What is a Fargo? (Patreon)

Section 1: Introduction

I've been thinking recently about Fargo and what it is. There's been a movie called Fargo, and now three seasons of pretty high quality television, also called Fargo. The thing is though, the movie doesn't contain any of the same characters or locations as the first season of the show, and the second season is set 30 years before the first with only about three characters appearing in both. The TV show is an anthology series, each season being pretty wildly disconnected from the previous. You only find out for sure deep into the first season, in a flashback by a side character, that the show and movie take place in the same universe at all. 

I know that if I had a friend and I asked them "Would you like to see Ron Perlman read out Friedrich Nietzsche's 'Aphorisms on Love and Hate'?" and they were like "Heck yeah I would" then I could pretty firmly recommend Fargo to them, even though that too isn't something that actually happens in Fargo. 

The film and the show are different in tone, in pacing, in filming. They were also made mostly by different people but unlike many other adaptations, Fargo has successfully avoided creating a contingent of fans saying “This isn’t Fargo!” I’ve even talked to fans of the movie who don’t like the show, who still are happy to say that it is Fargo. The movie is a Fargo. The show is a Fargo.

So, other than how people from Norfolk say "a long distance", what IS a Fargo?

Heck ya know it’s gonna be a real struggle not to read this whole essay in the accent.

Big Joel did a video recently about The Last Airbender, and what it basically means to adapt something. It’s really good and you should check it out. In that video, he talked about characters in an adaptation being different and distinct from the characters in the source material because although people copy the characters and settings and stories in an adaptation, an adaptation has a different “soul”. That different essence makes the copies different.

A good extreme example of this would be the movie adaptation of the book, Starship Troopers. The film is essentially parody of the book. It copies characters and settings and plot and even dialogue, but at its core the book is straight-faced and the film is satirical. The things the book is suggesting seriously, the film is saying are total shite. 

Fargo is interesting to me in this context because I think that by changing everything it manages to retain that essence that makes it Fargo. That essence is something tangible but hard to describe. I think that essence is an idea, and if you bear with me I can show you what that idea is, and maybe even, if you like, why it’s true.

Section 2: This is a true story

Fargo, by Joel and Ethan Coen, was released in 1996 - just like me - and starred Frances McDormand, William H Macy and Steve Buscemi. It went something like this: Jerry Lundegaard is a car salesman and ffffuckingliar. He wants to get money out of his wealthy father-in-law, Wade, for a con he’s running. Wade isn’t interested in giving Jerry any money because, like have you seen Jerry? Jerry decides to have his own wife kidnapped so that Wade will pay her a ransom which is when he hires a scary silent dude and Steve Buscemi, who is playing… Steve Buscemi. That, by the way, is the scene - singular - of the film that takes place in Fargo, North Dakota.

Steve and scary quiet dude kidnap Jerry’s wife and hole-up in a cabin by the lake. Oh, and along the way manage to kill two civilians and a state trooper, like you do when you’re a professional.

Enter Marge Gunderson, pregnant police chief of Brainerd, Minnesota. Margie is some fucking detective, but more importantly to the film she’s modest and hard working and nice. 

Jerry informs Wade about the kidnapping and Wade insists on taking the ransom money to the meeting personally. Steve Buscemi kills Wade but ends up getting shot in the face - oh no, Steve Buscemi’s illustrious modelling career is ruined. Back at the cabin Steve and scary get into an argument and Steve’s day gets a lot worse. Marge arrives just in time to see scary loading Steve’s body into a wood chipper, manages to subdue him and then low-key lectures him about morals and doing the right thing on the way to jail.
Also Jerry goes to jail. Also Margie’s husband won a painting contest. The end.

The film wasn’t a blockbuster but as with many of the Coen Brothers’ films became a cult hit. This cult success is quite important to how the adaptation came to be made the way it was - aspects and elements became recognisable as the core of what made the movie, Fargo.
Here are some of those elements: A hard-working modest and nice police officer who is an amazing-detective-slash-genius; a small town in Minnesota; crime related to Fargo North Dakota; a cabin by the lake; a certain dark humour; oh right lots of horrible violent murder.

