For me, the greatest Emmy injustice regarding Better Call Saul was the lack of recognition for Rhea Seehorn. No question, everyone who worked on that show deserved an award for their incredible work. I just felt like Seehorn's performance was so good, and so unique, that it deserved to be singled out.
Absolutely loved this season of Fargo. I agree that season 2 is still my favorite, but this was excellent throughout. Thanks for your article about the finale--that really helped illuminate the theme of debt throughout, something I think I was aware of in the background but didn't really pick up on all of the ways it was present for each character. That last scene was just a wonder. It was absolutely hilarious--the shot of Munch's intense glare interrupted by an orange soda bottle thrust into frame, followed by him growling, "A man is grateful" just killed me. And yet it was so moving at the same time. A powerful argument about forgiveness healing division--that resonated with me and felt like an important statement for the times we live in.
Also, I really want to pitch a spinoff series now. With Ole Munch freed from his debt, he now wanders the U.S. aimlessly. Each episode is him trying odd jobs. Selling Kias for Wayne, waiter at an upscale steakhouse, color announcer for the U of Minnesota hockey team...the possibilities are endless.
"A man has ordered a ribeye. The meat is...OVERCOOKED. A debt must be paid. The man will receive...a free dessert."
Totally agreed on Seehorn. If I’m remembering correctly, the writers didn’t expect her to be such a major character and had to figure out how to explain her absence in BB. That tells me she took what was supposed to be a minor role and expanded upon it masterfully. An all-time performance in my opinion, regardless of accolades.
It never ceases to amaze me how little of BB or BCS was really planned in advance and how often the show simply leaned into its own good fortune. Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Giancarlo Esposito, Mark Margois, Krysten Ritter, Rhea Seehorn, Michael Mando, Patrick Fabian, Tony Dalto all played roles that were not intended to be as big as they became, because the writers didn't expect the actors who were hired to make those characters both iconic and deep wells of potential (and there are more, that list is definitely incomplete). It really speaks to both how well both series were cast and how willing the showrunners were to pivoting and adjusting their trajectory, constantly, that made these shows so great.
In other words, I'll continue to be pissed off for a while that Rhea, Jonathan, Giancarlo, et al didn't get their awards due. It's one thing to be cast into a great show's primary cast and excel, it's entirely another to be essentially a bit player and turn yourself into a series regular.
Alan, just a quick comment to say the newsletter is consistently great and helps me learn about great TV I wouldn't spot otherwise. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Re: your comment about ad breaks - the bloating of runtimes (looking at you, Stranger Things) has long made me think that people have forgotten the value of restrictions and challenges in making art. It feels like streaming made it easy to indulge the “why not include everything” attitude, and it’s led to bloat and unnecessary slack. Breaking Bad and BCS used ad breaks well, kept themselves lean (didn’t BB only go over its time slot twice, I think?), and no one would argue they compromised. I feel like art often comes from restrictions and challenges, or at least can be enhanced by it, and “we can do whatever” doesn’t always serve the product well.
Agreed. I wouldn't want to force, say, any of the HBO Holy Trinity of Davids to conform to a particular structure in terms of length, act breaks, etc. But a LOT of showrunners would benefit from having to color inside certain lines.
The ad breaks perform a nice service for viewers, too. I can't tell you how many times a family member has asked, "Can you pause in a good spot so I can go to the bathroom?" :)
Commercial breaks definitely force episodes to have a very defined structure, but I'd argue that those great writers you mention also include act breaks in their shows, just far fewer, and they're not delineated as such (i.e. going to black in the edit). Act breaks are simply story climaxes that come after a certain amount of rising action and propel your story in a new direction. Movies have act breaks. So do plays. Even shows without ads have climactic points within episodes that do this. They're fundamental to long-form story structure. So I think it's a bit misleading to say that great writers don't need them while others do; everybody needs act breaks and everybody should know that.
A problem in all this is that outlets force a certain number of commercial breaks on shows, which necessitates a certain number of acts, even if that's not the best thing for the story being told. A lack of structure in streaming shows is a legit issue, but I don't know if anyone would say that the way broadcast does it makes for great storytelling. (Broadcast drama has lately been teaser + five acts, oof.) One of the promises of streaming was maybe storytellers could tell stories in a different way, but of course now that's disappearing with the addition of commercial breaks. In a perfect world, your story would dictate the number of commercial breaks, not the other way around, but I doubt that'll be the case.
