Fargo concluded its second season earlier this month with a few episodes that were, literally, just out of this world. Well, one was, anyway.In the next-to-last episode, which featured one of the best shoot-outs ever on television, with lots of evil characters getting their just deserts, and some not-evil characters, too (like that brave lady cop), which I guess makes their deserts unjust, we have a resolution of that shoot-out, a saving of the day for Lou - which had to be saved, since we know older Lou from Season 1 - by a UFO.
So does this mean UFOs exist in the Fargo universe? Is Fargo, in addition to all of its other merits, science fiction?
Not necessarily. No one interacted with any alien. And reports of UFOs are common enough in our reality and world. So whatever was seen at that shoot-out was just light in the sky, which was caused by some contraption, which may or may not have been an alien ship.
Even if it was, would that be so bad? Well, certainly not for me, seeing as how I'm a big fan of science fiction, having just reviewed Childhood's End (and I reviewed most of Falling Skies), speaking of UFOs. I've even talked about them on the History Channel.
But there is what literary critics call a protocol issue, if UFOs with aliens are suddenly introduced into a series like Fargo. If you have a dead body, murdered, in a room with a door locked from the inside, this makes a classic whodunit. If you solve it by discovering the murderer beamed into and out of the room, that kind of solution can anger mystery fans by violating the expectations of the whodunit genre.
On the other hand, there has always been an aspect of Fargo that almost seems out of this world, anyway. Hanzee, the "Gerhardt Indian" and one of the best characters in season 2 (well played by Zahn McClarnon, who also stood out in Longmire), has even been suggested to be an alien. And, let's face it, that cold snowy terrain sometimes looks like a scene from another world, even when there isn't a gunfight at the OK Corral to liven up the night.
As is the case with many top-notch television series these days, the next-to-last episode was better than the finale, which tied things up, but with far less energy than the previous episode. Still, it was great to see that Lou's wife Betsy survived, and her collapsing was because of the treatment the she had indeed been receiving, thus giving this finale a nice, unexpected silver lining which also is an intrinsic part of this series, and therefore not completely unexpected, I guess, but heartwarming and welcome.
Looking forward to next season on Fargo.
See also: Fargo 2.1: Good to be Back in the Freezer ... Fargo 2.6: Just Superb
And see also: Fargo Debuts with Two Psychos ... Fargo 1.7: The Bungling and the Brave ... Fargo 1.8: The Year ... Fargo Season 1 Finale: The Supremely Cunning Anti-Hero
A story about another kind of killer ... The Silk Code
#SFWApro
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