random coincidence in which he had no say. That car could have just as well been cancer or a lightning strike and he has no control over these things, no real control over his life. I mean, it would have different if he got in a difficult situation and solved it through sheer skill or willpower, but a car crash is just randomness. I think the book where Chigurh has more characterization also supports it. In the book he has this whole stick where he suffers a psychotic breakdown and believes that he can do anything he sets his mind to, as long as he follows certain rules and principles. Before he kills Carla Jean he gets on this long smug monologue about how can never make exceptions to the rules, because that would endanger him and make him weak and then he would be just like the regular cattle that people are to him. He portraits himself as this master of the universe that stands above everyone else. Then, like literally one or two sentences later, that car crashes into him.
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Jun 23, 2017 15:53
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precision posted:One thing I really loved was how the final scene mirrored the first in every way. In the final scene, we're rooting for Gloria's version of the truth, even though it doubtless doesn't line up with what the documents in Varga's pocket say, or what Google says if you look him up. We've seen a story that tells us this man is VM Varga and he deserves to be punished for transgressions.
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Jun 23, 2017 15:56
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Tumble posted:That could just mean he has dirt on the right people. He's shown to have a mobile crime HQ that has all needed stuff to commit a shitload of fraud. Which is why I think my theory is correct: he wasn't engaged in human trafficking, drug distribution, or even money laundering like he claimed - the IRS guy flat out says that he's doing shady leveraged buyouts, which just means taking out loans in the businesses name and leveraging them to the hilt with debt before making them declare bankruptcy. The IRS guy flat out said they took out a few hundred million in loans, so if he's done this a few times that explains why he has the money to hire goons and give himself seemingly unlimited resources. If you have a few hundred million dollars it's very easy to have global reach. Off-shore banks and international hideouts are easily bought with money, you don't need mob connections to park money in tax havens. It's really not plausible though that a single guy is going to be able to engage in international crimes of that magnitude, while also having hired thugs that stay loyal to the point of being willing to die for him or not betray him just to take a huge chunk of millions for themselves, or have dirt on government bureaucrats/higher-ups, without being a part of some type of some larger, criminal enterprise that has the resources and reach to guarantee the protection and repercussions needed for all this to be possible. Varga may have been a boss of a type, but it had to have been within a larger structure with other bosses, some above him, and others below him too. In fact, he'd most likely be gobbled up by a larger criminal enterprise and treated to an even much harsher type of takeover/asset liquidation than he himself used if he persisted in being a one man, lone wolf criminal mastermind generating this type of wealth for too long at all. In all honesty, it ignores the season's major theme of the harmful nature of globalization, and global capitalism, to think he was just a one man crime shop that happened to just have all the right skills, balls, and determination to just orchestrate all this stuff on his own. As for your second point, I wasn't even addressing the ending in my other post. He could actually still be part of a global crime syndicate and still end up in jail after the end conversation. They could decide that he's had one fuckup too many and maybe even immunize themselves against some other stuff they've done by letting him take the fall as the engineer of some other similar crimes, or he could've just been a small cog in a very much larger machine that's still getting even larger, who just isn't worth the bother of that level of protection when he isn't in the direct process of generating revenue for them, and can be replaced by a newer, as-yet untainted piece that fits the current status and system a bit better. I'd imagine he wouldn't be alive for very much longer under any circumstance where he went to prison. I do think and hope he went on his way after that scene though. A picture alone does not a whole case make when he's no longer tied to the Varga identity, anyone else that could've testified against him besides Gloria is dead or useless now(IRS agent), I don't see her old boss stepping in to support her credibility for the events during that time period and making himself look bad or wrong back then in the process, and Varga has the resources to have the case dropped even if he leaves the room in cuffs. It makes the season much more fulfilling for me, as he was the most entertaining part of it, as well as the best and most charismatic performer/actor/character this season. I don't think I would've made it through many episodes this season without him and he deserves the final victory for this imo
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Jun 23, 2017 18:04
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Klungar posted:Coen, not Cohen. Don't make the same mistake Bill Murray made! Gimme the Garfield!