I guess I'd just be wary of saying that commercial breaks are some kind of grand solution since I think we'll just end up with broadcast-style schlock when the streamers stuff shows full of ads. And haven't we seen that show already?
Personally, I think just as big a problem in those not-great streaming shows is that streaming has encouraged the abandonment of the episode as a cohesive unit. When each hour of a show is just a continuation of seemingly endless stories, with no ultimate climax to each episode, no individual story being told, it all just feels like a slog.
Oh, the episode thing is the much bigger problem. Just in general, there's a lot of people making TV right now who either don't know or care about structure, and it's leading to a lot of shows that have interesting ideas and/or casts, but that just play like narrative mush.
Proposal to diversify the emmy results:Turn it into a sort of living-hall-of-fame.
Once you win, you’re done. All the acting awards are swept by Succession? Fantastic achievement! Each winning actor is in the pantheon, but no longer eligible to win in subsequent years. Game of Thrones wins best drama? It’s now been recognized as a significant part of TV history, next year we recognize one of the (at least) dozen other tremendous dramas on television.
It would have all sorts of logistical issues (would voters be comfortable giving a permanent award to a show with plenty of track left, a la seasons 4-6 of Game of Thrones,) and it would never happen (i’m sure the emmy’s wanted GoT fans tuning in year after year.) it just seems TV’s main award could use guardrails to prevent the types of overwhelming sweeps you outlined.
I agree that this would be useful, and also that it would never happen. But if you're looking at the Emmys from a TV historical sense, then this would in theory be bad. If Bryan Cranston can only win won Emmy for playing Walter White, then how can future TV fans tell how the industry/public saw him relative to other actors, both at the time and in the past? It's like how sports fans get into arguments about historical greatness based on how many times someone won MVP.
James Spader winning multiple Emmys for his role as Alan Shore over Hugh Laurie & Martin Sheen will always annoy me. As will Jim Parsons beating Steve Carrell multiple times.
Wholeheartedly agree about Better Call Saul - I was so disappointed that Rhea Seehorn never got an Emmy, especially. And Juno Temple had better be nominated next year. After only seeing her in Ted Lasso, this was an amazing opposite end of the spectrum to show her incredible range. Her acting dazzled me.
Well, since you've brought it up: Kieran Culkin didn't deserve to win over Bob Odenkirk, Julia Garner didn't deserve it over Rhea Seehorn, and Better Call Saul was clearly WAY BETTER than Game of Thrones S8 or even Succession S2, which really didn't truly start becoming the obvious choice until S3. But its quite obvious the majority of voters don't even try to watch the majority of nominated shows or performances in any given category, so dumb results and repetition are absolutely guaranteed every year.
True Detective S4 starts off with some incredibly gruesome moments but it (appears to have) also really bought into all the weird potentially supernatural elements that TD S1 only used as atmosphere and misdirection. Or at least I'd hope it has, because if all of the "She's awake" elements are just misdirection yet again, then I will be really annoyed.
I have to quibble with the idea that Succession s2 wasn't great - it might have actually been the show's best season! It was wickedly funny, as well as being tragic specifically in terms of Kendall's arc.
I do abs agree that Rhea should've beat Julia Garner in the previous Emmys, but also, Coolidge winning a dramatic award for The White Lotus this year was even more preposterous since she is so clearly a comic actress. (TWL in the drama category is also as irritating to me as The Bear being a "comedy")
I keep wondering this same thing about the TD premier. I’m worried they’re going to pull the supernatural rug out from under us with some cliche explanation that it’s just “The Night” making people go crazy and the mining interests/cop dad are behind the murders.
But maybe, just maybe, they’ll let it breathe and leave some questions unanswered. I’m not familiar with Lopez’s other work, but it would be great if she takes this in her own direction.
Alan, I know you were pretty cool on Jury Duty back when it first aired. If you've written about it since then I missed it, but I'm wondering if your thinking/feelings toward it evolved at all since then, given how much of a popular breakout hit it ended up being? I found it pretty consistently hilarious throughout and thought spending the whole finale on behind-the-scenes reveals, reminiscing, and reflecting to be quite satisfying and even moving.
