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Kro-Bar posted:is season three worth watching? I missed that one but a coworker of mine has a family member who is featured in it so I feel like I should watch it, but it seems like people ITT are comparing it unfavorably to this and other seasons. It's good, and on top of what other goons are saying I'd add that some of the lingering negativity, I think, is from watching it week-to-week. It sounds like people who binge watched it enjoyed it more. It fucks around and meanders a little more and it takes longer to get moving but it's a strong season with some great characters.
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Jan 19, 2024 05:57
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Season three has a lot going for it. Carrie Coon is great, as usual. Michael Stuhlbarg gets some really memorable moments too. Overall, I'd rank the seasons something like: 2 > 5 > 1 roughly equal to 3 > 4.
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Jan 19, 2024 07:54
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Nameless Pete posted:Watch all the Fargo.
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Jan 19, 2024 13:59
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Cat Army
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I liked season 3 but I'll never watch it again. It feels gross to me, in a way that Fargo usually isn't. Vargas's vomiting is just one sign of how disgusting the whole season feels.
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Jan 19, 2024 14:13
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S3 spoilers: it is nuts how prescient the theme ended up being with 'fake news' becoming all the rage what, three years after it aired? Not that making your theme truth is much of a called shot, but still. Really enjoyed how that season moved around the first scene where you immediately sympathize with the guy in front of an authority figure trying to explain he isn't who they say he is... only for that scene to play out again at the end and have you root for said authority figure. I don't think it's quite as well done as this season's finale, which is way more blunt yet elegant. But it's a fun concept done well enough. LifeLynx posted:I liked season 3 but I'll never watch it again. It feels gross to me, in a way that Fargo usually isn't. Vargas's vomiting is just one sign of how disgusting the whole season feels. He's the one supernatural villain they've had that relies on a borderline illuminati to do his dirty deeds. Billy Bob Thorton and Munch are mythical-esque, but we see them mostly get by through blunt force and will. Varga is hacking old peoples computers and has what seems like a small army. I think that's a lot harder to do well and have it not come off as cheesy, which while entertaining, it kinda does in this case. CatstropheWaitress fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Jan 19, 2024 |
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Jan 19, 2024 15:05
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^^^^ agree with all that stuff. I also hadn’t considered how the final scenes of season 3 and 5 resemble each other structurally. Edit: just went back and watched Malvo’s final scene from season 1 and it’s interesting to see how Gus handles that final interaction. Gus’ struggle and disillusionment throughout the season ensure that he doesn’t make the same mistake as Witt. a new study bible! fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jan 19, 2024 |
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Jan 19, 2024 15:14
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Re: Witt and the final episode of Season 5: I get the feeling that Witt is supposed to represent the idea that the law is there to do the "right" thing, which marks him in contrast to many of the other characters, in particular Roy. He seemed from the (sadly) little we got to see him that he WANTS to be a good police officer but struggles with fear and self-doubt. Policing doesn't come naturally to him, but he is a true believer in the idea of it: the police are there to help people, to stop criminals, but to do it all the "right" way, by the book, following laws which he clearly believes are in place for the good of all and not just a few. He also clearly thinks that other people should and would respect the law in the same way, that some things just "are". All through the season you can see him struggling with the reality he keeps butting heads with, like Gator stealing evidence directly in front of him, his fear for his own safety conflicting with his desire to be a good officer, how clearly uncomfortable but determined he is when he requests his boss let him be part of the team looking for Dot, holding down the fear when he's part of that unit proceeding into the Tillman property etc. Somebody mentioned it earlier, but when he turns and finds Roy behind him with the knife, he could have shot him there and it would have been absolutely 100% classified as a justified shooting... but that's not the kind of cop/person that Witt is or wants to be. He catches Tillman dead to rights, and in his head now that he has caught him and has a gun on him, this is the end of it, he can arrest him and put him in cuffs and take him away. As Tillman keeps approaching with the knife, you can tell he knows that he has to shoot but he can't bear to do it for a multitude of reasons, not least of all because at the heart of it he doesn't want to kill somebody when he thinks talking/deescalation is still an option. Witt represents the ideal of the police officer, even if he struggles to be what he so clearly wants to be. He is unfortunately in a world of rampant corruption, and even the "good" cops are shown to be largely indifferent to what is right or wrong as opposed to what is expedient in the moment, not wanting to put their necks out and risk angering somebody in power but also more than happy to be a tool for those powers the moment they're called on to do so. Tillman is the antithesis of what Witt wants to be: utterly corrupt, zero compunctions about murder, entirely about using authority and power purely for his own gain and personal desires rather than any benefit to society (though Roy would argue that what is good for him is in alignment with what is good for society). It still makes for a frustrating watch given we spend so little time with him and can only pull interpretations from his limited screen-time and character development, but I did feel like there was an interesting story (kinda) being told there with him. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Jan 19, 2024 |
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Jan 19, 2024 15:53
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There's that conversation with Danish at the hospital where Witt clearly struggles with this idea everyone else has internalized, that if you have enough power you get to effectively create your own reality. When Roy tries to sneak up on Witt his first reaction after being told to drop the knife is to ask "what knife?", as if he wasn't holding it in his hand. Those are very clearly linked ideas, to me. Witt died because he didn't understand the nature of the power he was dealing with.
