In the mood for grim pronouncements about the nature of power, the legacy of family, and the fate of empires? Chances are Fargo is not where you’d normally look. Sure, Lorne Malvo had some heavy shit, man to say about living life in predator mode, but his deranged outlook was a sort of solo semi-fascism, a view in which life is nothing but struggle between the weak and the strong and no alliance has value beyond temporary exploitation. Beyond that, the show’s take on morality has been pointedly small-bore, demonstrated through the selfless or squalid behavior of individuals. In that respect, showrunner Noah Hawley has much in common with his inspirations, Joel and Ethan Coen, or with the more surreal and supernatural work of their spiritual cousin David Lynch, who like them tends to split his narrative time between Small Town U.S.A. and the City of Angels. They examine violence for its place in human nature, not its potential as a force of nature.
But the stuff we heard from Floyd Gerhardt, the matriarch of this season’s German-American gangster heavies, in “Before the Law,” this week’s episode? You could just as easily have heard it in Tywin Lannister’s Red Keep, Lucious Lyon’s boardroom, or Frank Semyon’s Vinci casino, if not for the Minnesota accents.
I reviewed last night’s Fargo for the New York Observer.
Tags: fargo, new york observer, reviews, TV, TV reviews