Best part was Dave Foley as that weirdo scheming lawyer with an eye patch. More fairly successful comedians should play weirdo scheming lawyers with an eye patch.
I thought the final scene was great if only for taking the piss out of Much's portentuous existentialism. He's making all of these elliptical, foreboding statements, and then ultimately Dot is just like "Well, I don't know what means, but..." and the shoe's on the other foot. I also liked Lorraine's ridiculous accent, I mean she's a ridiculous character but still I got suckered in anyway, the way she went from being a caricature of evil to someone you thought was (in some respects) on the side of good. I even got a little choked up when she said "No daughter of mine is going to fumble the ball on the one-yard line" or whatever. If anything, I think Sheriff Roy was the real cartoon. He's Everything Bad about the far right, Christianity, and American masculinity all in one package. We get it, he's a redblooded, dick-swinging asshole, not much more to see there.
Vince, I have loved your stuff for a long time and you are a great writer and cultural critic which is why I have subscribed and will for a long time etc and so forth.
BUT (extreme Stephen A voice), I feel like that because you have been a critic for so long sometimes you can’t just enjoy some things in an weird side effect of your insight that would just go unnoticed by other people. It’s like being Anthony Bourdain, but also by being Anthony Bourdain you can’t appreciate how much a McGriddle when you’re hungover rocks. Like, I died laughing at both the Bisquick ending and when he said “a man is grateful” after being given the orange soda. Would never have thought that deeply about the golf thing either because the vibes of the story are what are entertaining not how realistic it is.
Also my 6 year old is home sick and has been playing switch for 6 hours straight so my brain is scrambled.
I feel like he would spit on the idea of a McGriddle but would wax on endlessly about why you need to get like greasy street noodles from a cart in Chinatown, that's the proper way to deal with a hangover (when they are just a different cultures version of the same thing).
I think it's just all a symptom of how expertise and familiarity with a subject can kill the joy of things at times. I've been a long time Frotcast listener, but also have lived and worked in DC for 20 years. When Matt Lieb goes on some political rants about process that I know are just wrong (or misunderstood) from having lived in the IRL version of "In The Loop" for this long I just shrug it off and can't enjoy it as much. Everyone has some version of this.
Agreed about Jennifer Jason Leigh's accent. But I disagree that Munch's character was unnecessary? The whole season has been about debt, revenge, and extraction, which is juxtaposted with Dot's longing for an idyllic midwestern American life and the ideals within (specifically: love, compassion and forgiveness). Thought the ending and the last shot was a wonderful way for the show to choose "love" instead of "an eye for an eye."
I agree with you about those themes, I just feel like the rest of the show gets to them in a termite art kind of way, without inserting an almost a literal white elephant character to explain it all to us.
Totally fair. It does feel like they kind of had this problem of "Hey, how are we going to resolve what happens with the Munch character?" and then backed out into a solution from that. But it worked for me!
I was very happy to see him show up at the end, because I loved his performance and was afraid I'd seen the last of it. Nice job, actor I'd never heard of before!
A man views so much filth and waste and sin for a living that a man loses sight of intent. A man forgets that the show is a tapestry of dark satirical comedy, so he absorbs things that should be digested with delight as things that should be purged and vomited from his soul. It gets so difficult for a man that he gets chewed and swallowed by these things, when instead, he should simply eat the Bisquik.
The music is a great example of the love-hate. The needle drops are a frequent source of eye rolls. Of the several times I almost quit on this season, the closest I came was the cover of "Toxic" when Roy is walking to the shed where Dot is chained. But I perk up every time they break out the jazzy drums.
I found this season to be pretty entertaining, but the Munch character drove me up a fucking wall. The last scene was funny, because it juxtaposed his tortured metaphors with the the aw shucks Minnesota thing, but it still meant I had to sit through those tortured metaphors in the first place.
Some people have their own individual accents, often because they're deliberately trying to mask a regional accent they grew up with. Think of Jared Diamond, or Carl Sagan, or Tony Randall, or ... well, William F. Buckley, Jr. They all sound erudite but kinda weird. I thought Jennifer Jason Leigh's accent in FARGO was pretty much in keeping with that -- Loraine feels she has to mask the "aw gee" accent she grew up with.
We'd already heard Leigh do basically the same thing in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, anyway.
Pretty solid season. Ups and downs, strikes and gutters. I’m not as sensitive as a lot of my fellow Minnesotans about the lampooning of our accent but Juno Temple pronouncing her character’s name as “Darathy” became like nails on the chalkboard to me. We’d pronounce it as “Door-thee” but whatever, aside from that she was great.