I’ve seen Fargo described as “crime drama juxtaposed with small-town Minnesota nice” and I think that description is actually quite useful here, because no matter how much more there is to Fargo, it is about contrasting elements. 

I mean, there is more going on. There are all sorts of strange interactions and scenes that seem to go nowhere, but they really all contribute to the bigger picture in some way. Here’s an example - while she’s in Minneapolis, Margie has dinner with an old friend, Mike, who pretty rapidly progresses from polite dinner to mega-creeping to wild breakdown over his dead wife. This scene seemingly exists only for comic relief, but later, when Marge discovers that the woman Mike was crying about was neither dead nor ever actually his wife, she reflects on how trusting she usually is of people, and goes back to interview Jerry a second time. Jerry flees the interview, which pretty solidly validates her suspicions. This isn’t put out in the open, but it’s character development. The movie brings about this sense that everything happens for a reason, even if you get to the end and still don’t see what the reason was. The first time I saw Fargo I certainly didn’t see any point in the scene with creepy Mike, but the film really doesn’t play right without it.

This is another element of the world of Fargo that gets carried over in the adaptation - everything happens for a reason, just sometimes a mysterious reason, piece brings meaning and consequence. The difference of course, is that the other elements so far have been superficial, have been surface-level. This though starts to scratch the surface and get into the worldview of Fargo. This is one of the elements that makes up that essence.

This makeup of smaller elements into a larger whole is actually… well I’m not sure what to call it here - referenced? Parodied? It isn’t parodied… in the third season, the episode “The Narrow Escape Problem” opens with Billybob Thornton, star of season 1, reading out Prokofiev’s notes for Peter and the Wolf. These notes assign an instrument to every character, but then instead of the orchestra coming together to play Peter and the Wolf, it plays the Fargo introductory theme.

The Fargo score is pretty fantastic, and I think it would be fair to say the different parts of the orchestra symbolise the different characters and elements in the story.

I think we should focus on one more superficial element though, and what it represents. Something that appears at the start of the film, and every single episode of the show. That’s right, it’s Netflix telling me to switch off my VPN. I’ll switch it off when I’m dead you corporate fucks. You can pry my VPN out of my cold dead hands.

Okay no it’s the title text, which reads “This is a true story. The events depicted in this film

took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.” That’s on the film anyway. The show changes it appropriately for the times and places it refers to.

Let’s get this out of the way - Fargo is not a true story. Nothing in Fargo happened. Especially not the flying saucers in season 2. We’ll get to you, flying saucers.

The title text of Fargo isn’t trying to trick you - well it isn’t just trying to trick you. The Coen Brothers make films that are quite mischievous and play around with your expectations a lot, and “This is a true story” is certainly a part of that. It is also, however, a bit of a philosophical statement. In the show, the words “This is a true story” appear, and then fade partially to say “This is a  story”, leaving just the word “story” before vanishing completely. At first Fargo claims to be a true story, then it lets you know it’s just a story, but last it just leaves that word, “story” there. You’re invited to think about what a story is, and why stories are told.

Fargo tells stories to get across a point of view about the world, and if you agree with that point of view, then in a way those stories are true, because all those stories say is “this is the way the world is”.
I’m getting ahead of myself.

Fargo the movie, 1996 contains two types of characters. One kind is crime drama half of Fargo, and the other kind is the small-town minnesota nice. You’ve got greedy people, and people who are happy with their lot in life. The people who are happy with their lot in life are polite and hard working and just doing their best to get by, and the greedy people have been tempted by some kind of evil force.

Section 3: Lester and Lorne

I once saw Martin Freeman in a play. He was playing Martin Freeman. He was supposed to be playing Richard the third, but he was really just playing Martin Freeman. I don’t mean to call Freeman a limited actor, but he is definitely what you’d call an everyman. He’s typecast that way a lot, as the relatable everyman. Him being cast in something is often shorthand for: Hey, audience. Relate!
Billybob Thornton was relatively unknown before Fargo. He had been in a Coen Brothers film before, but otherwise it feels a bit like he came out of the darkness to become Lorne Malvo. I heard a story that he gave himself the haircut he has in Fargo and when Noah Hawley the showrunner saw it he cast him on the spot. I refuse to google that or check it in any way, because that’s the best goddamn thing I ever heard and I don’t want to ruin it.