I think I watched three episodes and gave up. It was not working for me at all. I didn't find the scripted comedy bits funny, in part (but not entirely) because they constantly had to find ways to incorporate Ronald, and that in turn left me unmoved by the "normal guy reacts to weird stuff around him" aspect of it.
As for Saul - I'm always the unpopular opinion that Squid Games was just okay, and Succession is overrated, but to be fair, as far as succession goes, it's probably because, I realized, I can't deal with shows where you hate absolutely EVERYONE. I do need an empathetic connection point, and I just didn't have it.
Alan - any thoughts or intentions to write about The Brothers Sun? I found it very enjoyable.
It’s lazy to describe the final season of GOT as ‘absolutely terrible’ - dissatisfaction with how the tale conclude should not lead to broad brush dismissal. It was clearly rushed, yes - but great in parts.
Any season that contained ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ cannot, by definition, be described as ‘absolutely’ terrible.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is great. One of the better GoT episodes overall. Everything around it was AWFUL. It's not just what happened in the story, but how badly the story was told throughout. Clumsy, rushed, a huge battle episode where it was impossible to see anything happening if you don't have a high-end TV, etc. Bad bad bad. If a baseball player was only getting 1 hit out of every 6 times at bat, even if that 1 hit was a home run, they would be considered unplayable and wind up on the bench.
Disagree, The Bells still holds up on its own as the first-ever TV equivalent of a blockbuster action film but also works as an emotionally-charged finale with a number of primary characters and subplots (even an entire primary setting of the show) meeting satisfying endings. On a lesser note, with TV series now trying to ape that level of scale and spectacle, still nothing has yet come close to it. It's too bad it has mostly been dismissed because everyone was so frustrated at all the messy storytelling bookending it.
If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. Very little of that season was well-received and I couldn't tell if viewers were just seething regarding the overall mishandling of Danys' arc or they simply didn't like the episode.
Oh thank heavens you liked the end of Fargo too! I saw someone somewhere complain about it and I just don’t get it unloved it. Want an entire spin off cooking show called A Man Can Cook Food, with Dot. It was life affirming, it was revelatory. I always had a soft spot for Wayne and dear god did his innate goodness and kindness come through. I did not like the way Lorraine and Roy’s scene played out, but it makes complete sense that she is vengeful and that the o my way she sees the injustice of prison debt is as a tool for her own personal justice. She is not a better person. He is not chastened. They are who they are. I also hated Whit’s end and yet we saw it coming, though I refused to believe it until the flash forward. Sigh.
Lorraine and Roy are such cartoons that it was hard to feel anything in their final scene, disturbing as I expect it was supposed to be. Lorraine at least has some concern for people who are not her and grows at least a little over the course of the season, but it becomes clear over the season that Roy has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and ultimately that makes him a pretty boring villain.
So, I also felt queasy about the Lorraine/Roy scene - because she's gonna have him tortured and that is wrong no matter who the target is - but I also feel it was far more realistic than pretending she's now become a "good person" because she has accepted Dot into her family. "It makes sense dramaturgically" as our #1 Roy boy would say!
I would love to hear people’s thoughts about dot and Wayne being “moguls” with multiple dealerships - American Gentry, in the parlance of a recent @Anne Helen Peterson column - asking Ole, an eternal serf, to forgive a debt. A rich economic text acknowledging no one builds anything alone, despite what Roy or Lorraine would have us think.
Oh, and, how about Roy literally killing “god”, not that his FIL Odin was a good influence, but things didn’t get better for Roy from there, in fact his wife’s horror at that was the precipitating downward step.
The strongest rebuttal one could make about the power of the final scene is that Dot's comfortable life is built entirely on the money Lorraine makes preying on poor people struggling with debt. But Dot and Wayne are more fundamentally generous than Lorraine. Even if you can ascribe a lot of Wayne's post-electrocution behavior to his brain not working right, it felt like his "a car for a car" offer to the family who couldn't afford a new Kia was his inner impulses being allowed to come out.
