You may recall that in Season 2 there are references to Sisyphean tasks involving pushing a rock up a hill which always rolls back down again - Patrick Wilson uses it in reference to daily life being married. It's funny then that the priceless stamp that Ewan McGregor wants back from brother Ewan McGregor is that design.
It's 2010. (Although before that, it's 1980s Germany - which - I mean - what the - ) To get the stamp, probation officer McGregor sends an idiot to retrieve it who gets totally the wrong house and kills an old man, who happens to be the step-father of local cop Carrie Coon. And that old man is also a former sci-fi writer - leading to an unexpected and delightful cartoon involving an android.
Meanwhile very bad guy David Thewlis moves in on business of the more prosperous McGregor and his partner Michael Stuhlbarg. Thewlis is a horrible character, much worse than Billy Bob Thornton's - repellent. Also he has a way of telling everyone little stories which may or may not be relevant. So he's a bit of a difficult one to swallow (though admittedly a great performance). Shea Whigham is annoying as a senior cop who just will not listen.
Once again a small family unit is at the heart of the story. And the cop finds an ally in eager colleague Olivia Sandoval. And we begin to side with the lesser Stussy and his ballsy and mercenary girlfriend Mary Elizabeth Winstead, particularly after she's badly beaten up.
Loved the box that turns itself off! And the 'Peter and the Wolf' episode. The whole sequence from the attack on the prison bus and how Winstead just happens to be chained up with the great deaf guy from Season 1, Russell Harvard, is fabulous. Loved that you think Goran Bogdan (the Yuri Gurka from the opening) has been shot in the head, but it's only his bear head. Then ending up in a deserted bowling alley, the Ray Wise character (what is he - some kind of Jewish angel?) and the kitten... and then we never see Bogdan again.
Um. So, Thewlis most off-putting. Winstead doesn't make it, which is a shame. (Loved the dissolves in this highway scene. Regis Kimble is the editor; Keith Gordon directed.) Nor does nice McGregor, which he doesn't really deserve. And the very ending, the cliffhanger, does Thewlis get away with it all? I mean, I like it, but we're left in a rather unsatisfying wrap-up.
Who is Noah Hawley anyhow? He's also a novelist and singer (frequently teaming with Jeff Russo). screenwriter and producer, starting with Bones (2005-8) on which he was story editor. There's other writers on this one.
What did Minnesotans think of it all? You sense they were a bit offended by the accents, which have been exaggerated, and that they are made out to be a bit thick. Liz Himelstein was the dialect coach who worked on the original film and then helped Juno Temple at least.
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