I like a show that takes big swings, regardless if it totally connects every time. A puppet show depicting brutal domestic violence? A 500 year old sin eater? Sure, why not. At least it’s not another fucking singing competition.
That was an interesting read. Some points I agreed with, others,
(Jennifer Jason Leigh fucking ripped) not so much. In the end I believe we can all agree on thing- Winnie the Bish deserved better and shooting a psychopath trying to stab you isn't bad politics.
This perfectly captured some of the same thoughts that I've had this season, too. So much of this potential was squandered with every season of the show getting more hilariously outlandish and cartoonish. I could only get through Leigh's monologues if I squinted and pretended they were an homage to her other Coen Bros.' character from the Hudsucker Proxy. It was a very rough watch past the first couple episodes.
Season 4 was definitely the weakest. (I blame moving the setting.) Season 3's my fave, though, particularly Winstead and Thewlis. (Season 2 I haven't finished, not because it's bad, but because the Plemons/Dunst characters fill me with cringeing.)
Yeah, her accent was bad, but then again, EVERY attempted accent in the entire collected works of Fargo has always been bad. People from Minnesota don't talk like Dorothy or Indira or Wayne. Not even the ones from way up north, like near Duluth. Nobody from North Dakota talks like whatever Roy was doing. I know it's funny, but it's never been accurate.
I've taken up the view that it's like that explanation for how Will Ferrell played Janet Reno on SNL -- sure, it sounded nothing like her, but it did sound like what she looks like. For Fargo, it's just part of the charm at this point. Kind of like their very, very loose relationship with geography and time.
Best part was Dave Foley as that weirdo scheming lawyer with an eye patch. More fairly successful comedians should play weirdo scheming lawyers with an eye patch.
I thought the final scene was great if only for taking the piss out of Much's portentuous existentialism. He's making all of these elliptical, foreboding statements, and then ultimately Dot is just like "Well, I don't know what means, but..." and the shoe's on the other foot. I also liked Lorraine's ridiculous accent, I mean she's a ridiculous character but still I got suckered in anyway, the way she went from being a caricature of evil to someone you thought was (in some respects) on the side of good. I even got a little choked up when she said "No daughter of mine is going to fumble the ball on the one-yard line" or whatever. If anything, I think Sheriff Roy was the real cartoon. He's Everything Bad about the far right, Christianity, and American masculinity all in one package. We get it, he's a redblooded, dick-swinging asshole, not much more to see there.
Agree with all of that.
The reveal of Roy's nipple rings seemed like one step toward making him more interesting, but then they took no more steps....
Vince, I have loved your stuff for a long time and you are a great writer and cultural critic which is why I have subscribed and will for a long time etc and so forth.
BUT (extreme Stephen A voice), I feel like that because you have been a critic for so long sometimes you can’t just enjoy some things in an weird side effect of your insight that would just go unnoticed by other people. It’s like being Anthony Bourdain, but also by being Anthony Bourdain you can’t appreciate how much a McGriddle when you’re hungover rocks. Like, I died laughing at both the Bisquick ending and when he said “a man is grateful” after being given the orange soda. Would never have thought that deeply about the golf thing either because the vibes of the story are what are entertaining not how realistic it is.
Also my 6 year old is home sick and has been playing switch for 6 hours straight so my brain is scrambled.
Rich, I agree with your take but not using "Howeva" as a Stephen A pivot is a rookie mistake.
One day I want to be as good as David Roth at channeling him.
Don't know how Bourdain felt about the McGriddle, but he was unashamed of enjoying unhealthy garbage food after a long night of drinking.
But the comparison is still apt. Fargo is prestige TV fast food.
I feel like he would spit on the idea of a McGriddle but would wax on endlessly about why you need to get like greasy street noodles from a cart in Chinatown, that's the proper way to deal with a hangover (when they are just a different cultures version of the same thing).
I think it's just all a symptom of how expertise and familiarity with a subject can kill the joy of things at times. I've been a long time Frotcast listener, but also have lived and worked in DC for 20 years. When Matt Lieb goes on some political rants about process that I know are just wrong (or misunderstood) from having lived in the IRL version of "In The Loop" for this long I just shrug it off and can't enjoy it as much. Everyone has some version of this.
