Fargo Season 2 Thread

[Shogun]

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You finally paid off the UFO teases with, yes, a massive hovering UFO. What are you prepared to tell us about this?
Noah Hawley: I haven’t prepared anything. There are going to be people who will smack the TV and go, “Come on!” and that’s a great reaction. Everybody is entitled to their reaction. I like to say that everything in there is because it actually happened in the world of our “true story,” and in this case there was a UFO. I haven’t seen or heard any of the responses yet, so I’d be responding to phantoms.

In addition to Fargo being “based on a true story,” can you say what was your inspiration for including the UFO in the first place?
The Coen Bros. sometimes put something in because it’s funny, but that doesn’t mean it’s meant to be comic. … There’s a couple things that felt right about it. One is that it plays very well into the conspiracy-minded 1979 era where it’s post-Watergate, you hadClose Encounters and Star Wars. There was aMinnesota UFO encounter [in 1979] involving a state trooper. It was certainly in the air at the time. Alternately in the Coens’ The Man Who Wasn’t There they had a [running UFO thread]; certainly it was more ’50s inspired, but it was part of the cinematic language of their movie. So it felt like it worked for the time period and worked for the filmmakers, and is a way of saying “accept the mystery” — which is a staple of the Coen Bros. philosophy in their films. And I thought it was funny. But obviously it affects the story in a very real way. It’s not just a background element.

I’m just picturing you in the writers room at some point going: “You know what? I’m going to put a UFO in this season, and just see if I can pull that off.” Because I know you like to challenge yourself and see how far you can push it, and you had to think that if you could creatively pull it off, it would be pretty impressive.
An executive from MGM came to take us all to lunch before the season and they said, “Can you tell us anything about this season?” and I said, “Yeah, we’re going to make three fictional Ronald Reagan movies and there’s a UFO.” There was a long beat and they said, “So can you tell us anything about this season?” Nobody expected Fargo to be about any of those things in the second year. Ultimately what I think is exciting about a fake true crime story is that in actual history there’s a lot that we understand and there’s a lot of it we’ll never understand. The Zapruder film captured the JFK assassination, and we still don’t know what happened. It’s not just that truth is stranger than fiction, it’s that what we call truth is a small part of the historic picture. There are so many elements that usually get weeded out of the story so you can have a simpler narrative.

What was FX’s reaction?
Nobody said, “Don’t do it.” Look, there was a lot of conversation as we were prepping to shoot. “Can we see some pre-visualization? What’s really going on with the UFO? Is it really a UFO or is it a weather balloon?” So going into that, they find that balloon in the second hour. There were some people [at the network] who wanted the UFO to be shot in a way so that it could have actually been a balloon. My feeling was always, “No, it’s a UFO. It is what it is.” We put a lot of references to it, maybe too many references. But it pays off, obviously.

I was impressed that in the moments leading up to that, you managed to generate so much suspense over the fate of the only character that we know is going to survive, Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson; a character that was also in the first season set in 2006). I worried about him, and then this happened. Then afterward you have Peggy (Kirsten Dunst) with that great dismissive line. It’s almost like you don’t know how to feel and need to process it.
At the end of the day, Peggy’s line sums it up — “It’s just a flying saucer Ed, we need to go.” I like your “I don’t know, I need to think about it” reaction. So much storytelling, especially on television, is a spoon-fed experience with clarity of all things. You’re going to have to see the end of the story and look back at it and ask how you feel about the deus ex machina of a UFO saving Lou Sovlerson’s life and what would happen if it hadn’t. I think those elements in a story are really exciting because we’re so unused to having them. We usually separate our genres more neatly. To suddenly have a genre element come into a dramatic story is exciting.

Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley explains UFO encounter | EW.com

Val Johnson incident
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Val Johnson Incident refers to an alleged encounter by Marshall County, Minnesota Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson with a UFO in 1979.

