Fargo goes medieval and we've reached the nineth circle of Hell
That 6th episode of Fargo really was Dantesque!!!!
"Buridan's ass" had a brillant title (obviously!) and was simply excellent, powerful, and even poignant. I'm really impressed with that new series now. If you don't watch Fargo you're really missing a wonderful show. I'm sure that the Coen Brothers who have no part here, except as producers, are happy with the series. It's creative, true to the spirit of their 'verse, very smart, with a first class cast.
I don't have the time to write down my own proper review, for I'm in Marking Hell, but the one on the AV/TV Club is really good, and once more it's Zach Handlen that nails it: He does understand the philosophical fable of Buridan's ass:
"But it is interesting the way the episode keeps showing us characters in seemingly intractable situations (like that ass trapped between two perfectly balanced needs), and then watching them make their choice. Those choices are always driven by something higher than simple expediency: Gus fires the gun partly in terror and partly because he desperately wants to do a good job and redeem himself for the mistake he made at the start of the season, Stavros wants to do right by God and save his son, and Lester wants to avoid going to jail and get revenge on the brother who abandoned him.These are choices that ass couldn’t make, because the ass doesn’t have desires that transcend biological need."
About proactive Lester's he wrote:
"there’s no sudden act of violence here, but his careful, and disturbingly thorough plot against his brother’s family reveals a depth of malice that Martin Freeman’s surface-level affability usually keeps hidden. It’s possible to watch the first episode up till Pearl’s murder and feel some sympathy for the guy, but watching him plant a handgun (unloaded, at least) in his nephew’s backpack puts that meekness in a different context. There’s that shot of him looking at his brother’s family photo, and the expression on his face almost seems to suggest regret-but then it turns out he’s just realizing there are other angles he can exploit."
As for inactive Chumph:
"It was brutal with a point, though. Duct-taped to that treadmill, Chumph resembled Buridan’s ass-frozen, and incapable of saving himself. But it isn’t an inability to decide between needs that put him there: It’s Malvo, quite literally. Maybe that’s what the title is really getting at. Malvo’s brutal, misanthropic, and so far disturbingly effective worldview reduces humanity to its barest impulses; kill or be killed, take what you want, fuck anyone who gets in your way. Broken down to that point, people are little better than animals, incapable of imagining anything greater than themselves. There’s a price to aspirations, as both Gus and Stavros have discovered; any time you care about anything outside of yourself, you’re going to someday be hurt. But the alternative is, in the long run, going to look a lot like poor Chumph in the end, screaming for anyone to listen to him, but without anyone left who’ll listen."
No review, per se, but here are some quick thoughts:
That scene showing Chumph's death was really memorable. We knew from the moment he woke up, what would happen to him, and that Malvo's machination would work, but we could only watch the story play on screen, agonizingly.
In his review, Alan Sepinwall wrote about his death that it "was a devastating end even for a complete clown"
As for Molly, the moment she vanished and the moment Gus raised his weapon, the audience knew she'd be the one going down. Hopefully, she isn't dead. She can't be!
Molly's response to the absurd parable that Gus' Jewish neighbour had told, pointed out that she was far from being like Buridan's ass. She saw through the story's absurdity, suggesting that the rich fellow could have just done charity work. People tend to forget that the story of Buridan's ass itself is a reductio ad absurdum.
But so far Molly's choices have not paid off, unlike Lester's and Malvo's. She's smart but too impulsive. She's got a good intuition and follows her guts, but didn't think of looking behind the poster in Lester's basement (of course the poster was there to conceal a hole in the wall!). Lester has turned into a truly despicable human being, but he's braver than he was at the beginning of the show. Malvo's malice and scheming skills have rubbed off on him.
Meanwhile, the parallel between Gus and Stavros continues. The rain of fishes -- and now I realise that the opening scene with the soon-to-be-cooked fishes was thematic (btw from the fish's point of view that Asian's cook was truly God, and the fish was the embodiment of the passive creature whose free will was very limited if non-existent, that could only end up dead like Buridan's ass)-- was one of those weird things that sometimes happen, probably connected to the weather but weird enough to look like a bit supernatural -- an interpretation that Stavros probably will make seeing the accident that killed his son as another plague, a punishment from his God-- and make a fantastic visual. Stavros tried to undo his previous actions, but you can never go back and retcon your life -- retcons only happen on tv show! --, and Gus' drawing his gun and firing while being blinded by the blizzard (just like the SWAT team was blinded by the light when they killed Chumph) was obviously a mistake, made out of fear too, and an attempt to "be a cop" for real.
Is it Wrench or Numbers whose throat was cut by Malvo? I adore the way Malvo lured him, with a trail of his blood. Like a beast hunting a wounded prey...except that the prey was actually a bigger predator pretending to be hurt.
One last thing: I love the perfect detail of the nurses' noisy shoes!!!!