Yes, generational wealth is a complicating factor for philanthropy. I think there was some reference earlier in the season to a trust Wayne isn’t using. They are definitely living a comfortable life but its dramatically different than Lorraine’s. I think they may have started the dealership with help but they are living off that alone. Anyway, I loved this and the RS piece too!
I guess, to me, it strengthens the message of their generosity and goodness that they are taking what they have, regardless of how they got it, and rather than have a “got mine, fuck everyone else” attitude, dot and Wayne invited a threatening stranger to their table.
I'm on record below already extolling the Fargo finale, and I keep realizing new points I want to praise. I appreciated that, much like the scenes of domestic violence and abuse were obscured unless Dot had an active antagonistic arc, the "war" was not really shot in any way that glorified "good guys with guns vs bad guys with guns" -- It was chaos, it was edited together in bits rather than some GOT-esque battle behemoth, and it was over quickly. I appreciated that.
This is an amazing analysis of BCS's run at the Emmys. I so appreciate your deep and incredibly broad knowledge of TV - and the fact that you bridge the divide between the cable and streaming eras.
I find it really regrettable that BCS didn't enjoy the sort of trick that got The Bear so many Emmys this year - the confusion regarding which season was being voted on.
The last 20 minutes of the Fargo finale were transcendent but there’s a messiness to the resolution at the Tillman ranch. I’m okay with not seeing a firefight but it is odd for the show to tease a big showdown and then to edit around it. Especially when in the past the series has depicted standout action scenes. Sioux Falls massacre and Munch’s fight with Farr and Dot. Very mixed on the confrontation between Farr and Roy as well.
For me, the greatest Emmy injustice regarding Better Call Saul was the lack of recognition for Rhea Seehorn. No question, everyone who worked on that show deserved an award for their incredible work. I just felt like Seehorn's performance was so good, and so unique, that it deserved to be singled out.
Absolutely loved this season of Fargo. I agree that season 2 is still my favorite, but this was excellent throughout. Thanks for your article about the finale--that really helped illuminate the theme of debt throughout, something I think I was aware of in the background but didn't really pick up on all of the ways it was present for each character. That last scene was just a wonder. It was absolutely hilarious--the shot of Munch's intense glare interrupted by an orange soda bottle thrust into frame, followed by him growling, "A man is grateful" just killed me. And yet it was so moving at the same time. A powerful argument about forgiveness healing division--that resonated with me and felt like an important statement for the times we live in.
Also, I really want to pitch a spinoff series now. With Ole Munch freed from his debt, he now wanders the U.S. aimlessly. Each episode is him trying odd jobs. Selling Kias for Wayne, waiter at an upscale steakhouse, color announcer for the U of Minnesota hockey team...the possibilities are endless.
"A man has ordered a ribeye. The meat is...OVERCOOKED. A debt must be paid. The man will receive...a free dessert."
Totally agreed on Seehorn. If I’m remembering correctly, the writers didn’t expect her to be such a major character and had to figure out how to explain her absence in BB. That tells me she took what was supposed to be a minor role and expanded upon it masterfully. An all-time performance in my opinion, regardless of accolades.
It never ceases to amaze me how little of BB or BCS was really planned in advance and how often the show simply leaned into its own good fortune. Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Giancarlo Esposito, Mark Margois, Krysten Ritter, Rhea Seehorn, Michael Mando, Patrick Fabian, Tony Dalto all played roles that were not intended to be as big as they became, because the writers didn't expect the actors who were hired to make those characters both iconic and deep wells of potential (and there are more, that list is definitely incomplete). It really speaks to both how well both series were cast and how willing the showrunners were to pivoting and adjusting their trajectory, constantly, that made these shows so great.
In other words, I'll continue to be pissed off for a while that Rhea, Jonathan, Giancarlo, et al didn't get their awards due. It's one thing to be cast into a great show's primary cast and excel, it's entirely another to be essentially a bit player and turn yourself into a series regular.
Alan, just a quick comment to say the newsletter is consistently great and helps me learn about great TV I wouldn't spot otherwise. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Thanks!
