308 - Who Rules the Land of Denial?

A_Ron_Hubbard

Director: Mike Barker
Writer: Noah Hawley and Monica Beletsky

Alkaid13

Ray makes for a surprisingly cute cat. That was an interesting purgatory type scene, so is Ray Wise an angel or the grim reaper or something?

Alkaid13

C'mon Sy, you gotta expect a guy like Varga would poison you.

Alkaid13

That is some excellent gaslighting on Emmitt. The pore guy was already on thin ice mentally, he's gonna go crazy by the end of this.

Alkaid13

Confessing to accidental murder and aiding and abetting criminals works too I guess.

WonderedObject

If yuri had died from the hunter, would that have been classified as a fishnado? Because I was cracking up when that happened. In a good way. That was an amazing opening scene.

toncica

I didn't realize how much I love this show. Noah Hawley is a magnificent bastard.

darwinfeeshy

That bowling alley scene was weird. Maybe a little too out there, for me.

And Holy shit, I didn't know Mr. Wrench had those insane League of Shadows skills. Can you even throw a wood cutting axe?

emnofseattle

darwinfeeshy said:

That bowling alley scene was weird. Maybe a little too out there, for me.

And Holy shit, I didn't know Mr. Wrench had those insane League of Shadows skills. Can you even throw a wood cutting axe?

No you cannot. I have throwing tomahawks, purpose built ones can't be thrown that good.

emnofseattle

WonderedObject said:

If yuri had died from the hunter, would that have been classified as a fishnado? Because I was cracking up when that happened. In a good way. That was an amazing opening scene.

No the fishnado is Ray Wise, how did he know to be in that bowling alley on that night, to confront both Yuri and aid Wrench and Nikki.

And who exactly is Ray Wise? He must be either the police officer or the suspect in the season opening.

CretanBull

emnofseattle said:

darwinfeeshy said:

That bowling alley scene was weird. Maybe a little too out there, for me.

And Holy shit, I didn't know Mr. Wrench had those insane League of Shadows skills. Can you even throw a wood cutting axe?

No you cannot. I have throwing tomahawks, purpose built ones can't be thrown that good.

Any discussion of axe throwing always reminds me of this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeiMvKuXs0E

emnofseattle

CretanBull said:

emnofseattle said:

darwinfeeshy said:

That bowling alley scene was weird. Maybe a little too out there, for me.

And Holy shit, I didn't know Mr. Wrench had those insane League of Shadows skills. Can you even throw a wood cutting axe?

No you cannot. I have throwing tomahawks, purpose built ones can't be thrown that good.

Any discussion of axe throwing always reminds me of this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeiMvKuXs0E

And see it didn't even damage his drum.

Axe throwing is fun as a trick at the loggers play day festival, as a weapon it's highly impractical. I prefer my pistol to any throwing arm

Find me the most skilled axe thrower and I can shoot him before he gets the axe on me.

And that crossbow should've been the end of Yuri

Alkaid13

@emnofseattle
I'm pretty sure Ray Wise is actually a supernatural being and the Bowling Alley doesn't exist.

alexander.klassen

Holy hell, this is a whole lot of Twin Peaks in my Fargo. Only twenty minutes in, but I know I'm going to be heartbroken at the end of the week when the guys say that rapture show was somehow better than this.

Graham

alexander.klassen said:

I'm going to be heartbroken at the end of the week when the guys say that rapture show was somehow better than this.

I dunno, one of them was possibly one of the most satisfying series finales ever, and the other one was just a really good episode.

toncica

@alexander.klassen

Haven't you seen the finale? That rapture show is now a love story. No doubt they will have it winning the week, but I expect them to be professional and make a good podcast for Fargo. I was pleased to see that moving the podcast to Friday has nicely increased the quality of Fargo coverage. Good move, Bald Move!

DaveyMac

I don't know what it all means and I still have questions about the tactics of Varga's crew and their handling of Nikki, but man I really enjoyed that episode. I think this was the most I've enjoyed Fargo this season. 

It's crazy to me just how committed they are to Big Lebowski this season. It hasn't always worked for me, I but I liked the bowling alley here. And then we went full on Twin Peaks with Leland popping up. And the whole scene felt like something you might see in Twin Peaks. Then a Llewyn Davis reference with the cat. And some Serious Man as well. They were all over the map reference-wise, but it all gelled together really well. At least for me. I'm very curious to see where they guys come down with this one. 

I also like that things are shaping up differently than the previous two seasons. I have no idea where it's going, but I'm finally perking up and looking forward to next week. 

I do feel really bad for Sy though. I hope he has a miraculous recovery.

alexander.klassen

Maybe it's because I've been up since yesterday morning, maybe it's because I'm in the middle of the Ray Wisest part of Twin Peaks, or maybe some dastardly Englishman drugged my coffee, but that was my favorite episode so far. They doubled down on what bothered me last week - the Vargas racket's counterproductive way of running a criminal organization - but somehow it was all great. A Judaic spirit of vengeance gave Nikki a car. There now seems to be a pretty tangible supernatural element in this show. But in a way that seems interested only in exploring some cultural relationship between suffering and justice, not introducing some "mystery" garbage. I need to go to sleep but I know I'm going to dream of Cossacks and axes and wolves. Life is suffering.

