Category: Entertainment

“So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? A little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’cha know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well. I just don’t understand it.”
— Marge Gunderson, in Fargo (1996)

Are you watching Fargo on FX? I cannot remember the last time I was excited to watch a show every week. Maybe the finale of Mad Men, maybe earlier seasons, but I don’t think that was excitement so much as anticipation, which I think is different.

With Fargo, particularly the second season currently airing, I anxiously await Tuesday nights because I know I’ll get to find out what happens next (Fargo airs Monday nights at 10, but we DVR it because we have two children, including a baby who stopped sleeping through the night 6 weeks ago, and are exhausted by 10pm). The first season was great, and Allison Tolman was robbed of her Emmy, but what I felt each week during that season was a deep sense of foreboding because Billy Bob Thornton’s Lorne Malvo was so sinister.

This season does have a sense of foreboding as well, but it’s nicely leavened by that Coen Brothers brand of dark humor. It helps also that I know one of my favorite characters survives because he features in season 1, set 25 or so years after season 2.

The story is compelling, and the players are all at the tops of their games. If Fargo doesn’t straight clean up at next year’s Emmys, it will be a crime. I cannot take my eyes off Jean Smart’s Floyd Gerhardt whenever she’s on the screen. Kirsten Dunst has taken what could have easily been a ditsy, campy character and given her such a lovely dose of sadness shot through with perpetual hope. Jesse Plemons, so good as earnest Landry on my beloved Friday Night Lights, shines as Dunst’s earnest but determined husband. Patrick Wilson is amazing as the state trooper and veteran desperate not to fight another war. Bokeem Woodbine is a Jabberwocky-spouting Kansas City mobster, as smooth and unruffled as the day is long. Cristin Milioti, for whom I will always have a soft spot after her sweet turn as the Mother on How I Met Your Mother, has a small but memorable role as Wilson’s cancer-stricken wife, full of Midwestern matter-of-factness about her fate. Zahn McClarnon does great work as the quiet, calculating, put-upon Native American muscle of the Gerhardt crime family.  The only even slightly weak link for me is Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan as Smart’s lunkheaded oldest son; his performance veers a bit into camp, and I can’t tell if that’s an accident or a deliberate choice. I will say, however, that I very much enjoyed his performance last week in Episode 8.

There are only two episodes left. We get to watch one tonight, and I am champing at the bit for my kids to go to bed (don’t worry: I’m not neglecting them to write this, I’m writing this on the train home) so David and I can dig in to both our dinners and the penultimate episode. I cannot recommend this show enough. Seek it out if you haven’t yet. Although some of the characters from Season 1 appear in Season 2, the stories are essentially self-contained, so don’t feel like you have to “catch up” (though you should definitely watch Season 1 when you get a chance).

“At my signal, unleash hell.”
— Maximus to his troops, in Gladiator

So Karen asked me last night if I was serious in my new year’s post about watching American Gladiators. My response was, “Um, yeah.” Duh. I was psyched for this to start – Nate and I used to watch this every Saturday (I think) at noon because we didn’t have cable and it was the only thing on. Plus, it was awesome. The original Gladiators had names like Malibu, Lace, Blaze, Nitro, Turbo, and Jade (thanks, Wiki!). They were pitted against average Joe and Jane contestants in contests like The Wall (scale the rock-climbing wall while being chased by a Gladiator intent on pulling you off the Wall), Joust (just what it sounds like, except on three-foot wide platforms 15 feet above water), and Assault (shoot a variety of weapons using tennis balls as ammo at a target suspended above a Gladiator armed with a tennis-ball-shooting gun – get hit once and you’re toast).

This “revival” of AG now airing on NBC (Mondays, 8pm) is terrible. Like, can’t-stop-watching-even-though-I-want-to-poke-my-eyes-out terrible. I freaking love it. The male Gladiators this time are named Toa, Militia, Justice (oooh, scary, especially with that triangle mohawk), Titan, Mayhem, and Wolf (I hate him; he howls – that’s original). The girls are called Siren, Fury (who has one of those super-long, top-of-the-head ponytails, complete with a conical ponytail holder thing), Venom, Stealth, Crush, and Hellga (yes, with 2 l’s – clever isn’t it?).

Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali “host,” but it’s clear the two of them have taken too many shots to the head in their careers, because they can’t read cue cards to save their lives. And writers’ strike or not, and “reality TV” label notwithstanding, this show is scripted. Badly. Even the contestant interviews and insults from the Gladiators are cliched sound bites.

And the puns. Oh god, the puns. The only one I can remember – because they’re so groan-worthy I forget them as soon as possible – was that one of the girls was going to have to work hard to “snake” her way past Venom. Snake. Get it? Get it? Just kill me now.

Tonight they had two contestants from the South, and boy did they milk it. The guy, who they said was nicknamed “Big Country” (as if anyone is really ever nicknamed Big Country), kept talking about how back home in Tennessee, they mud wrestle and hog wrestle, so this should be a piece of cake. The girl kept saying that her “Mama” (which the captions spelled “Momma” so it’s even more southern) was her hero and taught her never to give up. Christ. Those two just set the South back 20 years.

These contestants, though, they are hard core. They’re always talking about giving 110%, and last night one of them even went so far as to promise 200%! Can you believe it? That’s like 1.8 times the regular amount of effort! Unreal. One guy last night was the sentimental favorite – he tried out 14 years ago for the original AG, made it, but got stuck in LA traffic and missed his taping time slot. Too bad he was an asshole and no one was rooting for him. And this other girl rammed her forehead so hard against a metal pipe while swimming under a 20-foot long plank of FIRE that she completed the rest of the obstacle course with blood streaming down her face. In all seriousness, that was awesome. Not the ramming of the forehead, of course, because, ouch – but the blood.

The biggest change is that the format, instead of just being a season-long tournament for money, has changed so that the final 8 competitors (4 men and 4 women) will compete for a spot in next season’s (that’s optimistic) group of Gladiators. What a great prize. I assume NBC will pay for the requisite plastic surgery for the female winner (and maybe the male, too, if Titan is any indication).