Re: your comment about ad breaks - the bloating of runtimes (looking at you, Stranger Things) has long made me think that people have forgotten the value of restrictions and challenges in making art. It feels like streaming made it easy to indulge the “why not include everything” attitude, and it’s led to bloat and unnecessary slack. Breaking Bad and BCS used ad breaks well, kept themselves lean (didn’t BB only go over its time slot twice, I think?), and no one would argue they compromised. I feel like art often comes from restrictions and challenges, or at least can be enhanced by it, and “we can do whatever” doesn’t always serve the product well.
Agreed. I wouldn't want to force, say, any of the HBO Holy Trinity of Davids to conform to a particular structure in terms of length, act breaks, etc. But a LOT of showrunners would benefit from having to color inside certain lines.
The ad breaks perform a nice service for viewers, too. I can't tell you how many times a family member has asked, "Can you pause in a good spot so I can go to the bathroom?" :)
Commercial breaks definitely force episodes to have a very defined structure, but I'd argue that those great writers you mention also include act breaks in their shows, just far fewer, and they're not delineated as such (i.e. going to black in the edit). Act breaks are simply story climaxes that come after a certain amount of rising action and propel your story in a new direction. Movies have act breaks. So do plays. Even shows without ads have climactic points within episodes that do this. They're fundamental to long-form story structure. So I think it's a bit misleading to say that great writers don't need them while others do; everybody needs act breaks and everybody should know that.
A problem in all this is that outlets force a certain number of commercial breaks on shows, which necessitates a certain number of acts, even if that's not the best thing for the story being told. A lack of structure in streaming shows is a legit issue, but I don't know if anyone would say that the way broadcast does it makes for great storytelling. (Broadcast drama has lately been teaser + five acts, oof.) One of the promises of streaming was maybe storytellers could tell stories in a different way, but of course now that's disappearing with the addition of commercial breaks. In a perfect world, your story would dictate the number of commercial breaks, not the other way around, but I doubt that'll be the case.
I guess I'd just be wary of saying that commercial breaks are some kind of grand solution since I think we'll just end up with broadcast-style schlock when the streamers stuff shows full of ads. And haven't we seen that show already?
Personally, I think just as big a problem in those not-great streaming shows is that streaming has encouraged the abandonment of the episode as a cohesive unit. When each hour of a show is just a continuation of seemingly endless stories, with no ultimate climax to each episode, no individual story being told, it all just feels like a slog.
Oh, the episode thing is the much bigger problem. Just in general, there's a lot of people making TV right now who either don't know or care about structure, and it's leading to a lot of shows that have interesting ideas and/or casts, but that just play like narrative mush.
Proposal to diversify the emmy results:Turn it into a sort of living-hall-of-fame.
Once you win, you’re done. All the acting awards are swept by Succession? Fantastic achievement! Each winning actor is in the pantheon, but no longer eligible to win in subsequent years. Game of Thrones wins best drama? It’s now been recognized as a significant part of TV history, next year we recognize one of the (at least) dozen other tremendous dramas on television.
It would have all sorts of logistical issues (would voters be comfortable giving a permanent award to a show with plenty of track left, a la seasons 4-6 of Game of Thrones,) and it would never happen (i’m sure the emmy’s wanted GoT fans tuning in year after year.) it just seems TV’s main award could use guardrails to prevent the types of overwhelming sweeps you outlined.
Huge fan, thanks for all the work you do!
I agree that this would be useful, and also that it would never happen. But if you're looking at the Emmys from a TV historical sense, then this would in theory be bad. If Bryan Cranston can only win won Emmy for playing Walter White, then how can future TV fans tell how the industry/public saw him relative to other actors, both at the time and in the past? It's like how sports fans get into arguments about historical greatness based on how many times someone won MVP.
James Spader winning multiple Emmys for his role as Alan Shore over Hugh Laurie & Martin Sheen will always annoy me. As will Jim Parsons beating Steve Carrell multiple times.
Wholeheartedly agree about Better Call Saul - I was so disappointed that Rhea Seehorn never got an Emmy, especially. And Juno Temple had better be nominated next year. After only seeing her in Ted Lasso, this was an amazing opposite end of the spectrum to show her incredible range. Her acting dazzled me.
