FX’s Fargo
Season 1, Episode 5: “The Six Ungraspables”
Directed by Colin Bucksey
Written by Noah Hawley

* For a review of the previous episode, “Eating the Blame” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “Buridan’s Ass” – click here

With the story chugging along in between Bemidji and Duluth, our Minnesota stories of mischief and mayhem continue.
We cue up on Lester Nygaard (Martin Freem) looking for new socks, buying a bag of “irregular socks“. We get a funny yet revealing moment about Lester, who asks “What‘s fair?” when a clerk at the store explains the stock is for best offer. We watch Lester struggle to haggle. Then, the clerk offers him the socks and a long gun for $55. Cut to Pearl berating Lester for his purchase, imaging he’ll “blow his face off“. So now, we have a wonderful little explanation for how the gun ended up at Lester’s home. We revisit the night Pearl died, Lester practicing to set Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) up as the culprit. I like how Noah Hawley cuts us back to these moments, giving us different views of how things happened and what went on. Now, we see Lorne slip in as Lester is confronted by Chief Thurman (Shawn Doyle), we watch the death again.
Only now it ends with the buckshot in Lester, sinking into his hand. A great edit takes us to the current moment in that jail cell, the festering wound in his hand. Lester sits wedged between Mrs. Wrench and Numbers (Russell Harvard & Adam Goldberg). He’s sweating it out, literally. The two men are heavily intimidating as a pair. While they both give him a silent treatment, Lester attempts to talk his way out of things. They’ve got an inkling that someone else is involved in the murder of Hess, though, Nygaard won’t give anything up. Pressing into his wound, Numbers puts Lester in a world of hurt, as Wrench stuffs his dirty sock in the poor guy’s mouth. Eventually, out slips one word: “Malvo“.

 

Deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) is troubled. The entire situation is spiraling quickly out of control. “No way around it,” Molly tells herself before heading in to see Chief Bill Oswalt (Bob Odenkirk). He still has no time for it all, rather he’s more concerned with a snowfall warning coming up. Still, Molly gives Bill the name Lorne Malvo and other information she discovered about his stay at the motel. After a bit of chat, it almost looks as if Bill is ready to give in and hear Molly out completely. Molly believes it was “murder for hire” that later went sour. How close she is, truly.
The easily lovable Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks) is technologically inept, and so he enlists his daughter Greta (Joey King) to help delve into the life of Frank Robertson, a.k.a Lorne. Up on a website pops a picture of Pastor Robertson standing in a church and everything, but only one single website. Then, they search Lorne Malvo, which brings up absolutely nothing. I love how Gus and his daughter are sort of sleuthing together, always find those unorthodox police relationships in film/television intriguing. Here it’s even better because they’re father and daughter.

Lorne goes to the same guy from whom he procured the amphetamines, tracking down a police scanner. “Do I look like I want a pink police scanner?” Malvo asks the man with a stone face. Moreover, he also gets himself some walkie talkies.
At the home of Don Chumph (Glenn Howerton), up shows Lorne, as always like the wandering evil in the night, or middle of the day. The master criminal rigs up the phone, then makes a call to Stavros Milos (Oliver Platt) who is still strung out hard on the amphetamine. Worse than that, the semi-Biblical plagues are coming down on his head hard. Stavros thinks he didn’t repay his promise to God, and that’s why all these things are happening. Now he’s terrified of the “death of the firstborn son“. With a big payday headed their way, Don wants to happily celebrate with his new buddy Lorne; who for his part is only concerned whether Don has a pantry. Then he requests a drill. Slowly, we can imagine where this is headed. “I need screws,” Lorne says and checks the pantry doorway. Eagerly, Don helps, not wondering at all what Lorne is up to. Yet. Once Chumph goes into the closet upon being asked, Lorne screws the door closed: “I don‘t want you gettin‘ cold feet, he tells Don, “-see ya in the morning.”

 

Flashes of the murderous night at the Nygaard residence. Lester wakes up in the jail eventually, as Chefi Oswalt and Deputy Solverson stand over him. It seems that puncture in his hand is giving him troubles, so he’s in the back of an ambulance. His words are jumbled, he rambles on about a shotgun and such. “I didn‘t pay him,” Lester says over and over.
From a man with a badge, Mrs. Numbers and Wrench receive a file with the picture of Malvo dragging a man from an elevator, in a dark and snowy alley.
Cutting back to Gus, he sits with a glass of milk and spies the man living across from him in the next building, also sitting at his table with a glass of milk. The man goes to his window, prompting Gus to do the same. Their talk is about “the time I get” and then they end up at the same table for a further conversation. Each man has their own weighty burden. Gus asks the man about his situation with Malvo, knowing a man is guilty but not having proof; the man soon enough says “only a fool thinks he can solve the world‘s problems“. Through a parable, the man relays a story about the man “who gave everything” in order to try just that, unable in the end to actually fix everything. “But you gotta try, don‘t ya?” Gus asks.

 

Out in the night, Gus drives aimlessly. Passing him unknowingly on the road are Stavros and Lorne, headed down to the grocery store. Milos fills up the old briefcase with a ton of cash inside.
Back at the hospital, Molly talks with the doctor who fixed Lester up. His hand was bad, full of necrotic flesh and nasty fluids. Almost lost the darned thing. Champing at the bit, she wants to question Nygaard and get to the bottom of things. Meanwhile on another floor, Ida Thurman (Julie Ann Emery) has finally had her baby: a drop of good news in an ocean of chaos.
Sneaky sneaky – Deputy Molly goes to the Nygaard house. Underneath the doormat, like so many small towns, a key lies waiting. She heads in, politely wiping her boots before doing so. There she retraces the steps of that fateful night. Coming to the washing machine and noticing it out from the wall a tad, Molly has a look at the back after unscrewing the paneling. Inside, she doesn’t find the ball peen hammer Lester used to kill Pearl. Where has he hidden the thing?
More of Stavros, as Lorne drives him quietly. They come to have a conversation about saints and the Romans. Very intriguing point of dialogue between these two. And once Stavros is home, they part ways. For the time being.

Lorne: “Well I‘m saying that the Romans raised by wolves, they see a guy turning water into wine, what do they do. They eat him. Cause there are no saints in the animal kingdom. Only breakfast and dinner.”

With Grimly heading home and talking on his cell with Molly, lurking not far behind is Malvo. He stays out in his vehicle, monitoring things with his new walkie talkie and setting up his scanner. Except the plan is slightly foiled when Gus’ friendly neighbour from the earlier chat knocks at Malvo’s window saying: “You‘re not supposed to be here.” It’s almost as if the man can sense an evil in Malvo, as if it seeps from his pores and into the world. Maybe it does. Ominous conversation on Lorne’s part prompts the Jewish man to call him a demon, in what I presume is Yiddish.
At the hospital, Molly is in the midst of the old boys club until Chief Oswalt and the others clear out. She heads in to be with Ida and the fresh new baby: “That‘s what a new one smells like,” says Molly with glee. Ida doesn’t want details about the case, only to know Molly is taking care of things.

The episode finishes with Molly spying in on Lester, who looks asleep. Only we see he isn’t, just pretending for the moment. His eyes and entire face speak of a deep worry.

Can’t wait to review the next episode, titled “Buridan’s Ass”. Lots more Minnesota mayhem to come, my fellow Fargo-ites.