Fargo: Season 3 Episode 1 "The Law of Vacant Places" Review

"We are not here to tell stories.  We are here to tell the truth."

-Colonel Horst Lagerfeld

The third season of Fargo opens in East Berlin, 1988.  Colonel Horst Lagerfeld (Sylvester Groth) interrogates Jakob Ungerleider (Fabian Busch) about the murder of a woman named Helga.  Colonel Lagerfeld says Helga's boyfriend, Yuri Gurka, killed her and since Yuri's registered address is the same as Jakob's, he must be Yuri.  Jakob continually denies this, but the interrogation is not going in his favor as we shift ahead to Minnesota, 2010.

Emmit Stussy (Ewan McGregor) is throwing a party to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his marriage to Stella (Linda Kash).  Also in attendance is Emmit's little brother, Ray (Also played by Ewan McGregor), who has a chip on his shoulder in regards to his brother.  When their father died, Emmit was left his father's Corvette, while Ray was left his stamp collection.  Ray begged Emmit to trade with him, which he did.  Emmit sold the stamps and made a lot of money and now owns a successful parking lot company.  He is wealthy and good looking.  Ray on the other hand still has the Corvette, which has seen better days, works as a parole officer, and is going bald.

Ray has a grudge against Emmit and sets up a meeting with him and Emmit's lawyer, Sy Feltz (Michael Stuhlbarg), asking for money so can buy a ring and propose to his girlfriend, Nikki Swango (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a parolee of his, who he's not supposed to date.  Emmit tells him it's a bad time and refuses.

A year prior, when Emmit's company was in trouble, he got a million dollar loan from a company called Narwahl.  Now, with his company doing well, Emmitt calls up Narwahl to pay them back, but is unable to get through to anyone.  Several days later, a representative from Narwahl, V.M. Varga (David Thewlis) arrives and tells them that the money was not a loan, but an investment.  Varga informs Emmit and Sy that Narwahl is going to start using the company as a way to hide their illegal activities.

Ray, furious at his brother, decides to take action.  When one of his parolees, a thief named Maurice LeFay (Scoot McNairy), fails his urine test, Ray offers to pass him if Maurice breaks into Emmit's house and steals the one stamp Emmit didn't sell and keeps framed on his wall.  Ray gives him Maurice Emmit's address in Eden Prairie.  On the way, the address gets blown out the window.  High as a kite, Maurice sees a road sign for Eden Valley and after accosting a gas station attendant, finds the address for an Ennis Stussy (Scott Hylands) in Eden Valley.

Maurice arrives at Ennis' house just after his step-daughter, Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon), the Eden Valley Chief of Police, and her son, Nathan (GrahamVerchere) leave.  When Nathan realizes he left a carving Ennis made for him back at Ennis' house, they go back.  Gloria finds Ennis dead, his mouth and nose glued shut, and tied to a chair, and his bedroom is ransacked.  She also finds a loose floorboard hiding old science-fiction novels written by Thaddeus Mobley.

After playing well at a bridge tournament, Ray and Nikki return to her apartment to celebrate, but Maurice breaks in and Ray quickly realizes Maurice broke into the wrong house and killed an innocent man.  Maurice gives them one day to give him 5,000 dollars or he will go to the police.  Ray and Nikki wait for Maurice to exit the building before dropping an air condition on his head, which kills him.  Nikki convinces Ray to leave the building and sets up Maurice's death as an accident.

What Works:

The whole main cast is brilliant for the most part.  Ewan McGregor is great and it's really fun to watch him play brothers.  The story between them is nicely set up and the episode makes me excited to see how it will play out.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is fantastic.  I love how strategic her character is.  She immediately assesses the Maurice situation, finds a way to deal with it, and takes him out with no qualms.  She is a fascinating character and my favorite of the cast one episode in.

David Thewlis only gets one scene in the premiere, but man is he great.  He has such a sinister, odd, and unsettling presence and manner.  The way he tells Emmit and Sy what is going to happen is another highlight of the episode.

Carrie Coon is also very good in this episode.  She is a recently divorced mother, who's husband came out as gay and now has a boyfriend, plus she is a small town chief of police.  That's a really interesting backstory for a character, and she does a great job with it, especially with her chemistry with Ennis and Nathan.  The tragedy and randomness of what happens makes for a really interesting setup for her character, and I'm excited to watch it play out. 

What Sucks:

First off, I don't like the look of this episode.  It's really dull and ugly-looking color-wise.  I really liked the look of the first two seasons so it bums me out seeing the dullness of this episode.  I'm sure it was intentional, but I still don't like it.

I also think Ennis' death was poorly handled.  It happens off-screen, which is fine, but the body reveal was confusing.  It's really unclear how Ennis died.  I actually had to look it up after the episode.  I know this scene could have been handled better to make what happened clearer to the audience.

Finally, I got pretty irritated with Ray after he and Nikki dropped the air conditioner on Maurice.  Nikki was telling him to get out of the building before the cops show up, but he takes forever to leave.  He keeps stalling to tell her how much he loves her.  Dude, tell her on your way out the door.  She'll understand.  It was just frustrating to watch, especially when we can hear the approaching sirens.  Most people would have been long gone.  Don't be an idiot, Ray.

Verdict:

In all honesty, this is probably my least favorite episode of Fargo.  It's still good, the acting and characters are great, and it sets up some really interesting storylines.  There are just aspects that could have been handled better: Ennis' death and Ray's behavior after Maurice's death.  Plus a personal preference in that I didn't care for the look of the episode.  But the episode is still solid and not bad by any stretch of the imagination.

 7/10: Good