Feels very weird, now, to consider Kieran Culkin on that fabulous second season of Fargo
Well, since you've brought it up: Kieran Culkin didn't deserve to win over Bob Odenkirk, Julia Garner didn't deserve it over Rhea Seehorn, and Better Call Saul was clearly WAY BETTER than Game of Thrones S8 or even Succession S2, which really didn't truly start becoming the obvious choice until S3. But its quite obvious the majority of voters don't even try to watch the majority of nominated shows or performances in any given category, so dumb results and repetition are absolutely guaranteed every year.
True Detective S4 starts off with some incredibly gruesome moments but it (appears to have) also really bought into all the weird potentially supernatural elements that TD S1 only used as atmosphere and misdirection. Or at least I'd hope it has, because if all of the "She's awake" elements are just misdirection yet again, then I will be really annoyed.
I have to quibble with the idea that Succession s2 wasn't great - it might have actually been the show's best season! It was wickedly funny, as well as being tragic specifically in terms of Kendall's arc.
I do abs agree that Rhea should've beat Julia Garner in the previous Emmys, but also, Coolidge winning a dramatic award for The White Lotus this year was even more preposterous since she is so clearly a comic actress. (TWL in the drama category is also as irritating to me as The Bear being a "comedy")
I keep wondering this same thing about the TD premier. I’m worried they’re going to pull the supernatural rug out from under us with some cliche explanation that it’s just “The Night” making people go crazy and the mining interests/cop dad are behind the murders.
But maybe, just maybe, they’ll let it breathe and leave some questions unanswered. I’m not familiar with Lopez’s other work, but it would be great if she takes this in her own direction.
Without telling you what's coming, keep in mind that the movie that put Lopez on the map is a supernatural horror film.
I too thought the last scene of fargo was so so fantastic.
Alan, I know you were pretty cool on Jury Duty back when it first aired. If you've written about it since then I missed it, but I'm wondering if your thinking/feelings toward it evolved at all since then, given how much of a popular breakout hit it ended up being? I found it pretty consistently hilarious throughout and thought spending the whole finale on behind-the-scenes reveals, reminiscing, and reflecting to be quite satisfying and even moving.
I think I watched three episodes and gave up. It was not working for me at all. I didn't find the scripted comedy bits funny, in part (but not entirely) because they constantly had to find ways to incorporate Ronald, and that in turn left me unmoved by the "normal guy reacts to weird stuff around him" aspect of it.
Wonderful ending to Fargo!
As for Saul - I'm always the unpopular opinion that Squid Games was just okay, and Succession is overrated, but to be fair, as far as succession goes, it's probably because, I realized, I can't deal with shows where you hate absolutely EVERYONE. I do need an empathetic connection point, and I just didn't have it.
Alan - any thoughts or intentions to write about The Brothers Sun? I found it very enjoyable.
Oh come on now Alan.
It’s lazy to describe the final season of GOT as ‘absolutely terrible’ - dissatisfaction with how the tale conclude should not lead to broad brush dismissal. It was clearly rushed, yes - but great in parts.
Any season that contained ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ cannot, by definition, be described as ‘absolutely’ terrible.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is great. One of the better GoT episodes overall. Everything around it was AWFUL. It's not just what happened in the story, but how badly the story was told throughout. Clumsy, rushed, a huge battle episode where it was impossible to see anything happening if you don't have a high-end TV, etc. Bad bad bad. If a baseball player was only getting 1 hit out of every 6 times at bat, even if that 1 hit was a home run, they would be considered unplayable and wind up on the bench.
Alan, thanks for taking time out to reply
Disagree, The Bells still holds up on its own as the first-ever TV equivalent of a blockbuster action film but also works as an emotionally-charged finale with a number of primary characters and subplots (even an entire primary setting of the show) meeting satisfying endings. On a lesser note, with TV series now trying to ape that level of scale and spectacle, still nothing has yet come close to it. It's too bad it has mostly been dismissed because everyone was so frustrated at all the messy storytelling bookending it.
I think the scale of The Bells is impressive. I think it was also emotional gibberish, which I wrote about at the time: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/game-of-thrones-review-bells-sepinwall-834528/
If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. Very little of that season was well-received and I couldn't tell if viewers were just seething regarding the overall mishandling of Danys' arc or they simply didn't like the episode.
I felt there was so much whining and ill-informed cant because the series didn't end the way some people wanted it to.
