Fargo just kicked off with episode 1 titled “The Crocodile’s Dilemma.” Our recap breaks down the events of the premiere!
This should be obvious, but this recap will be very spoiler filled. Okay? Okay.
The premiere episode of Fargo fits a lot into one episode, even considering its fairly long run time of just over 70 minutes (not counting commercials). It sees quite a lot of change for Martin Freeman’s Lester Nygaard, a character who by all accounts hasn’t seen much change in his life. In the span of an episode he evolves from a bumbling fool into someone involved in three murders, including the murder of his wife.
This all happens because of the arrival of Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) to Bemidji. Lorne is unlike anyone in this Minnesota city. Actually, he’s unlike most people in most cities. This is evident from his first introduction when, after crashing his car attempting to avoid a deer on the road at night, a near naked man escapes from the trunk of his car.
Lorne’s head was hurt in the car crash, and it’s at the hospital where he runs into Lester, a man he’s instantly interested in. He wastes no time in talking to Lester and wants to know how Lester broke his nose.
When we meet Lester at the beginning of the episode, he is taking a lot of grief from his wife, Pearl (Kelly Holden Bashar). There’s obvious tension between the couple, highlighted by the fact that she’s not pleased with how his career is going, especially in comparison to Lester’s brother, Chaz. Lester, we can tell, is more than a little fed up with her nagging, and the construction of the shot as well as the music highlights this. Form looks to be as important as content in Fargo.
Later in the day, Lester gets his nose broken while being bullied by Sam Ness and sons who cornered him on the street.
“I would have killed that man,” Lorne tells Lester about Sam after learning the nitty gritty of the situation. Lorne says he’ll kill Sam for Lester; Lester walks away both unsure if he wants Lorne to do it and unsure if Lorne will do it.
“You didn’t say no,” Lorne later says to Lester when he’s confronted about the murder of Sam, the first of three murders that Lester gets involved with in the episode.
Lorne shows here what is most important about his character, at least in this first episode. Lorne is a man whose moral standards are very different from most, but the essence of who he is goes far deeper than that. Lorne is clearly a master of rhetoric; he’s able to get just about anybody to do just about anything.
This is made clear over and over, and it’s not always because he’s scary. Yes, he is sometimes convincing because of how scary he is. Take the interaction between he and Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks), for example. There he threatens Gus’ life, and Gus lets him go. But his power with words seems even greater at times when he’s not being scary. The fact that he’s able to convince someone he’s never met to urinate in a gas tank is frightening; it shows how he can get what he wants, even if what he wants is simply his own amusement. That kid likely never had a thought like that in his life, but with Lorne’s suggestion, it’s done.
Lorne’s mastery of persuasion takes its biggest effect on Lester, at least in this premiere. Odds are he’s not done working on Lester, but in the span of what can’t be more than a few days he turns Lester from a man who takes constant verbal abuse from his wife to a man who beat her to death with a hammer.
Though she’s not changed directly by the words of Lorne Malvo, the other character who is the most dynamic in the episode is Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman). At the beginning of the episode she’s an up and coming cop who misses a few details at the scene of Lorne’s car crash to the one that connects the dots between that crash and Sam’s murder by way of Lorne and Lester meeting at the hospital. Making quick work of a case like this has Vern Thurman (Shawn Doyle) telling her that one day she’ll take his spot as police chief. His spot becomes open sooner than expected when he’s shot in back with a shotgun by Lorne, connecting Lester to yet another murder. It’s unlikely that Molly will get appointed as the new chief, but it could be deputy Bill Oswalt (Bob Odenkirk).
Not much is certain so far, but it’s safe to say that Lester is no idiot. Whether he’s scared or suddenly alive, he’s got a head on his shoulders, and this is important. Knowing that there would be no way to flee the crime scene of his wife and Vern Thurman’s deaths, Lester knocks himself unconscious, attempting to make it look as if he were a victim too. Even being away from the scene would look suspicious.
The question remains of where will Lester go from here. Lorne awoke something in him that was likely there all along. Lester is tired of taking abuse from all those around him, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see another run in between he and his brother Chaz (Joshua Close), two brothers that had their relationship reach a point in this episode that it might not be able to come back from, especially after Lester hit Chaz.