Fargo season 1 goes roughly like this: Lester Nygaard is a relatable everyman and underdog. His wife is permanently dissatisfied with him as a man and constantly berates him. He lives in Bemidji, a small city in Minnesota with probably the cutest name ever. He’s still harassed by his high school bully Sam Hess. I’ve only seen that actor in one other thing by the way, and he was a real piece of shit in that too. I’m sure he’s nice enough in real life, but I can only think this guy is a real jerk whenever I see him. Anyhow, Sam Hess isn’t around for long, because Lester runs into professional assassin Lorne Malvo at the A&E and Lorne decides to deal with Lester’s Hess problem for seemingly no reason. Lester is initially horrified by this but then Lorne makes a terrifying and terrifyingly persuasive pitch for… yeah, murdering his wife. Lester does this, because he’s a brain genius, and then calls Lorne for help, because he’s a giant baby man. Local police chief Vern Thurman shows up to question Lester about Sam Hess and discovers the crime scene, but then gets killed by Lorne. Later, Lorne appears in Duluth where he meets Colin Hanks and then Lorne makes a cool scary speech - if you enjoy Lorne making cool scary speeches you’re in for a fucking ride with this season.

Back in Bemidji, Lester’s life gradually gets better and better while he continually tries to avoid detection by amazing-detective-slash-genius Molly Solverson (yes, she is a detective called Solverson). He is however, also trying to avoid murder by Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers, who have been sent by a crime syndicate from - ta dahhh - Fargo, to investigate Sam’s death.
Molly, her dad Lou, and Colin Hanks gradually join forces to investigate the crimes of Lester, Lorne and the Fargo syndicate. Lorne kills Mr. Numbers and we all feel really sad for Mr. Wrench because they were buds, he takes out the Fargo syndicate and eventually partners with Dennis from Always Sunny to blackmail the Avocado King of Minnesota, Milos.

After a little time jump forward, Lester is a slick sociopathic salesman and Lorne is in deep cover as a dentist, trying to get enough info to assassinate someone in witness protection. Molly Solverson and Colin Hanks are now married and Molly is pregnant. After a chance meeting, Lorne offers to take Lester under his wing. Lester accepts because he’s a brain genius, but then is scared off by Lorne murdering people because he’s a giant baby man.
After this: Lester dies, Lorne dies, Key and Peele show up, but then die, and Molly, Lou, Colin Hanks and his daughter all live happily ever after. Also Colin Hanks is a postman now because he was never a very good police.

So what was going on there and why is it a Fargo? Well if we go down the superficial similarities checklist there are lots of disparate elements that season 1 has in common with the movie. There’s a hard-working modest and nice police officer who is an amazing-detective-slash-genius, a small town in Minnesota, crime related to Fargo North Dakota. Lorne actually hides out in a cabin by the lake. The certain dark humour is there, and yup, lots of horrible violent murder.

In this first season though, there is something new. Something that the movie didn’t have, and something that instantly becomes an iconic element in the way that parts of the film became iconic. That element is Lorne Malvo, and his haircut. Lorne represents evil in Fargo, in an inhuman way. As a character he is enigmatic and unpredictable and seemingly super-powered at times. There are multiple comparisons throughout the season between Lorne and animals or other forces of nature, most notably wolves. Lorne even drives Milos round the bend by essentially pretending to be the wrath of God.

When Milos is worried that Lorne will kill his son, his son ends up being killed by a tornado. Lorne and the forces of nature seem to be on the same page. Lorne is a tool progressing the story rather than a character in it.

He doesn’t even act very much like he himself exists, and doesn’t seem to care very much about himself. He’s sort of Nietzsche’s Frankenstein’s Monster. The show gives these subtle pointers to this. He is nihilism personified, and naturally a person who embodies nihilism would act a little like they don’t exist - like a force of nature rather than a character.

