Fargo Season Two: Not so Minnesota Nice.

            I didn’t want to do it. I managed to avoid it all through season one. But I finally broke-down and watched the Season Two premier of “Fargo” on FX.

            Set in the morose, crisis-harrowed late 1970’s, Fargo Season Two takes place in the freezing, grey Middle American tundra of its namesake. And like the culture defining, 1996 classic by the Coen Brothers, FX’s Fargo manages to capture the lurid, bloodstained, homespun, wood-paneled, linoleum floor, “ya, you betcha” world of seemingly innocuous people steeped in a crisis of identity and innocence.

            FX’s Fargo seems to capture the silk hat… though not the magic of the film. The Coen Brother’s classic fable of greed vs. good on the prairie had all the subtle wryness of a Garrison Keillor monologue behind the gauntlet of explosive brutality we expect from them. It was more than brilliant, and sweet, and sad, and moving, it was orgasmic.

            The series, on the other hand, seems to come-up short. In a TV world hallowed by cable dramas like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos, and Boardwalk Empire, Fargo for TV fails to be original and to strike us like its namesake. It suffers a lot like A&E’s “Bates Motel”. It has all the potential of a groundbreaking classic ten years ago. But it’s not ten years ago. The tricks are old now. The magic is gone.

            And for a religious devotee of the 1996 film, that hurts. It hurts because it cheapens the impact and the importance of the original. FX’s series cherry-picks the parts left to it, and manages to do nothing special. The show isn’t terrible. But it certainly doesn’t impress me… yet.

            But I’m not a total Debbie Downer, so here are the things that DID impress me about the series premier.

            The acting is totally genuine. It’s genuine in that way of being awkward and somewhat hammy. There’s a quietness and utter mediocrity about these characters that strikes me as absolutely convincing. That’s something too seldom seen these days.

            The visual design is absolutely convincing as well. Cheap-looking and lacking any sense of style, it perfectly captures a Sears Catalogue Middle America. A land of booger green polyester, flannel shirts, and piss yellow wall paper. Not once did I ever doubt that we were in the 1970’s, and never once did I get that awkward feeling of watching a reenactment. A feeling I get WAY too often when watching period pieces.

            I was, however, disappointed that the show does not use the heart-fluttering Carter Burwell soundtrack of the original film.

            About the UFO… I don’t even know. Maybe it will make sense in future episodes. But since this is the 70’s, maybe a random UFO makes enough sense as is.