What I’m Watching: Fargo

Fargo: Season 1, Episode 6 “Buridan’s Ass” (B+)

This episode took a turn for the much more disturbing, as Lorne’s somewhat comical locking of poor Don in a closet last week turned into a far more malicious plan that involved setting him up to look like a gunman and be blasted away by a room full of cops. Lorne has gone from being devious and purposely troublesome to fully dangerous, capable of enacting great harm for no apparent purpose other than to create a distraction. His appetite for violence also meant the demise of Adam Goldberg’s Mr. Numbers, though he did come at Lorne with a machine gun. Let’s hope that Gus didn’t manage to kill Molly, especially since they’re becoming such good pals, despite their differences in how they react to the existence of evil in the world. Gus’ speech about how being two-faced bothers the most was very compelling. The whiteout was enormously effective for telling this story, not letting (too many of) its characters fall prey to the familiar weather but instead using it as a way to enhance the suspense, like when Lorne just disappeared into the snow. Lester really is a quick-witted creative guy, wrapping his face up to look like another patient so that he could escape from the hospital, and planting the hammer at his brother’s home after he disowned was both cruel and cunning. Returning voluntarily to the hospital might have had something to do with guilt after his nephew saw him, but I think that he believes he can get away with it.