Incident[edit]
Johnson reported that while he was on patrol near Stephen, Minnesota about 2 AM on August 27, 1979 he saw a beam of light just above the road. According to Johnson, the beam sped towards him, his squad car was engulfed in light, and he heard glass breaking. Johnson said he was unconscious for 39 minutes and when he awoke he realized his wristwatch and the vehicle's clock had stopped for 14 minutes. The windshield was shattered, a headlight and red emergency light was damaged and a thin radio aerial bent. Deputies responding to Johnson's call for help found the squad car sideways on the road. Johnson suffered bruises and eye irritation that a physician compared to "welder's burns". When the story received national publicity, Johnson told reporters the sudden attention had caused him and his family a great deal of emotional strain.[1][2] On September 11, 1979, Johnson appeared as a guest on ABC's Good Morning America program.[3]

UFOlogists[edit]
UFOlogists consider the incident one of the most significant and best-publicized UFO events of the 1970s. Allan Hendry of the Center for UFO Studies investigated the damage to Johnson's car along with other aspects of the incident and concluded that Johnson had not hoaxed the event. According to UFOlogist Jerome Clark, Johnson refused to take a polygraph test because he felt that doing so "would only satisfy people's morbid curiosity".[3] In his 1983 book UFOs: The Public Deceived, UFO skeptic Philip Klass argued that the entire event was a hoax, and that Johnson had deliberately damaged his own patrol car.[4]

 

[Shogun]

Say brehs, I burned through this whole season yesterday

This might be a dumb question, but I was on fukkery overload....what was goin on when Lou's wife walked into the room with all those symbols n shyt taped all over the place? Was that Molly's room? I even rewatched that scene and was

 

[The Prince of All Saiyans]

Say brehs, I burned through this whole season yesterday

This might be a dumb question, but I was on fukkery overload....what was goin on when Lou's wife walked into the room with all those symbols n shyt taped all over the place? Was that Molly's room? I even rewatched that scene and was

that was her dad's place I believe

 

[Brozay]

Some of ya'll are really having a hard time with the "based on true events" concept, regarding the UFO talk

 

[Ribbs]

Some of ya'll are really having a hard time with the "based on true events" concept, regarding the UFO talk

Pretty sure that's what is throwing people off. The UFO is such a supernatural plot point, almost too supernatural, people will criticize it vehemently but remember, it was the bright lights that caught Rye's eye that got him killed.

 

[Brozay]

Pretty sure that's what is throwing people off. The UFO is such a supernatural plot point, almost too supernatural, people will criticize it vehemently but remember, it was the bright lights that caught Rye's eye that got him killed.

It's just to get people thinking and talking, which it succeeded in. It's def an homage to the Coen bros too

This is basically a telling the story of a tall tale. I though having the narration to set the tone of the episode helped clarify that further

 

[Ku$h Parker]

Fully caught up and @the UFO crushing the Buildings in that Shootout,R.I.Pto Team Gerhards:ltgoat:

 

[Cheech&Chong]

UFO totally ruined it for me. Just too much to handle in that scene. A lot of main characters dying in that scene and then they just threw that in there. Def was not the time to bring the alien shyt into the mix, specially with only one episode left

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

Episode was easily the best of any series this year and it put "Fargo" so far ahead of the rest of the shows in 2015 it's silly.

Not to take this thread down that path, because it's already had its fair share of fickle arguments - but this is beyond excessive stanning. There are quite a few episodes and shows for that matter, that are not only equal but better (The Knick and Rectify).

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

this is gonna sound stupid but i don't think the Coen Brothers could even make a show this well. this is elite.

Out of all the silly things that have been said in this thread - this is by far the silliest.

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

Still undecided on this season. Its overwrought references, non-existent subtlety, cheap imitations and general lack of storytelling of the HC seems like it's more fan-fiction than anything else. That's not to say it isn't better than the first season - which was a diluted, slapped together collage of Coen brothers' pieces.

 

[Conz]

Out of all the silly things that have been said in this thread - this is by far the silliest.

i enjoy this show more than their movies and i don't give a fukk

you opinion on this show is dogshyt and you should feel bad about it

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

i enjoy this show more than their movies and i don't give a fukk

you opinion on this show is dogshyt and you should feel bad about it

That's fine if you enjoy the show more, but saying that they couldn't make a show "this well" is blatantly untrue. Thematically and tonally this show is a pastiche of what the Coen Brothers created. You're basically saying references to their work are better than their actual work.

 

[Uncle_Ruckus]

All these late comers tryna shyt on the UFO scene and the season need to GTFOH. You can't binge watch this type of season in a few days and expect to feel the same way as everyone else about ep 9 and the finale tonight.

Finale ain't gonna be as satisfying neither.

 

[Ciggavelli]

I didn't mind the UFO thing at all. They've been hinting at it every episode this season. What do you expect?