Take a look at the scene where Lorne goes to get a package from the post office. He says that there will be a package for “Duluth”, the city they’re in. The mailman tells him it’ll all be marked for Duluth, and asks his name. Lorne says “I already told you my name”. The mailman says “Your name is Duluth?” and Lorne says nothing. The inference that Lorne allows the mailman to take is that his name is Duluth, and sure enough when he looks there is a package marked only “Duluth”, but here’s the thing: the package is from the syndicate Lorne belongs to, and contains the details of his new fake identity. In a way, he has no name and no identity at this point, so when he says “I already told you my name”, maybe what he means is “I didn’t tell you anything, because I don’t have a name”. The actual name “Lorne Malvo” is just the names of two different semi-famous murderers, Lorne Acquin and Lee Boyd Malvo.

If you watch the scene where Lorne convinces Lester to kill his wife, you’ll see Lorne espousing this nihilism, as well as comparing people to gorillas. He responds to Lester saying Sam’s death is a tragedy with “Well why’d you kill him then?” The deliberate removal of Lorne’s agency from that version of events is part of Lorne’s pitch, making Lester complicit in one murder already, but it also presents Lorne as he no doubt wants to be seen: as a force, not as a man.

The other part though, is just that: a pitch. Lorne is trying to pitch Lester on the idea of killing his wife. He hates normal everyday suburbanites and he wants to destroy that whole life wherever he can. Right near the end of the season it is revealed that Lorne has dozens of tapes - recordings of men he has convinced to do horrible things, just like Lester. This isn’t part of his job, he seemingly gets of on this. This is the only actual character motivation Lorne is shown to have - he wants to tempt people to be evil, and in doing so destroy their modest lives.

The film showed us two kinds of people, and one of those kinds of people were tempted by greed and by a force of evil. The show chooses to personify that force of evil.

In this first season, with the main character, and stepping stone character, Lester, being won over - as I said before, pitched - by Lorne, there is a natural inclination for the audience to get won over too. That’s why philosophical discussions in the Fargo fanbase after season one tended to be a bit “I’m 19 and I’ve just done cocaine and read Foucault for the first time. Let’s talk about my ten favourite spree killers.”

I started by talking about the casting of Freeman and Thornton because I think that casting perfectly reflected the mood of that season - getting won over, seduced, by this supernatural evil. And to make it even more effective, we have Martin Freeman, the everyman’s everyman, playing the lead role. In effect the audience is being seduced by this supernatural evil.

Section 4: Ed and Peggy

So you’re settling in to watch Fargo season 2. You know what you’re expecting - it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure - you’re going to be won over by that force of evil. Charismatic Lorne Malvo is going to tell you to think for yourself and choose what kind of person you’re going to be, and wake up and um… murder your wife? Or something?

But then, you get something else. You don’t get Lester Nygaard, Martin Everyman. You get Ed and Peggy Blumquist. Ed and Peggy are not so easy to relate to. In fact, they’re honestly, fucking idiots, who make the wrong decision at every possible turn, leaving you jaw agape staring at the screen. Season 2 goes roughly like this:

It’s set in 1979. Rye Gerhardt is the youngest brother of the Gerhardt family, a powerful organised crime family in Minnesota. Rye is the Fredo of the family and wants to run his own shit, but in trying to run some pinhead scam with typewriters, he tries to threaten a judge, ends up murdering three people and then gets hit by Peggy Blumquist’s car and finished off by Ed in the garage with a trowel. Just slipped in some Cluedo for a second there.
Ed is a butcher and Peggy is a hairdresser. They have a comfortable existence in their small town, but Peggy is chronically dissatisfied. They had plans for the future and they had their differences, but now they’ve murdered someone.
Over the course of the season, the Gerhardt family, beset by a hostile takeover by the Kansas City mob, try to track down and kill Ed and Peggy. Their man, Hanzee, ends up playing both sides a little leading to an enormous shootout at a motel. Hanzee, following the destruction of the Gerhardts, decides to set up a crime syndicate in Fargo, North Dakota. Yeah, that one. You even see Mr. Wrench and Mr. Numbers from season 1 as kids!

Also, at various points in the season, no joke, flying saucers show up. Glowing, spinning, extra-terrestrial flying saucers. UFOs. Thanks Fargo.

The Lorne Malvo thread, the naturalistic evil, social darwinism, supernatural bad guy in this season is Mike Milligan. Milligan is more of a human being than Malvo, but the show cleverly uses code-switching to make Milligan’s whole character appear like a facade, giving him that same quality as Malvo, as a force of nature, an ideology in an empty shell.

