Fargo (The TV Series)

Hi Movie Fans!  Valerie and I have been busy, so it has been a while since our last posts.  A great TV series brings me back to our film reviews!

Hopefully, all of you saw the movie Fargo.  It came out in 1966 and garnered a whopping seven Academy Awards.  If you missed it, run out and see it before viewing the TV series.  I loved the movie.  It was one of the most original crime stories ever, with lots of tongue-in-cheek humor and fantastic acting.  I would rate the movie as one of the top ten of all time.

So, with such a wonderful feeling about the movie, I was very cautious about watching a TV series based on it.  How could a TV series even vaguely capture the charm and wit of the movie?  Don't most TV series based on movies bomb out?   Not always true, I guess:  Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a good movie but an excellent TV series.   Fargo follows in the same vein.

What's it about?  Like the movie, it takes place in the snow drifts of the upper states.  Like the movie, it involves murder and mayhem.  Like the movie, it focuses on a pregnant police woman.

But the TV series is different.  Perhaps more gritty.  Perhaps less comic.  But no less gripping.

Yet it is all Coen Brothers, from start to finish.  Witness the fools, both police and criminals, who make us smile at their amoral, often bungling ways.  Witness Billy Bob Thornton who creates a bad guy who will haunt you for a long time to come!  Witness a story that grabs you and holds on with each of the ten episodes that comprise the first season.

Never the spoiler, I won't provide details.  The story is basically about a loser, a poor fellow who has been bullied all his life, who finally loses it and decides he will be mistreated no more!   He just happens to meet up with an assassin.  Can you imagine the result?  Haha!

Want some real viewing fun?  Go to Netflix or wherever and rent the first season of Fargo.

You'll be back in the snow.  Back in the weird universe of dull, plodding folks.  Back in the tense setting of cops chasing bad guys.  Back in the funny world of well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning idiots.

I can't wait for Season Two.