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Jan 19, 2024 15:57
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Jerusalem posted:Re: Witt and the final episode of Season 5: So many people in season 5 have "codes" and everyone keeps insisting that debts must be paid, and consequences are coming, and etc. Witt has a code, and the reason he appears at all after the first episode is that he feels that he is in debt to Dorothy Lyons, and must repay that debt. This is a very honorable debt and the most honorable code of law/policing you're liable to see. It's honorable but ultimately pretty foolish, especially when it extends to his final scenes. He's a traffic cop with a busted leg, but he insists on embedding himself into an FBI hostage rescue team. Miraculously this all works out and they save Dorothy, but that sense of debt and honor extends to a traffic cop with a busted leg deciding that he needs to hunt down and arrest an incredibly dangerous militia leader who is surrounded by all of the aforementioned FBI guys himself, out of debt and honor. Even before the finale, Witt does the "right thing" by following Dorothy back to the Tillman ranch, and then goes beyond his police duty to personally inform Danish Graves about Dot's whereabouts, which ultimately gets Danish killed too. It's unpleasant and unsatisfying and I don't know in-universe what the "right" thing to do is, but Witt is an example of how feeling like every debt must be paid and every code must be unshakeable is dangerous, even when done with the best of intentions. He's one of the most pure-hearted characters (in contrast with the shades of gray to black that all of the other Code Having folks like Lorraine, Roy, Munch, etc. that bear the bulk of this theme) but good intentions do not save him. The message (and it's absolutely deliberate, Hawley talks about how the entire run of Fargo has been him "writing 51 hours about the evils of capitalism") is that broken systems are broken even when you do your absolute best to be a good person inside them. So it's important not to just have it crush lovely people.
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Jan 19, 2024 16:15
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Edge & Christian posted:It's unpleasant and unsatisfying and I don't know in-universe what the "right" thing to do is, but Witt is an example of how feeling like every debt must be paid and every code must be unshakeable is dangerous, even when done with the best of intentions. Given how on-the-nose the rest of the season is about how much debt impacts on people, I feel foolish for not picking up on this earlier. drat good point. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Jan 20, 2024 |
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Jan 19, 2024 17:10
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Season 3 is great, I don't get how people rank it poorly. (again, bad Fargo is great TV) Varga is an incredible character, you hate every single second he is on screen, that isn't easy. The powerlessness the one brother feels is despairing, even if it's kind of deserved? I don't remember tbh. And add to all that the return of that character, the bizarre robot interlude. But then again, I rank 1 and 3 above 2 most days, so I'm sort of a weird one. Edit: Re season 5, it owned
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Jan 19, 2024 17:57
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oh jay posted:There's a "rule" of writing that I've always liked. Coincidence can be used to get characters in trouble. It can't be used to get characters out of trouble. I get what you're saying but it's probably not the most relevant 'rule' because Fargo goes out of its way to break it. Cosmic irony is a very Coen-esque theme, and the series is more preoccupied with how people navigate what happens to them than what actually happens, which is why narrative beats are often resolved by what feels like a purely arbitrary set of circumstances (season two starting and ending with the most audacious/obvious example, which everyone who has seen it will know what I mean so I don't need to spoil). This season could just as well as ended by a truck careening into Roy's ranch and him getting run over by it. Anyway, the more I think about season 5, the more it feels like it's up there for me amongst my favourites. I loved the finale. My only real criticism of this season is its themes feel way more direct and heavy handed than all the previous seasons. I feel like all the prior seasons - even 4 - kind of poke at the edges of whichever way its interrogating modern America, with only the occasional villian's speech that directly explains what the season is about. I feel like in season 5, the dialogue is