If you’re not familiar with Code Switching, please check out Peter Coffin’s video about Sorry To Bother You and frameworks, but here’s the rough gist: code switching is something that everyone does, where they change between different behaviours, characteristics and personae depending on the social situation they are in and who they are around. Think: Clark Kent vs Superman. 

One of the most common and commonly known examples of code switching is the concept of “white voice” as shown for comic effect in Sorry to Bother You. People of Colour need to use a “white voice” in some situations, often professional ones, when they need to project authority and command respect, simply because the biases of most people make them treat people who don’t use a “white voice” without that respect.

Mike Milligan’s behaviour is not unusual or particularly unnatural. It just seems like how he acts and speaks, but at just a few brief moments in the show, he code switches and slips slightly into a different accent. Those moments make the rest of his character suddenly seem odd and artificial. 

Mike Milligan, like Lorne Malvo is a nihilist, an individualist, and what I’d call a “primal libertarian”. These characters’ ideas about the world are pretty easy to identify as libertarian ideas - really classic libertarian ideas, straight out of /r/im14andthisisdeep - but they also make frequent appeals to ideas of nature. Lorne talks about himself as a wolf, says “we used to be gorillas” and “there are no saints in the animal kingdom; only breakfast and dinner”. Mike Milligan makes a big deal over “civility” and “being rational” which… did I already do the 14-year-old neckbeard joke?

Milligan isn’t here to tempt Ed and Peggy though. Ed and Peggy make all their terrible decisions on their own, no charismatic evil to fool them into it, just them being awful people and us watching and being baffled at their consistently bad decisions.

I said before that Ed and Peggy aren’t the main characters, and generally in Fargo there isn’t a main character, but I think the most relatable character in Season 2 is Lou Solverson. You’ll remember Lou as retired police officer and restaurant owner from season 1 - he’s Molly’s dad. He’s the most on-track morally, he seems to have the best basic grasp of reality of all the characters, and to be honest, he’s just really dang cool.

Lou’s story in Season 2 doesn’t involve many twists and turns, because he’s just trying to keep the peace and solve the various murders that have happened, before getting back to his wife and daughter. He’s very much the eyes and ears of the audience in most scenes he’s in, and even though he doesn’t get that much more screen time than other characters, if you had to pin down a main character in this season it’s probably him.
Lou’s clear understanding of the big picture and solid morals make his perspective an interesting one for the audience, and we can see that looking at Ed and Peggy.

Ed and Peggy serve a purpose in Season 2, and that purpose is to make you go “what the fuck are you doing?!”. If Ed and Peggy’s narrative did it’s job on you in Season 2, you’ll go watch Season 1 again and you won’t find Lester relatable at all. That’s because you’ve been experiencing them through the eyes of Lou, and Lou just basically doesn’t find it that hard to do the right thing, to be happy with his lot in life and… not do murders?

In one scene, Lou tells Ed and Peggy that they’re just like people he saw die in Vietnam - they’ve been blown up by a land mine everyone else can see that they’re dead but they haven’t realised it yet. To be honest Patrick Wilson’s performance in that scene is fucking stellar and the fact that some of his reactions in that scene aren’t popular memes is criminal.

The way Peggy is actually introduced to the show is as an anonymous person who makes bad decisions. Before you see her face or know her name, she is just a driver who hits Rye Gerhardt and then rather than getting help, just carries on driving with an injured man hanging through her windshield. The way Ed is introduced is through Peggy’s eyes as the disappointing husband she wants more from. The way we see Ed and Peggy consistently is through Lou’s eyes, as normal people making terrible decisions, and through Lou’s eyes it makes no sense why they can’t just be happier, and not do shitty things.

At first, looking out for common elements being brought across between each iteration of Fargo, I thought that Hanzee, the Gerhardt’s guy, was the analog for Lorne Malvo. I thought that was a bit shitty, because frankly if you gave Lorne’s philosophy comparing himself to animals and behaving like a force of nature onto a Native American character, you’d be playing into stereotypes. I realised though, after Hanzee goes on to found the Fargo Syndicate, that his character is there to show something else. It is set up that Hanzee undergoes extensive plastic surgery and it has been confirmed that he is the same person shown as the boss of the syndicate in Fargo Season 1, known as Moses Tripoli. Tripoli is established as a greedy character. He is large and in his first scene he is filmed eating, quite viscerally - a common film shorthand for a greedy character.