MrX

alexander.klassen said:

Maybe it's because I've been up since yesterday morning, maybe it's because I'm in the middle of the Ray Wisest part of Twin Peaks, or maybe some dastardly Englishman drugged my coffee, but that was my favorite episode so far.

Ray Wise in everyyyything!!

tim_schu

Is there any evidence that Ray Wise's character isn't just a normal guy in the 3rd episode? 

A_Ron_Hubbard

toncica said:

@alexander.klassen

Haven't you seen the finale? That rapture show is now a love story. No doubt they will have it winning the week, but I expect them to be professional and make a good podcast for Fargo. I was pleased to see that moving the podcast to Friday has nicely increased the quality of Fargo coverage. Good move, Bald Move!

To be fair, Fargo got really dammed good around that time, too.

I just finished the episode, thought it was incredible. Did they establish Mr Wrench as having super human strength in season one? That's the only thing that bothered me. Fargo's forced enough fishnados down my throat until I learned to love them, I guess. Plus, Ray Wise makes a great malevolent/beneficent supernatural character, one must admit.

MrX

A_Ron_Hubbard said:

toncica said:

@alexander.klassen

Haven't you seen the finale? That rapture show is now a love story. No doubt they will have it winning the week, but I expect them to be professional and make a good podcast for Fargo. I was pleased to see that moving the podcast to Friday has nicely increased the quality of Fargo coverage. Good move, Bald Move!

To be fair, Fargo got really dammed good around that time, too.

I just finished the episode, thought it was incredible. Did they establish Mr Wrench as having super human strength in season one? That's the only thing that bothered me. Fargo's forced enough fishnados down my throat until I learned to love them, I guess. Plus, Ray Wise makes a great malevolent/beneficent supernatural character, one must admit.

In fairness Wrench was breaking chains that already had been damaged, so it wasn't quite fishnado-levels of disbelief.

Walnut Frey

Can I just say that I love the Russian/Jewish themes thrown in each week, including all the hebrew spoken by the one and only wandering Jew, Paul Marrane. I love it! I've always been fascinated by Russian culture. Yuri is shaping up to be in line with Malvo and Hanzi as BAMFs.

Hatorian

Have no idea what the Ray Wise character is supposed to be about but definitely perfer his mystery and potential supernatural nature to the UFO. The UFO shit was the worst.

MrX

Walnut Frey said:

Can I just say that I love the Russian/Jewish themes thrown in each week, including all the hebrew spoken by the one and only wandering Jew, Paul Marrane. I love it! I've always been fascinated by Russian culture. Yuri is shaping up to be in line with Malvo and Hanzi as BAMFs.

Yea they're leaning heavily on "A Serious Man" (the Cohn bros movie that had the most Jewish mysticism in the forefront) this season, and I think it's working great. Michael Stuhlbarg was excellent as the lead in that, so it's been fun to watch him this season playing on some of those same themes.

Elisa

Such a great madcap episode.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the Twin Peaks bowling alley.

Underwood

That opening scene. I guess in the Fargo universe, its a bowling alley, where as in the leftovers its a hotel? Felt Twin Peaks too. Fargo has been on a fantastic run for five straight episodes ( I liked the third episode ). Cant wait to see how this finishes!

toncica

A_Ron_Hubbard said:

toncica said:

@alexander.klassen

Haven't you seen the finale? That rapture show is now a love story. No doubt they will have it winning the week, but I expect them to be professional and make a good podcast for Fargo. I was pleased to see that moving the podcast to Friday has nicely increased the quality of Fargo coverage. Good move, Bald Move!

To be fair, Fargo got really dammed good around that time, too. 

I'm not sure I agree 100% with your assessment there. Perhaps the tight schedule made it difficult for you to give it the same amount of attention to appreciate it from the start. Unlike the other two shows of the week this one starts with a new story and new characters and it may take time to decide if we're invested in those. Also, there hasn't been a three-way before for winner of the week. With Fargo airing last it seemed to make it a crowd. Having more time than you for repeat viewings I found it to be good from the very start.   

A_Ron_Hubbard

You could be right.  I just know that our opinion of Fargo seemed to track with the other professional reviewers for the first 2-3 episodes.  Granted, getting an extra day to prep has been clutch.  This week I spent 3 hours reading on Jewish mythology and still felt under prepared to fully discuss it.  But I also think Fargo really focused up past the LA episode.

emnofseattle

Elisa said:

Such a great madcap episode.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the Twin Peaks bowling alley.

I would've liked it like if Leland... I mean whoever ray wise's character is turned into killer bob and we saw a sequence of him jumping the table with Yuri screaming.

Because at that point I'd have said "ok we clearly just jumped the shark full steam ahead from a dark comedy procedural to fantasy"

Like it is getting worse, I liked the Fargo movie because it was period set a decade before release, it was credible as to something that could've happened, it was well cast and directed, now I feel as if Hawley had ruined the theme. Like Fishnado, I got through that, UFO? Well I mean strange things are recorded throughout history, Ray Wise as a supernatural Jewish philosopher hunting a guy who's at least a decade too young to be who he's supposed to in a red room (I mean really, why the heck even use the bowling alley, use the Red Room from Twin Peaks) type bowling alley in the middle of the woods in Minnesota?

The Bevis and Butthead movie has moved up the seriousness peg to leave Fargo behind

Elisa

To each his or her own, I liked Fishnado, I liked the UFO and now I like rabbi Leland.