a lot more blunt about what this series is about. Maybe it's because in the dialogue, people aren't talking about themselves or their own circumstances as a metaphor for society, but there are just big speeches about society itself - "this is how debt works in America and how I feel about it" - which ends up coming across as a lot more on the nose. I feel like season 5 could have held back a little on that front and we still all would have got that it was about debt and/or MAGA". But like, I really loved it. I loved how it played with the mother-in-law character, and I don't agree that the series is unrepentant about her at the end - it's more that she turns from 'this is probably going to be the season's villain' to unexpected anti-hero. She is a bad person who you can't even say 'does the right thing' whole cloth, but who still feels heroic by the end. And her scenes are all very quotable, and very funny (including, despite what I said above abotu the series being too direct, the hilarious admonishment of libertarianism as grown men fighting for the right to live as babies). She is not a good person, but she is a very sympathetic character and you can't help but like her, and even root for her more often than not. That's really hard to do well, especially in a show like this which does usually have well defined heroes and villians edit: I want season 6 to be set in 16th century wales edit edit: ok so 2>5>1=3>4 is the objectively correct ranking. All of Fargo is very good though. The Grumbles fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jan 19, 2024 |
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Jan 19, 2024 17:59
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Edge & Christian posted:Agreed, and to build on that: All of this with Witt is very contrasted with how Indira helps Dorothy and herself out from situations caused by the men in their lives, but with her it's at the cost of surrendering to the system. Even if she's still being kept out of Lorraine's dirtier dealings by the end of it, her time of even in theory working for justice and the little guy is over and she's going to live well in service of a exploitative predator that only helps people she feels a connection to.
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Jan 19, 2024 18:24
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Varga is basically Satan appearing as the form of an avatar of capitalism, he rules.Jerusalem posted:Re: Witt and the final episode of Season 5: Yeah I think you're absolutely right, and your last point (we spend so little time with him and get such limited character development) is what I mean when I say it feels unearned. I'm fine with it as a bullet point but what we actually got was not there for me. Same for Indira although for her it's more that I wish she had a concluding scene at all.
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Jan 19, 2024 20:10
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I mean, the woman cop does have a concluding scene. She managed to break free of the debt cycle, but at the cost of helping the entire system continuing to exist. She has to realize that she is helping the mother in law continue to squeeze people that were in similar situations to hers. She is empowered, but has to walk out of the room when told to. Bittersweet ending for her, better than what Farr got at least.
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Jan 19, 2024 20:18
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Nameless Pete posted:Watch all the Fargo. TV IV › Fargo - Watch all the Fargo
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Jan 19, 2024 21:55
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Mr. Nemo posted:I mean, the woman cop does have a concluding scene. If helping to perpetuate unjust systems was an issue for her, she wouldn’t have been a cop in the first place
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Jan 19, 2024 22:31
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Wafflecopper posted:If helping to perpetuate unjust systems was an issue for her, she wouldn’t have been a cop in the first place it's a fantastical tv show show during which we all agree to suspend our disbelief for a little while and believe there is such a thing as a "good cop."
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Jan 19, 2024 22:55
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One per season is about the going rate S2 has Ted Danson in addition to the Good Cop, but S4 doesn't have any if memory serves so they cancel each other out.
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Jan 19, 2024 23:16
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Gus Grimly is a good man, but a bad cop. That's why he won.