Of course, Lorne Malvo kills Moses Tripoli and the whole Fargo syndicate, so what does that mean for Hanzee’s arc?

When he tracks down Ed and Peggy, he asks Peggy for a haircut. He puts himself in a very vulnerable position, and in classical culture cutting hair is tied in with losing power. He states that he wants a “more professional” look, so we can read into this that he really wants to leave his life of crime and greed behind. Instead though, the haircut is interrupted before it can start, and Peggy stabs Hanzee with the scissors. The one time he makes himself vulnerable he is betrayed, and now instead he goes on to become Moses Tripoli. He doesn’t leave it all behind, instead he becomes greedier and crimier, and the world of Fargo punishes him in the end. In a way I think Hanzee’s story is written as a tragedy.

I think now we’re getting Fargo’s message. There are good people in the world, and people tempted by the forces of evil. Greed doesn’t pay off in the long term, and instead of the conception people often have of a scale from exceptionally good to exceptionally bad, Fargo says there are bad people people who are doing just fine - good people are normal.

The use of the UFOs in this season seems pretty bizarre and out of place. There was a tornado full of fish in Season 1, but that seemed relatively believable, so why are we suddenly seeing flying saucers? I think it’s because Fargo’s philosophy takes a leaf out of H.P. Lovecraft’s book - I guess I shouldn’t really use that idiom for actual authors. What I mean is that where Lovecraft used the existence of a huge indifferent cosmos to create horror, Fargo wants to remind us that we are small, and insignificant, in order for us to realise that there’s no time to be shitheads. In Season 1 there are a variety of references to a higher power, then the fish tornado pops up. In Season 2, there are extra-terrestrials, in Season 3 we actually seem to meet some kind of divine justice. Lou’s father-in-law has a study full of notes that look like weird alien symbols, and although you’re expecting it to tie into the alien thread, he reveals that he’s working on a new language. His figuring is, there wouldn’t be so much ill-will and suffering in the world if only people could communicate in the right way. If you’re so miniscule in relation to the whole universe, why waste your time being tempted by greed and evil, when you could just be nice?

That seems like a bit of judgemental place to leave your world view though, doesn’t it? Lou’s true moral compass might work for him, but who is he to judge Ed and Peggy for not being as moral as him? Well… 

Section 5: V.M. Vargas, and greed

V.M. Vargas is the most repulsive villain. The show wants you not to empathise or relate or be won over. He is uncharismatic and pretty gross, and a racist, misogynist shithead to boot. Vargas is the force of evil character in Fargo season 3. He is enigmatic and powerful and constantly philosophising at the other characters. He hands out lessons and riddles and fables just like the other seemingly super-powered murders we’ve seen so far. If Ed and Peggy’s job was to make you look back at Lester as an idiot, V. M. Vargas’ job is to make Lorne Malvo retrospectively repugnant to you.

There is a scene in season 1 where Lorne Malvo uses vague anti-semitism to intimidate Colin Hanks’ jewish neighbour. If Season 1 existed in a vacuum, as it did until the newer seasons were made, I would have definitely argued that that was Lorne pretending, giving the neighbour a scary reason for him being there that didn’t let on to his actual intentions. Now though, after V. M. Vargas, I just can’t know that, and I think that’s the point. Vargas is a real piece of shit.

I’ve spoiled enough of the plots of Fargo and this essay is getting long, so I won’t try to go over the whole of season 3. The important things to know are that brothers Ray and Emmitt Stussy, played by Ewan MacGregor, have wound up with totally different lots in life, and Ray is extremely jealous of Emmitt. Emmitt’s company gets taken over for money laundering by V.M. Vargas, and Gloria Burgle - great name - is investigating the various violent murders that keep falling out the bottom of this tense situation.

