What I’m Watching: Fargo

Fargo: Season 3, Episode 3 “The Law of Non-Contradiction” (B)

This episode had some fascinating moments, but I’m really not sure any of it is relevant. In fact, the opening crawl said that these events took place in Los Angeles in 2010, which doesn’t seem all that worthwhile to me because this show is supposed to take place in Minnesota, which isn’t even the state where its title city is. It’s also a shame not to see Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Michael Stuhlbarg since they’ve all been such formidable parts of the first two episodes thus far. Instead, we get Carrie Coon, in a role that’s slowly becoming more interesting, and three extremely notable guest stars. Fred Melamed from “A Serious Man” and “Casual” was the producer, Frances Fisher was the adult version of the alluring actress who entranced Thaddeus, and Ray Wise, from “Twin Peaks” and “Reaper,” who I knew had to appear again after just showing up on the plane sitting next to Gloria. I don’t know if any of this will have any bearing on what’s going on back in Minnesota, since it felt like a meaningless detour, augmented by the effectiveness of the way in which Francesca Eastwood’s Vivian Lord was introduced. My favorite line of the hour came from Gloria, who made the very good point that the Writers’ Guild not represent book writers did seem like an oversight. I wasn’t too fond of the animation either, which reminded me way too much of the awful 2015 Oscar-nominated animated short “World of Tomorrow.”