There's a scene in this episode, I won't say how the characters got to this point or at what point the scene takes place in, but it involves Patrick Wilson's state trooper and Kirsten Dunst's Peggy Blumquist having a conversation. The two of them get to have their say, to put it one way, and what Noah Hawley comes up with is, in no uncertain terms, brilliant and outstanding, encapsulating so much of what these characters have come through in this season and their differing viewpoints. One may not see things quite the same as the other, but they come to some sliver of understanding - or, at least, we understand a little more fully what has led to this point with them. I know this sounds vague, but trust me when I say that it's an incredible scene from every kind of process: the acting, the writing (how an example is used to illustrate something that may be greater - or, actually, not, in the Coen tradition), the direction, the cutting. If only this episode as well as the rest of the season had been like that, instead of only largely being it, and the rest of the time being... a giant Coen brothers fan film.
In a way, season 2 of this show, which takes place in 1979 and only in the smallest of tangential ways (actually through a dream that Betsy Solverson has, Lou's wife who has been suffering through cancer throughout these episode), is like to the Coen brothers what The Force Awakens is to Star Wars: it develops some new material and then happens to be so gigantically in love with the mythology and scenes and moments and character designs that one can't help but see how there's not only resemblances to scenes, sometimes there will be direction that straight-out copies it. In this episode in particular, as the aftermath of the climactic gun battle at the Sioux Falls motel unfolds, we get to see at least two or three direct references to No Country for Old Men; already the character Hanzee (Zahn McClarnon is terrific in the role, one should note), is an analog of Anton Chigurh - even the previous episode (or it may have been two before) where it's a lift from the gas station scene in 'No Country'.
I think that these references - and there's more, down to many soundtrack cues (and these may be the more clever references to the Coens oeuvre, as one can hear renditions of songs from O'Brother and Big Lebowski that are either from the 70's or redone to sound like they are) and even smaller things like, say, the UFO's as being a connection to uh, The Man Who Wasn't There I suppose (?) - wouldn't bother me so much if they were done without it being shoved in my face. Some may not care or even notice, especially if one hasn't seen their movies multiple times. But it's impossible to mistake a going-to-the-woods moment out of Miller's Crossing, or even the aforementioned dream being a lift out of Raising Arizona. More crucially it's because too what Hawley and his writers have crafted along with the director and team that *is* of its own world and of its original characters that it clashes with the references more-so.
It's worth watching season 2 - which you can do, pretty much, even if you haven't seen season 1 let alone the original movie, though it helps certainly - because everyone is cast in such a way that either lets us see sides we haven't before (Jesse Plemmons, in what I'd say is his first truly leading role, is a wonder because of what he *doesn't* do, how he just plays this average guy who works as a butcher and wants to maybe run the shop one day, and he simply IS that guy, is one, and Bokeem Woodbine, getting to be the kind of hit-man that should potentially be a writing nightmare, quoting this way and that like out of a bad Tarantino knock-off more than Coens, is another as he creates a wholly original killer), or are simply right for the roles they're in (Dunst, Wilson, Danson, Milioti, Jean Smart, the list goes on). And often the writing and how the story turns and some of the stylistic choices distinguish it that it is trying to be its own thing. Oh, sure, and there are some tics as well with that (Hawley *loves* his split-screen, to the point where De Palma might go, "Easy, fellas!")
But, again, those references, which sometimes are funny enough and other times seem like they're there for that dreaded (but true) term, going back to Star Wars, "Fan Service", kill what could have been as great a season as the first, or even one of the better crime sagas of this century. That scene in the cop car in this episode is an example of that, and there are many scenes that stick out as showing Hawley's genius as a writer and storyteller - and I do think he's a genius when he's on (see the first season of Legion for more on that) - but when he's trying too hard... it really shows.
In a way, season 2 of this show, which takes place in 1979 and only in the smallest of tangential ways (actually through a dream that Betsy Solverson has, Lou's wife who has been suffering through cancer throughout these episode), is like to the Coen brothers what The Force Awakens is to Star Wars: it develops some new material and then happens to be so gigantically in love with the mythology and scenes and moments and character designs that one can't help but see how there's not only resemblances to scenes, sometimes there will be direction that straight-out copies it. In this episode in particular, as the aftermath of the climactic gun battle at the Sioux Falls motel unfolds, we get to see at least two or three direct references to No Country for Old Men; already the character Hanzee (Zahn McClarnon is terrific in the role, one should note), is an analog of Anton Chigurh - even the previous episode (or it may have been two before) where it's a lift from the gas station scene in 'No Country'.
I think that these references - and there's more, down to many soundtrack cues (and these may be the more clever references to the Coens oeuvre, as one can hear renditions of songs from O'Brother and Big Lebowski that are either from the 70's or redone to sound like they are) and even smaller things like, say, the UFO's as being a connection to uh, The Man Who Wasn't There I suppose (?) - wouldn't bother me so much if they were done without it being shoved in my face. Some may not care or even notice, especially if one hasn't seen their movies multiple times. But it's impossible to mistake a going-to-the-woods moment out of Miller's Crossing, or even the aforementioned dream being a lift out of Raising Arizona. More crucially it's because too what Hawley and his writers have crafted along with the director and team that *is* of its own world and of its original characters that it clashes with the references more-so.
It's worth watching season 2 - which you can do, pretty much, even if you haven't seen season 1 let alone the original movie, though it helps certainly - because everyone is cast in such a way that either lets us see sides we haven't before (Jesse Plemmons, in what I'd say is his first truly leading role, is a wonder because of what he *doesn't* do, how he just plays this average guy who works as a butcher and wants to maybe run the shop one day, and he simply IS that guy, is one, and Bokeem Woodbine, getting to be the kind of hit-man that should potentially be a writing nightmare, quoting this way and that like out of a bad Tarantino knock-off more than Coens, is another as he creates a wholly original killer), or are simply right for the roles they're in (Dunst, Wilson, Danson, Milioti, Jean Smart, the list goes on). And often the writing and how the story turns and some of the stylistic choices distinguish it that it is trying to be its own thing. Oh, sure, and there are some tics as well with that (Hawley *loves* his split-screen, to the point where De Palma might go, "Easy, fellas!")
But, again, those references, which sometimes are funny enough and other times seem like they're there for that dreaded (but true) term, going back to Star Wars, "Fan Service", kill what could have been as great a season as the first, or even one of the better crime sagas of this century. That scene in the cop car in this episode is an example of that, and there are many scenes that stick out as showing Hawley's genius as a writer and storyteller - and I do think he's a genius when he's on (see the first season of Legion for more on that) - but when he's trying too hard... it really shows.
