A calmer episode of Fargo serves as a calm before the storm by setting up tension still to come.
Floyd Gerhardt (Jean Smart) has a business to run. Her husband, the former leader of the Fargo mob, is no longer in a state to run affairs, and her eldest son, Dodd (Jeffrey Donovan), believes himself to be the natural successor. Floyd is quick to take charge, however, especially with representatives of the mob in Kansas City coming up with an offer to take over. Being the shrewd leader that she is, she's interested in accepting this offer, with the expectation that the group in Fargo will continue business as usual, only taking orders from Kansas City and making much more money. Dodd sends out for his brother, Rye, though of course Rye is dead and in the Blomquists' freezer. Mike Milligan, played here by Bokeem Woodbine, is the Kansas City representative sent to meet Floyd, and Woodbine's icy performance wastes no time in filling the void left by the departure of Billy Bob Thornton's Lorne Malvo. Without yet doing anything, Milligan strikes an immediately threatening presence, not quite specific enough for the characters to be sure but more than enough for Sheriff Hank Larsson (Ted Danson) to view him with suspicion. Usually I'd say that it remains to be seen what he'll do, but I think it's obvious that he's gonna start killing some people, especially after a chilling scene where he sticks the typewriter store owner's tie in one of his products to gain information, nearly strangling the poor man in the process.
At the police department, meanwhile, Lou's feeling anxious about something. Taking another look at the Waffle Hut, his wife Betsy (Cristin Miloti) and his daughter Molly uncover a revolver in the snow. He also uncovers the can of bug spray which the murdered judge sprayed Rye with before being shot. Considering that the judge was from Fargo and the murderer is missing, it's apparent that this situation is gonna become a complete mess very soon, and that's without factoring in the dramatic irony of the other characters' situations. On that topic, one particular scene near the end brings back the combination of dramatic irony and tension that defined the best moments of the first season, where Lou nearly discovers the Blomquists' corpse. Of note is one smaller shot, which shows Betsy alone in the hospital receiving chemotherapy. That's gonna become very sad later, I can tell.
This happens because Ed has brought the corpse to the meat shop which he works at in order to grind it into mincemeat. A finger rolls under the door into the front of the store, and Ed tries very hard to keep Lou from noticing said finger when the police officer comes by to buy some bacon. Previously, he had decided not to come to work in order to process what had happened the night before, and the fact that he now had a body which he needed to hide and a secret he needed to keep. This is not easy for him, as it effectively fell upon his lap. Unlike Lester, who was convinced to commit murder, the dead man came by the Blomquists due to an accident. They don't truly have murder in them like Lester did. Peggy, meanwhile, would occupy a Lady Macbeth role if she weren't clearly just as nervous about the whole endeavour. She has a little more confidence, and her boss at the salon where she works is essentially the devil on her shoulder, encouraging her not to "be a prisoner of 'we'" and complementing Peggy for being "kind of a bad girl." On the other hand, the flirtatious nature of much of her dialogue clearly makes Peggy uncomfortable, so how she will affect Peggy remains ambiguous.
In the mean time, though, the second season of Fargo is still going wonderfully. "Before the Law" comes across more like the calm before the storm than anything, and though the next episode might not be the storm in question, the plot threads are now all laid out and ready to come together at any moment. Momentum is building, and the characters are now definitively set on a collision path with each other. I think I'm most excited for Mike Milligan, because if he's half as good as Lorne Malvo, he's gonna completely steal the show, though the first episode went by surprisingly well without him. There's more to Fargo than a great villain, then, but the introduction of a great villain will only make it that much better. Until next week.
Fargo airs Mondays on FX.
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