What I’m Watching: Fargo

Fargo: Season 3, Episode 4 “The Narrow Escape Problem” (B+)

Now we’re getting somewhere, back to Minnesota to focus on what’s actually happening, not the mysterious past of an accidentally murdered man. I thought I recognized Billy Bob Thornton’s voice as the narrator, and I’m glad to have back on this show. Honestly, I half expected Allison Tolman’s Molly to be the cop in the bathroom at the parole office, but it was good to meet Olivia Sandoval’s Winnie Lopez instead. What we have here is classic fare for this show, with intersecting investigations into things that shouldn’t be all that big of a deal, but because of the way that those interviewed try to deny knowledge of anything, the two cops looking into it are starting to connect the dots. Sy was particularly evasive when cornered about his Humvee parking lot crash, refusing to name anyone in HR, and Ray didn’t do a great job of playing dumb when interrogated by Gloria. Ray experienced a lot over the course of the episode, playing tough to get the bank to drill open his brother’s box and then only taking $10,000 when he suspected there was a full million in there that he could have grabbed. He accepted his termination without any dispute, and now it seems that he’s standing up the woman he’s fallen in love with while he figures out what to do, which isn’t a smart play. I like that Gloria looked back at Nikki as they passed each other outside the parole office, and she’s butting heads quite a bit with her new chief who prefers not to use three-syllable words for a one-syllable problem in a very anti-Midwest attitude. The animals played by musical instruments device was odd but not all that unexpected from this show.