Fargo Season 2 and the thrill of storytelling
EVERYONE thinks they’re the hero of their own story. History is made up of all their stories bumping up against each other. How do you make sense of this chaos? What does it all mean? Does it mean anything? (No, says Albert Camus, from a paperback that a teenage clerk is reading, existence is absurd. “I don’t know who that is, but I’m guessing he doesn’t have a six-year-old girl,” retorts Betsy the cancer-stricken housewife.) At best we can tease out a pattern of actions and consequences, then impose a beginning and an end to create narrative cohesion. But you need time and distance in order to do this. What if you’re inside the story as it’s happening?
In the amazing second season of Noah Hawley’s Fargo, the characters can be too engrossed with composing their own stories to see the bigger story of America, or the even bigger story of the universe. There are UFOs in this season, because in 1979 they were all over the place, and because they fit in this series. Fargo 2 is so enthralling that after the initial “Holy crap, UFOs!” you just accept that they’re there, turning up at odd moments like cinematography aids.
Read our column on Fargo season 2 in The Binge.
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