Fargo

The whole episode was a great reminder of how funny Jeffery Donovan can be.

Oh yes! I meant they have similar mannerisms. I can't wait for tonight's episode.

Great, great stuff.

Yes or no on the UFO? For me it's a resounding YES - so tired of shows pussyfooting around with mystical, paranormal events and then not having the guts to go there (and yes, I'm talking about True Detective 1, among others.) Besides, "realism" in fiction isn't strictly necessary. I've read and loved so many stories that blur the line between real and unreal that it doesn't bother me in the slightest. On the contrary, it makes me love this story more.

And amidst a sea of tremendous performances, Zahn McClarnon quietly stole the show. The brief look he gave Floyd right before gutting her was heartbreaking. Simultaneously so excited and so sad about the upcoming finale.

It's just a flying saucer, Ed.

Fantastic episode. I loved how they used the UFO, loved the sense of dread, and was almost astonished at how brutal the whole thing was. The narration, while completely unexpected, also completely worked for me.

I can't figure out whether they've left too much or too little for the finale, which is probably about right. I suspect we're going to see Ed and Peggy get the "Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men" treatment, but that's just a guess.

As far as the Flying Saucer goes, it feels so inconsequential that it doesn't matter. Sure, it is what caused rye to stand in the road and saved Lou, but they could have wrote Rye as being disoriented or had Lou struggle to get to his gun and it all would have the same amount of impact. It is just being weird for the sake of being weird. And for the most part that is part of the charm of Fargo, some shit it just does because it can, but a flying saucer? Ehhh, it is just a flying saucer, ed.

The parallel I took from it was the final shot of The Shield.

Loved this season so much. Can we have a moment for the actual "Fargo, North Dakota" Carter Burwell cue from the film having its moment?

Frankly, the UFO is in Fargo because there was a UFO in The Man Who Wasn't There; and like that film the UFO was seen by someone about to die who tells no one. There was a clear thematic point to the UFO in that film, wrapped up in its 1950s paranoia, but here it simply is, as if to say, "Remember when?", lacking intrinsic value in itself. It's typical of the show's most annoying tendency, referencing the Coen Brothers simply to reference the Coen Brothers, trying to somehow force or reverse engineer their distinctive style simply by pointing and going "Look we did the thing! We did that other thing! That thing too!" The most egregious example is their endless repetition of the opening text to the film Fargo; a joke that played on the audience's ignorance once and now exists as an ossified reminder that, yes, this was based on a Coen Brothers film. Now let's see that fucking text again and again until you can recite it from memory like us.

I don't know what a satisfying version of Fargo would look like - both seasons have had elements, especially the strong casts and direction, and the writing is not all bad, but it continues to misplay its 'quirky' hand (just saw the ninth episode last night, with the 'historical' narrator.)

Fargo's not a bad series - though certainly not a deep series - but it keeps shooting itself in the foot in one of those two ways, and with the rapturous praise this season has received is likely to double down it.

I guess I am not that cynical about it. I see the references as attempts to place the show in the Coen universe. The first season was more directly an homage to Fargo. For a second season they could have continued that route or (what you probably would have preferred,) struck out in their own unique direction. But instead they decided to play in the larger Coen sandbox. I can't really fault anyone for that. It looks like a fun place. I don't fault Benioff and Weiss for playing in George RR Martin's sandbox.

There isn't really any such thing as a 'Coens universe' and they are never that cutesy about their own films. Game of Thrones doesn't have Beinoff and Weiss inserting references to Martin's other fiction regardless of context, too. It just reminds me of how I felt when I heard Amazon was going to publish Vonnegut fan fiction.

Powerthirteen True - actually, last year a lot of AVCers didn't get the A Serious Man style moral parable bit - but that's why it is there. The UFO isn't symbolic of something else.

This makes a good case for the UFO being symbolic of God or some cosmic morality:

theweek.com/articles/584099/truth-there-ufos-aliens-fxs-fargo-explained

The characters are being observed and judged. In  that way you could also say the UFO is symbolic of us as viewers. We watch the show and and make second-hand judgments about the morality of characters and actions. Of course you can never just observe. The mere act of observation influences what you see. Each time the UFO observes it changes the course of events.

Were the changes intentional? The first observation with Rye seems to be a cosmic moral correction as this murderer is hit by a car, but it leads to much more death and destruction through the law of unintended consequences. The observation at the end saves Lou and allows Peggy and Ed to escape (at least temporarily.) Has the UFO learned from the first interaction? Given Betsy's dream I am not sure we can say for sure.