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Jan 19, 2024 23:33
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Wafflecopper posted:If helping to perpetuate unjust systems was an issue for her, she wouldn’t have been a cop in the first place Slightly before she discovers her useless husband having the world's most expected affair, she mentions that she has just spent the day evicting old people from their homes and how this isn't why she became a cop. Catching her husband is finally the breaking point where she decides she has had enough of doing the right thing - supporting him, being a cop - and goes to work for Lorraine so she can put herself first for a change. The end result is she's still involved in kicking people out of their homes, but now SHE actually gets paid well for it as opposed to being just another debtor. It's a sad conclusion for her, since her discussions with Witt, meeting with Dot and even Lorraine's own admission to Tillman show she is still somebody with a sense of right and wrong. But she put that aside because doing things the right way achieved nothing for her in life and the system constantly wore down on her: the early exchange about student loans really stood out to me. She paid her own way into school only for them to ramp up the cost halfway through her study and leave her with no choice but to take a loan or lose everything... and that was that, she was a prisoner from that moment forward. It's very depressing, showing that the cost of "winning" has its own flipside to the cost of doing things the right way like she was trying. Or rather, there is a cost for those who are not simply selfish people who care nothing for the pain they cause others.
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Jan 20, 2024 01:45
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Varga, to me, is the closest that Fargo has had to having the devil as a character. He was vile and manipulative with machinations that were almost beyond human understanding.
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Jan 20, 2024 01:47
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Hilario Baldness posted:Varga, to me, is the closest that Fargo has had to having the devil as a character. He was vile and manipulative with machinations that were almost beyond human understanding. Isn’t he the most straight forward? He wants to amass enough money and power that he never has to worry about being murdered by poor people and can feel fully in control. Also he has a brummie accent and bad teeth. So if the latter is what you’re referring to then yeah I guess
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Jan 20, 2024 02:14
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I thought making Varga bulimic was very humanizing. He hates himself, but for the entirely wrong reason.
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Jan 20, 2024 03:08
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Nameless Pete posted:I thought making Varga bulimic was very humanizing. He hates himself, but for the entirely wrong reason. In light of Munch this season, you can read this in a different way, that Varga cannot consume earthly food (made with love?) because he is some avatar of sin?
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Jan 20, 2024 03:26
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Nice avatar hoodie
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Jan 20, 2024 04:04
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Edge & Christian posted:So many people in season 5 have "codes" Jerusalem posted:Given how on-the-nose the reason of the season is about how much debt impacts on people, I feel foolish for not picking up on this earlier. drat good point. Regarding Indira, a couple things: First off, I didn't mind her end. I felt closure for her because of the fact there was no definitive closure outside of her still having to leave the room while Lorraine describes her dirtier dealings. That was us understanding that she's not becoming a devil herself, in spite of doing the devil's dealings. She is, at the very least, believing that her ability to change Lorraine's mind about Dot means she can perhaps further help Lorraine's issues with empathy, possibly helping others in debt via being her new right hand woman. Secondly, what I do mind is her start. This is a weird complaint but absolutely nothing about her relationship with her husband makes sense in a "how the gently caress did these two end up together" kind of way. There is zero information given to indicate that they ever had a healthy relationship, which was sort of the red flag to indicate to us almost immediately into the season that he was either gonna die or get divorced. It feels like really thin relationship writing that weakens her as an interesting character. DaveKap fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jan 20, 2024 |
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Jan 20, 2024 04:22
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Yeah, it would have been nice to confirm something. I'm sure it was just standard midwestern getting married young then getting hosed when he never grew up. But I would have liked a little more background and a little more closure to her arc. We don't get a real sense of how she feels about her ending other than the mentioned inferences.
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Jan 20, 2024 06:19
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I much preferred the first two seasons to the rest. They seemed closer to what I liked about the film which was setting up these funny/awkward situations with these bumbling but charming characters.
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Jan 20, 2024 10:37
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This is way off topic but it occurs to me that the Fargo seasons are usually ranked the same order as the Suikoden games: 2, 5, 1, 3, 4 (With me personally swapping 1 and 3). I only mention this because now I can't stop thinking about the Fargo: Tactics spinoff and the untranslated Fargo Gaiden series.
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Jan 20, 2024 14:56
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DaveKap posted:This is a weird complaint but absolutely nothing about her relationship with her husband makes sense in a "how the gently caress did these two end up together" kind of way. There is zero information given to indicate that they ever had a healthy relationship, which was sort of the red flag to indicate to us almost immediately into the season that he was either gonna die or get divorced. It feels like really thin relationship writing that weakens her as an interesting character. It's not just weird, it's pretty weak as complaints go. Just go to the /r relationships thread, pick 10 random pages of posts and you will see a bunch of "how the gently caress did these two end up together" examples.