And yes, 'The Long Night' looked phenomenal on a high-end TV.
It was just a very bad season of television, a bad story that was told very poorly.
Massive Fargo spoilers ahead.
Oh thank heavens you liked the end of Fargo too! I saw someone somewhere complain about it and I just don’t get it unloved it. Want an entire spin off cooking show called A Man Can Cook Food, with Dot. It was life affirming, it was revelatory. I always had a soft spot for Wayne and dear god did his innate goodness and kindness come through. I did not like the way Lorraine and Roy’s scene played out, but it makes complete sense that she is vengeful and that the o my way she sees the injustice of prison debt is as a tool for her own personal justice. She is not a better person. He is not chastened. They are who they are. I also hated Whit’s end and yet we saw it coming, though I refused to believe it until the flash forward. Sigh.
Lorraine and Roy are such cartoons that it was hard to feel anything in their final scene, disturbing as I expect it was supposed to be. Lorraine at least has some concern for people who are not her and grows at least a little over the course of the season, but it becomes clear over the season that Roy has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and ultimately that makes him a pretty boring villain.
So, I also felt queasy about the Lorraine/Roy scene - because she's gonna have him tortured and that is wrong no matter who the target is - but I also feel it was far more realistic than pretending she's now become a "good person" because she has accepted Dot into her family. "It makes sense dramaturgically" as our #1 Roy boy would say!
Exactly - she's only interested in justice for herself, and one ripple out from that, for anyone affiliated with her.
I would love to hear people’s thoughts about dot and Wayne being “moguls” with multiple dealerships - American Gentry, in the parlance of a recent @Anne Helen Peterson column - asking Ole, an eternal serf, to forgive a debt. A rich economic text acknowledging no one builds anything alone, despite what Roy or Lorraine would have us think.
Oh, and, how about Roy literally killing “god”, not that his FIL Odin was a good influence, but things didn’t get better for Roy from there, in fact his wife’s horror at that was the precipitating downward step.
I loved this season so much
The strongest rebuttal one could make about the power of the final scene is that Dot's comfortable life is built entirely on the money Lorraine makes preying on poor people struggling with debt. But Dot and Wayne are more fundamentally generous than Lorraine. Even if you can ascribe a lot of Wayne's post-electrocution behavior to his brain not working right, it felt like his "a car for a car" offer to the family who couldn't afford a new Kia was his inner impulses being allowed to come out.
Yes, generational wealth is a complicating factor for philanthropy. I think there was some reference earlier in the season to a trust Wayne isn’t using. They are definitely living a comfortable life but its dramatically different than Lorraine’s. I think they may have started the dealership with help but they are living off that alone. Anyway, I loved this and the RS piece too!
I guess, to me, it strengthens the message of their generosity and goodness that they are taking what they have, regardless of how they got it, and rather than have a “got mine, fuck everyone else” attitude, dot and Wayne invited a threatening stranger to their table.
Oh, I agree. I just mean that if someone wanted to unravel the scene, that is the one thread they might be able to pull on.
Well now, why would anybody want to go and unravel a nice scene like that for? Unraveling. Gosh. What a waste of a good scene of thread. ;)
I'm on record below already extolling the Fargo finale, and I keep realizing new points I want to praise. I appreciated that, much like the scenes of domestic violence and abuse were obscured unless Dot had an active antagonistic arc, the "war" was not really shot in any way that glorified "good guys with guns vs bad guys with guns" -- It was chaos, it was edited together in bits rather than some GOT-esque battle behemoth, and it was over quickly. I appreciated that.
This is an amazing analysis of BCS's run at the Emmys. I so appreciate your deep and incredibly broad knowledge of TV - and the fact that you bridge the divide between the cable and streaming eras.
I find it really regrettable that BCS didn't enjoy the sort of trick that got The Bear so many Emmys this year - the confusion regarding which season was being voted on.
The last 20 minutes of the Fargo finale were transcendent but there’s a messiness to the resolution at the Tillman ranch. I’m okay with not seeing a firefight but it is odd for the show to tease a big showdown and then to edit around it. Especially when in the past the series has depicted standout action scenes. Sioux Falls massacre and Munch’s fight with Farr and Dot. Very mixed on the confrontation between Farr and Roy as well.