Generally this first episode was underwhelming. On the surface it seems Fargo goes back to what it did best in earlier seasons, but it just does it weaker. Even though it's a bit early to judge, I feel my confidence in the writing is waning because a lot of the moments and character reactions just feel too fake. It's not the fake 'Minnesota' niceness that bothers me but mainly how far the characters are removed from reality in general. Almost every single character is just weird, maybe only the 'Indian' cop is a somewhat believable human being. I don't feel any of this setup episode is grounded to the point the 'This is a true story' gimmick just feels absurd now. (I know that statement has always been fake. But it used to serve a purpose before.) The kidnapping scene looked nice and felt tense, but just so many things don't really make sense to me. For example, the kidnappers approaching the house in the middle of the day, masked, taking their sweet time entering the house. One stands in the open door for 15 seconds without even thinking about closing the door behind himself. He then starts talking loudly to himself or his companion about how hot his mask is, ruining their silent entrance after they noticed the door wasn't locked, so they didn't have to scatter the window with the hammer. Maybe we're just dealing with a stupid criminals, okay fine. But then later the cops just prove to be as stupid. When a woman with hands strapped to the back, obviously kidnapped, runs out of the unlocked cardoor (again, how incautious can you be as a kidnapper?) every cop would be immediately on high alert. Not these two. Taking their sweet time to be puzzled, completely surprised when they are subsequently attacked. What did they expect? Not one had their guns prepared. One of the cops makes it out miraculously and decides to go stand a bit further under a light while his attackers have all the advantage coming out of the pitch black darkness. Juno Temple's charachter decides to also run to the gas station to wait for the heavily armed kidnappers, cooking up some far fetched scheme with icecubes instead of taking something actually usefull. Later when she hits the kidnapper with the AK-47 with a shovel, there's no way the police agent could know what happened yet he assumes it's safe to give his location away by saying he is bleeding out to the housewive from afar. Only things he could have heard were the shovel knocking someone or something, shots fired, and her, gasping for air? I know I would be quiet as a mouse. Also I was wondering how a cop can be out of bullets after barely shooting ten times? Well, there's a lot more of these very unbelievable moments and it just ruins my immersion. The air horn joke was funny, but come on, who would do that? It's okay if some of your characters are stupid, but when all of your characters act stupid, then I guess the writing is stupid... I expect better from a show and a showrunner that has the privilege to make new seasons only if they see it fit. No deadlines for the writing and then so many gaps and flaws in the script from the pilot... It's a shame because Hawley used to distinguish stupid characters from stupid writing in earlier seasons. Things got chaotic and hectic in a way that made sense, or sense enough. In this episode not so much. I'm hoping this gets better because I've been excited for Fargo to return.
Review of The Tragedy of the Commons
