There is a quintessential Fargo moment in the excellent first episode of the third season of the FX series, when sexy competitive bridge player Nikki Swango (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) looks at her balding, pot-bellied, stampobsessed, Corvette-driving boyfriend and parole officer Ray Stussy (Ewan McGregor) and says: “We’re a team, you and me. Simpatico, to the point of spooky.”
If you’re obsessed with Noah Hawley’s virtuoso reimagining of the Coen brothers’ classic film as a television series, then you’ll know the key words there are “competitive bridge player,” “stamp-obsessed,” “Corvette,” “simpatico,” “spooky” — and to an only slightly lesser extent, “Swango” and “Stussy.”
Such specifics — names, hobbies, turns of phrase — always are crucial in Fargo, as is a unique and ever-shifting tone that marries quirky with folksy with deadly.…
