Fargo | Season One

The first season of Fargo was one of the most captivating and beautiful pieces of television that I have ever watched. I have seen previews of the show before, but I have never been interested in watching it. Last semester I took Film Appreciation, and one of the movies you watch is the film Fargo. The movie was better than I anticipated and thought watching the first season would be a good show to review.

The summary of the first season of Fargo is complicated to explain. It starts off with our main character Lester Nygaard. He is an insurance agent who has a miserable life. His wife resents him and his brother doesn't care for him. His life turns for the worst when a bully from his youth encounters him on the street. He gets a bloody nose from the encounter and meets hitman Lorne Malvo. Nygaard unintentionally has Malvo kill his bully, and becomes in accomplice to Malvo's crime. Having enough of his wife he murder's her with a hammer, and calls Malvo to help him cover up the crime. Before Malvo comes to Nygaard's hose the town's police chief comes over to question Nygaard over the death of his bully. When Malvo enter's the Nygaard's house he murders the chief and leaves the crime scene. With Malvo gone, Nygaard sets up the crime scene as a burglary gone wrong and knocks himself unconscious. The eager Deputy Molly Solverson tries to connect the dots between Nygaard and Malvo to avenge the death of her friend who died.

Lorne Malvo is a diabolical psychopath. He treats human life as if it was the animal kingdom. He uses many analogies throughout the first season to demonstrate this with wolf going for its prey, and why the human eye can distinguish more colors of green than any other color. As a hitman Malvo is ruthless and has little sympathy for the people around him. During the first season he is using a person to help him blackmail a man. After he has no use for the man anymore he sets him up to be murdered by the police as they thought the man was shooting up a neighborhood. Malvo is played brilliantly by Billy Bob Thornton. Thornton portrays the silent killer to perfection with the simple way he speaks to people and the way he moves around.

Lester Nygaard is man who in the beginning you feel sympathy towards, but by the end of the season you feel contempt for. Nygaard is a compulsive liar and gets in way over his head right from the beginning. By the middle of the season Nygaard's character transforms into a whole new beast. He begins to live his life as a truly despicable person. He gains a new confidence to his life and uses this to have sex with the widow of his bully and becoming a ruthless insurance salesman. Everything catches up to him in the end as Malvo always had an insurance policy when he recorded his conversations with everyone he talked to. Thus Malvo recorded his conversation he had the night Nygaard called him to help him clean up the scene of his dead wife. Martin Freeman portrays Nygaard and does a remarkable job as him. The awkward demeanor he portrays early on as Nygaard to the despicable nature he is towards the end of the season. Freeman plays this to perfection and makes the man a believable person.

Deputy Molly Solverson is a courageous police officer. She wants justice done for her friend the police captain who was murdered. She is the only officer that knows Nygaard had some dealing with the captain's death. Solverson is a brave person as she does not care what kind of danger she is getting into when she gets involved with this case. All she knows is that to solve this case she might have to get in a little danger. Allison Tolman portrays Deputy Molly Solverson and she does an admirable job with it. Tolman really makes it for you to hope that Solverson can catch Nygaard and Malvo. Tolman portrays the character wonderful as a woman working in a man's world. She excels in this as most of the male officers she works with are inferior to her skills as an officer.


I am still blown away with the Fargo while writing this blog right now. The cinematography, the costume design, and even the music were exceptional. Each episode was like a film in the production value of each one. There was some problems that I had with the first season of Fargo. The biggest problem I had was that the season was very similar to the film. I am all for small easter eggs in the film to show fans that it is the in the same universe, but I think they overdid it. For instance you could have swapped out Lester Nygaard with the main character of the film Fargo and you would not have thought any different. All of this said, I would recommend this show to anyone who enjoys an episodic drama with dark humor.