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Jun 23, 2017 18:06
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savinhill posted:It's really not plausible though that a single guy is going to be able to engage in international crimes of that magnitude, while also having hired thugs that stay loyal to the point of being willing to die for him or not betray him just to take a huge chunk of millions for themselves, or have dirt on government bureaucrats/higher-ups, without being a part of some type of some larger, criminal enterprise that has the resources and reach to guarantee the protection and repercussions needed for all this to be possible. Varga may have been a boss of a type, but it had to have been within a larger structure with other bosses, some above him, and others below him too. In fact, he'd most likely be gobbled up by a larger criminal enterprise and treated to an even much harsher type of takeover/asset liquidation than he himself used if he persisted in being a one man, lone wolf criminal mastermind generating this type of wealth for too long at all. In all honesty, it ignores the season's major theme of the harmful nature of globalization, and global capitalism, to think he was just a one man crime shop that happened to just have all the right skills, balls, and determination to just orchestrate all this stuff on his own. It's very much plausible that he could be doing this by himself. The IRS agent says that Stussy Enterprises had borrowed over $200,000,000 over the last year to line his own pockets, and it only took Varga and a few other people to perpetrate that. So he can afford loyal enforcers without having to be a part of another major criminal enterprise. I mean, in real life, mobster enforcers don't make millions of dollars, they get a few grand a month. So if somebody is putting away tens of millions of dollars every time they do something like this, it's trivial to afford a small army of guys. And he doesn't even really NEED the army most of the time it seems, Nikki getting the leg up on him appears to be a relatively rare occurrence. And I disagree that Gloria is not the credible one here at the end, because her character has always doggedly pursued every possible lead throughout this entire season; she even goes to Los Angeles on her own dime. She was never shown as incompetent, only rendered somewhat ineffective because of small-town policing bureaucracy. But she was never incorrect when it came to figuring stuff out, which is why I think it would be narratively inconsistent for her to all of a sudden lose her guy at the very end. If she says she's collected enough evidence that even his (hypothetical, possibly bullshit) connections won't save him, we have no reason to doubt her. We do however, have many reasons to doubt Vargas, because he's been shown to lie to everybody around him to mentally dominate them and get them to slip up. He dazzles people with bullshit. And I think that's why, in the beginning of the last episode here, they have him manipulate Emmit to put down his gun by blowing smoke up rear end about a fingerprint detector on the pistol. Tumble fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 18:55
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Varga being a lone operator would somewhat ruin the season (and series as a whole) theme of the corporatisation of America/the wider world and how that grinds down individuals
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Jun 23, 2017 19:00
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One thing I think people are overestimating is the 'organized' part of organized crime. In Varga's position, the idea of him being answerable to a 'boss' of some kind doesn't really fit to me, because the nature of his whole operation ends at him. With most other organized crime groups the organisation comes from need, either for resources/protection/connections etc. And is then more of a quid quo pro thing, like a relationship to ensure drug shipments move from the Golden Triangle/Crescent to the US. Unless it's a culturally rooted organisation like the Triads or Cosa Nostra or something. I don't think Varga was any of those though. Varga doesn't really 'need' to answer to anyone, his role as con-man means he doesn't really need much oversight, he doesn't need permission to operate in a territory (because he targets legit business not black markets) and really anyone above him would have no way to ensure control anyway, since Varga seems to be the one in full operational control, and from what we see he doesn't need much outside help beside that which he can get himself through bribes/blackmail. And people saying that an IRS investigation getting stopped by Washington is a sign of a super powerful unseen force, I disagree with you because Washington is famously full of corrupt people who will do favours for a couple mil. If Varga has done this even once before he has enough money to get a white collar investigation dropped. cosmically_cosmic fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jun 23, 2017 |
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Jun 23, 2017 19:06
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Those are all good arguments that are undercut somewhat by the fact that Varga does not exist.
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Jun 23, 2017 19:22
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....ok I'm all ears
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Jun 23, 2017 19:24
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The whole season was full of references to things being in dual states, and Varga is no exception. He disappears from the elevator, and in the interview outright states something like "I am a citizen of the air, I am as the wind". He's not a human being, any more than Ray Wise's character was. That's why the ending can't be resolved until we see it - he may be a supernatural force beyond all reach (he literally disappeared from the elevator) or he may just be a man (he climbed out of the elevator). It's not up to the viewer to resolve this dilemma; the ending was a flat statement that we simply can't resolve it, unless we come up with a story.
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Jun 23, 2017 20:00
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Tumble posted:And I disagree that Gloria is not the credible one here at the end, because her character has always doggedly pursued every possible lead throughout this entire season; she even goes to Los Angeles on her own dime. She was never shown as incompetent, only rendered somewhat ineffective because of small-town policing bureaucracy. But she was never incorrect when it came to figuring stuff out, which is why I think it would be narratively inconsistent for her to all of a sudden lose her guy at the very end. If she says she's collected enough evidence that even his (hypothetical, possibly bullshit) connections won't save him, we have no reason to doubt her. We do however, have many reasons to doubt Vargas, because he's been shown to lie to everybody around him to mentally dominate them and get them to slip up. He dazzles people with bullshit. And I think that's why, in the beginning of the last episode here, they have him manipulate Emmit to put down his gun by blowing smoke up rear end about a fingerprint detector on the pistol.
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Jun 23, 2017 20:17
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Varga got a text message telling him the IRS had gotten his books, so we know he's got people on the inside of federal agencies. Varga knows he was the subject of a huge tax investigation and knows he's taking a risk by entering the US again. So therefore he also surely has taken measures to protect himself. That's why he'll walk out of that room, but that's too much time I've spent already arguinbg this and getting drawn in by one of these gimmick ambiguous open endings.
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Jun 23, 2017 20:26
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But Varga is also confident in his ability to blend in and not be noticed. His anonymity is a source of pride for him. When he was picked up by DHS, he wasn't counting on getting released because he was important, but because he wasn't. I'm sure his Mr. Rand persona was completely ironclad and would have passed anyone not intimately familiar with his con. Which is why Hawley was very specific in writing how he got caught.
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Jun 23, 2017 20:51
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