Shaun Munro reviews the seventh episode of Fargo season 3…
As Fargo’s third season enters its final stretch, it hit the ground running following Ray’s shocking demise last week, with Nikki promptly being arrested and Varga’s presumed frame-up attempt working perfectly. It’s now clear that Nikki is essentially the series’ de facto protagonist, or at the very least the character to cheer on for as long as she remains alive.
Despite the previous episode suggesting that Gloria would be taking no prisoners this week, her and Winnie were quickly thrown off the case, and it was odd to see her hit a brick wall once again this late in the season. Amusingly, the hyper-bureaucracy that Gloria attempts to navigate in order to talk to Nikki feels straight out of a Terry Gilliam movie.
At least it was fun to see her attempting to explain the convoluted scenario to Chief Dammick and the St. Cloud chief, and Dammick’s refusal to accept the assassination attempt on Nikki (with the assailant being played by Road Trip’s DJ Qualls!) could either be suggesting his corruption or, more likely, that he’s an ultimate and very Coen-esque metaphor for Gloria’s ridiculous uphill struggle. At least Shea Whigham, who has been criminally wasted so far this season, got a number of memorable scenes that amounted to his best material as of yet.
Elsewhere, there was the show’s usual dose of weird; Varga sifting through Emmit’s Christmas presents was almost arbitrarily creepy at this point, and how weird is it seeing a Christmas Eve-set episode air at the beginning of the summer? Then there was Donny’s tense conversation with Yuri, who broke into the police station, though thankfully Donny was smart enough not to get himself killed. A minor nitpick, though; how the Hell was Donny using Tinder in 2010, some two years before it was even created?
Ewan McGregor meanwhile killed it once again as he transitioned into a single role, particularly when drunkenly explaining his sex tape fiasco to Ruby Goldfarb, and in arguably the episode’s funniest moment, proving himself a horrible liar when Winnie showed up to inform him of Ray’s death (“I’ve been here since six”). Michael Stuhlbarg was also as reliably excellent as he’s been all season, with Sy finally standing up to Emmit when he voiced his suspicions, and hysterically calling Nikki a “syphilitic floozy”. Of course, Sy’s a big softie at heart, and his later breakdown to his wife was a rare genuinely, achingly sad Fargo moment.
The ending is what most will be talking about, though. It really felt like director Mike Barker lingered way too long on the prison bus here, as it was incredibly obvious it would get hit, but the intrigue the scene mustered regardless is undeniable. Is Yuri going to kill Nikki or just grab her for Varga? And what the Hell was Wes Wrench (Russell Harvard), the deaf hitman from the first season, doing on the bus? Was this just a fun Easter egg, or does it have a more direct implication?
While “The Law of Inevitability” wasn’t the most eventful or creative of Fargo episodes, which is a little disheartening with just three to go, it was still an entertaining, suspenseful and superbly-acted hour of TV, and made a great effort to leave viewers rooting for the cat-like Nikki to make yet another scarce escape.
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more TV rambling.