Now I shall return to my papers.
"Buridan's ass" had a brillant title (obviously!) and was simply excellent, powerful, and even poignant. I'm really impressed with that new series now. If you don't watch Fargo you're really missing a wonderful show. I'm sure that the Coen Brothers who have no part here, except as producers, are happy with the series. It's creative, true to the spirit of their 'verse, very smart, with a first class cast.
I don't have the time to write down my own proper review, for I'm in Marking Hell, but the one on the AV/TV Club is really good, and once more it's Zach Handlen that nails it: He does understand the philosophical fable of Buridan's ass:
"But it is interesting the way the episode keeps showing us characters in seemingly intractable situations (like that ass trapped between two perfectly balanced needs), and then watching them make their choice. Those choices are always driven by something higher than simple expediency: Gus fires the gun partly in terror and partly because he desperately wants to do a good job and redeem himself for the mistake he made at the start of the season, Stavros wants to do right by God and save his son, and Lester wants to avoid going to jail and get revenge on the brother who abandoned him.These are choices that ass couldn’t make, because the ass doesn’t have desires that transcend biological need."
About proactive Lester's he wrote:
"there’s no sudden act of violence here, but his careful, and disturbingly thorough plot against his brother’s family reveals a depth of malice that Martin Freeman’s surface-level affability usually keeps hidden. It’s possible to watch the first episode up till Pearl’s murder and feel some sympathy for the guy, but watching him plant a handgun (unloaded, at least) in his nephew’s backpack puts that meekness in a different context. There’s that shot of him looking at his brother’s family photo, and the expression on his face almost seems to suggest regret-but then it turns out he’s just realizing there are other angles he can exploit."
As for inactive Chumph:
"It was brutal with a point, though. Duct-taped to that treadmill, Chumph resembled Buridan’s ass-frozen, and incapable of saving himself. But it isn’t an inability to decide between needs that put him there: It’s Malvo, quite literally. Maybe that’s what the title is really getting at. Malvo’s brutal, misanthropic, and so far disturbingly effective worldview reduces humanity to its barest impulses; kill or be killed, take what you want, fuck anyone who gets in your way. Broken down to that point, people are little better than animals, incapable of imagining anything greater than themselves. There’s a price to aspirations, as both Gus and Stavros have discovered; any time you care about anything outside of yourself, you’re going to someday be hurt. But the alternative is, in the long run, going to look a lot like poor Chumph in the end, screaming for anyone to listen to him, but without anyone left who’ll listen."
No review, per se, but here are some quick thoughts:
That scene showing Chumph's death was really memorable. We knew from the moment he woke up, what would happen to him, and that Malvo's machination would work, but we could only watch the story play on screen, agonizingly.
In his review, Alan Sepinwall wrote about his death that it "was a devastating end even for a complete clown"
As for Molly, the moment she vanished and the moment Gus raised his weapon, the audience knew she'd be the one going down. Hopefully, she isn't dead. She can't be!
Molly's response to the absurd parable that Gus' Jewish neighbour had told, pointed out that she was far from being like Buridan's ass. She saw through the story's absurdity, suggesting that the rich fellow could have just done charity work. People tend to forget that the story of Buridan's ass itself is a reductio ad absurdum.
But so far Molly's choices have not paid off, unlike Lester's and Malvo's. She's smart but too impulsive. She's got a good intuition and follows her guts, but didn't think of looking behind the poster in Lester's basement (of course the poster was there to conceal a hole in the wall!). Lester has turned into a truly despicable human being, but he's braver than he was at the beginning of the show. Malvo's malice and scheming skills have rubbed off on him.
Meanwhile, the parallel between Gus and Stavros continues. The rain of fishes -- and now I realise that the opening scene with the soon-to-be-cooked fishes was thematic (btw from the fish's point of view that Asian's cook was truly God, and the fish was the embodiment of the passive creature whose free will was very limited if non-existent, that could only end up dead like Buridan's ass)-- was one of those weird things that sometimes happen, probably connected to the weather but weird enough to look like a bit supernatural -- an interpretation that Stavros probably will make seeing the accident that killed his son as another plague, a punishment from his God-- and make a fantastic visual. Stavros tried to undo his previous actions, but you can never go back and retcon your life -- retcons only happen on tv show! --, and Gus' drawing his gun and firing while being blinded by the blizzard (just like the SWAT team was blinded by the light when they killed Chumph) was obviously a mistake, made out of fear too, and an attempt to "be a cop" for real.
Is it Wrench or Numbers whose throat was cut by Malvo? I adore the way Malvo lured him, with a trail of his blood. Like a beast hunting a wounded prey...except that the prey was actually a bigger predator pretending to be hurt.
One last thing: I love the perfect detail of the nurses' noisy shoes!!!!
Now I shall return to my papers.