Wait! You also need to know that there’s an amazing bit where Ray Stussy’s girlfriend is trying to get away from Vargas’ goons, and she’s handcuffed to Mr. Numbers from Season 1, and they have an axe, and they’re running through the woods at night, and Vargas’ guys are hunting them with a crossbow, and it’s insanely scary, and then they’re in the clearing getting shot at and you’re like holy shit they only have an axe what are they gonna do and Mr. Numbers throws the axe and kills one of the guys and it’s the coolest thing I ever saw.

I think you need to know that anyway…

I think we should get back to the question, What is a Fargo, because now we’ve seen all the stories that have been told under that name. I don’t think there are lots of common elements that run between all of those stories, but there are more elements common between the movie and Season 1, seasons 1 and 2 and 2 and 3. I think that the reason Fargo’s adaptation has worked so well is that it has adapted more than once. You can view Season 1 as a kind of adaptation of the film, and Season 2 as an adaptation of Season 1 and so on.

More than that though, they are stories written with a point of view of the way the world works which is consistent between them, and that’s the most important thing that you could possibly carry across. Because newer stories make you go back and reflect on earlier stories, Fargo the TV show functions like a piece of persuasive writing. Its structure makes points in stages and then revisits and revises the earlier statements. 

At first we understand that nice, relatable people can be tempted by evil, by greed. Then we understand what it means to be a good person, and to not be tempted. Then we understand that the greed which tempts those people is victimising them.
Emmitt Stussy is manipulated and abused by V.M. Vargas. People he knows are murdered by Vargas’ goons and Vargas even explicitly states the situation as being that Emmitt is prey, yet to realise it has been caught by a predator.

Consistently in Fargo, things work out better for the good people, and worse for the people tempted by greed. The good people being good makes them do things that work out better for them, that make the world a nicer place. People who believe in corruption and greed only perpetuate it, and I think that’s something very real. After all, corruption fundamentally is a human system. If it wasn’t perpetuated by people it couldn’t exist.

Let’s talk about one more running theme in Fargo: actualisation. Every Fargo story has this element of characters trying to become their “best selves” in some way.

Lester actualises, Peggy tries to actualise, Lorne and the other evil characters have fully actualised. Past that point they become inhuman actors. “To be is simply to exist”. The “Have you actualised fully” scene lays out a really important common thread in Fargo, to do with identifying the person you want to be and simply being that person. The trick is, you have to identify the right kind of person to be. Lou simply is a good guy. Molly simply is a good guy. They aren’t walking existential crises, but they also aren’t shitty people. Fargo shows us people who want more from life and the offer of becoming actualised, but in also showing us the people who don’t find it hard to just be nice to one another, they also show us another, unspoken part.

The unspoken part of Fargo is that you can become someone who is simply good. You can actualise fully and be a nice person. You don’t have to be a wolf, or a gorilla, you could just be a postman.

Near the end of season 1 Molly gives Lester a riddle. She says that there’s a man on a train, and he realises that in his haste to get on the train he dropped one glove on the platform, but now the train is just starting to pull away - what does he do? Lester has no answer to this, and Molly reveals the solution: he throws his other glove out of the window so that whoever finds them will at least have the pair.

Lester can’t answer this question because the altruistic solution just basically would never occur to him. It’s not just my favourite scene in Fargo, it’s one of my favourite scenes in basically anything. That riddle asks not how you solve a certain problem, but exactly what kind of person you are.

The end of season 3 has V. M. Vargas finally in custody, and Gloria as a more powerful law enforcement officer. Vargas has been travelling in Europe under a new name, Daniel Rand. Huh, Rand… did someone say something earlier about Libertarians or?

Crucially, we don’t really know how much more power Gloria has. She says that she’s going to have someone take him away to jail, and then go the county fair with her son and get snickers bars. Vargas says she’s wrong and what will happen next is that someone who outranks her will come in and say he is free to go and she won’t be able to do anything.

So the show pits the two sides against each other. Vargas says “Trust me. The future is certain.” but frankly, this is just Scary Terry - why should we trust this guy, why believe him? On the other hand how much power does Gloria have now? We can’t know, so the show is letting us decide, just like the riddle that Molly gives to Lester, and just like that riddle the answer depends on who we are. So is Vargas right, or is it Rikers and Snickers Bars? Well that just depends on you.

But it is Rikers and Snickers Bars.