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Jan 20, 2024 18:12
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I don't feel like Witt getting killed because of his "debt" is a bad end to the character as it fits with the themes of the season. I mostly just wish it had been executed differently because even with that in mind it's difficult to simultaneously decouple it from the frustration of "JUST SHOOT HIM". To say nothing of how the character just kind of felt undercooked in general.
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Jan 20, 2024 18:37
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thehoodie posted:It is worth a watch. Even the worst Fargo is better than most TV. But there are some genuinely very good aspects of it. CatstropheWaitress posted:Go in with lowered expectations and you'll probably be fine. Chris Rock never works, unfortunately. But there's some goodies sprinkles amongst the mess. Jeez I feel like a moron for not watching S4 because I just finished it and loved it even though overall it’s probably the weakest but that doesn’t mean much. Loved all the characters hell even Chris Rock was ok here and there. Odis 
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Jan 20, 2024 19:29
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Nate RFB posted:I don't feel like Witt getting killed because of his "debt" is a bad end to the character as it fits with the themes of the season. I mostly just wish it had been executed differently because even with that in mind it's difficult to simultaneously decouple it from the frustration of "JUST SHOOT HIM". To say nothing of how the character just kind of felt undercooked in general. There's also the issue that it's basically just a rehash of Danish from right before. There's a slight twist to it, but not enough to make it interesting.
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Jan 20, 2024 21:30
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I thought Witt Farr's death was an allegory. He represents the American political establishment. While he wields the power to stop fascism, he fails to act and instead binds himself with decorum and stands there impotently until fascism stabs him in the heart.
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Jan 21, 2024 05:34
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th3t00t posted:I thought Witt Farr's death was an allegory. He represents the American political establishment. While he wields the power to stop fascism, he fails to act and instead binds himself with decorum and stands there impotently until fascism stabs him in the heart. More or less, yeah
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Jan 21, 2024 05:36
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You goons are overthinking things. Witt's feeble human physics couldn't handle the unresolved superposition of being both a cop and a likable protagonist so his body tore itself apart from the inside in an act that, coincidentally, looked like a shooting. Tillman innocent.
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Jan 21, 2024 05:42
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Nameless Pete posted:This is way off topic but it occurs to me that the Fargo seasons are usually ranked the same order as the Suikoden games: 2, 5, 1, 3, 4 (With me personally swapping 1 and 3). I only mention this because now I can't stop thinking about the Fargo: Tactics spinoff and the untranslated Fargo Gaiden series. Oh, can't not respond to this. I'm sure I said before I'm someone who thought the third season was the best (narrowly ahead of 1), which is being talked about now, but now I also get to say my favorite Suikoden is number 3 too. As for Fargo, the original non-Suikoden topic of this thread, the only flaw in season 3 may be that the still-very-good ending scene is mostly lifted from Lord of War, a good but not-Coen-brothers film.
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Jan 21, 2024 07:24
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They were a bit too heavy on showing the viewer that Tillman/Lorraine were the bad guys, like, literally for the first 5 episodes or such, every single scene they were in they were pissing someone off and painting targets on their backs. Which might be okay if they were supposed to be sociopathic losers, but they are the heads of pretty large crews. You don't get to be the head guy by pissing off everyone you meet. Less so for Lorraine though, they dialed it back towards the end of the season, but Tillman was going strong all the way through. Maybe that's why he was the one sitting in jail and Lorraine wasn't? Also on Varga: someone opined that he was supposed to symbolise capitalism, mindlessly consuming far beyond that he needs.
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Jan 21, 2024 07:49
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Tehdas posted:They were a bit too heavy on showing the viewer that Tillman/Lorraine were the bad guys, like, literally for the first 5 episodes or such, every single scene they were in they were pissing someone off and painting targets on their backs. Which might be okay if they were supposed to be sociopathic losers, but they are the heads of pretty large crews. You don't get to be the head guy by pissing off everyone you meet. She’s very much not the bad guy of this season. She’s an anti hero. That just doesn’t become clear until a few episodes in.
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Jan 21, 2024 14:21
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