Agreed about Jennifer Jason Leigh's accent. But I disagree that Munch's character was unnecessary? The whole season has been about debt, revenge, and extraction, which is juxtaposted with Dot's longing for an idyllic midwestern American life and the ideals within (specifically: love, compassion and forgiveness). Thought the ending and the last shot was a wonderful way for the show to choose "love" instead of "an eye for an eye."
I agree with you about those themes, I just feel like the rest of the show gets to them in a termite art kind of way, without inserting an almost a literal white elephant character to explain it all to us.
Totally fair. It does feel like they kind of had this problem of "Hey, how are we going to resolve what happens with the Munch character?" and then backed out into a solution from that. But it worked for me!
I was very happy to see him show up at the end, because I loved his performance and was afraid I'd seen the last of it. Nice job, actor I'd never heard of before!
A man views so much filth and waste and sin for a living that a man loses sight of intent. A man forgets that the show is a tapestry of dark satirical comedy, so he absorbs things that should be digested with delight as things that should be purged and vomited from his soul. It gets so difficult for a man that he gets chewed and swallowed by these things, when instead, he should simply eat the Bisquik.
The music is a great example of the love-hate. The needle drops are a frequent source of eye rolls. Of the several times I almost quit on this season, the closest I came was the cover of "Toxic" when Roy is walking to the shed where Dot is chained. But I perk up every time they break out the jazzy drums.
I found this season to be pretty entertaining, but the Munch character drove me up a fucking wall. The last scene was funny, because it juxtaposed his tortured metaphors with the the aw shucks Minnesota thing, but it still meant I had to sit through those tortured metaphors in the first place.
Some people have their own individual accents, often because they're deliberately trying to mask a regional accent they grew up with. Think of Jared Diamond, or Carl Sagan, or Tony Randall, or ... well, William F. Buckley, Jr. They all sound erudite but kinda weird. I thought Jennifer Jason Leigh's accent in FARGO was pretty much in keeping with that -- Loraine feels she has to mask the "aw gee" accent she grew up with.
We'd already heard Leigh do basically the same thing in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, anyway.
(Ole Munch also has a unique accent, but for other reasons. And how is he Welsh but with a Swedish name and a vaguely German-sounding accent???)
Pretty solid season. Ups and downs, strikes and gutters. I’m not as sensitive as a lot of my fellow Minnesotans about the lampooning of our accent but Juno Temple pronouncing her character’s name as “Darathy” became like nails on the chalkboard to me. We’d pronounce it as “Door-thee” but whatever, aside from that she was great.
I like a show that takes big swings, regardless if it totally connects every time. A puppet show depicting brutal domestic violence? A 500 year old sin eater? Sure, why not. At least it’s not another fucking singing competition.
That was an interesting read. Some points I agreed with, others,
(Jennifer Jason Leigh fucking ripped) not so much. In the end I believe we can all agree on thing- Winnie the Bish deserved better and shooting a psychopath trying to stab you isn't bad politics.
I just finished watching the first four seasons, and I'm really excited to start the fifth season this weekend.
This perfectly captured some of the same thoughts that I've had this season, too. So much of this potential was squandered with every season of the show getting more hilariously outlandish and cartoonish. I could only get through Leigh's monologues if I squinted and pretended they were an homage to her other Coen Bros.' character from the Hudsucker Proxy. It was a very rough watch past the first couple episodes.
"...as if he’s trying to convince Dorothy why he should kill her instead of killing her."
Way to write, IDIOT! No wander u got fired from The Grid!
Vince, have you seen Hawley's other masterful-and-vivid-but-often-frustrating series, LEGION?
I couldn't get through season 3 and 4. But, I've really enjoyed Seasons 1, 2, and 5.
That being said, I imagine Hawley is probably insufferable to hang out with in real life.
Season 4 was definitely the weakest. (I blame moving the setting.) Season 3's my fave, though, particularly Winstead and Thewlis. (Season 2 I haven't finished, not because it's bad, but because the Plemons/Dunst characters fill me with cringeing.)
Thewlis in anything. Chris Rock in nothing.
Yeah, her accent was bad, but then again, EVERY attempted accent in the entire collected works of Fargo has always been bad. People from Minnesota don't talk like Dorothy or Indira or Wayne. Not even the ones from way up north, like near Duluth. Nobody from North Dakota talks like whatever Roy was doing. I know it's funny, but it's never been accurate.
I've taken up the view that it's like that explanation for how Will Ferrell played Janet Reno on SNL -- sure, it sounded nothing like her, but it did sound like what she looks like. For Fargo, it's just part of the charm at this point. Kind of like their very, very loose relationship with geography and time.