Fargo Finale Recap: Who Survived the Inevitable Bloodbath?

Find out what happened as the FX miniseries closed out its first season

By Lauren Piester Jun 18, 2014 3:32 AMTags
FargoChris Large/FX

Well geez, Lester, way to kind of get away one last time.

We're fairly devastated that our new favorite show is over, but that was one heck of a way to go. The good guys (minus Pepper and Budge – RIP!!) won, Molly got to be chief, Gus got recognized as a hero, and everyone's gonna live happily ever after (until the next horrible murder spree that will hopefully be season 2, please). As far as the negatives go, Lorne Malvo's still-moving, bullet-hole-ridden face will haunt our dreams for the rest of our lives, along with those horrible bangs that plagued him ‘til the time jump. Anywho, let's get on with what went down.

Basically, we've never been so confused about Martin Freeman before. Adorable hobbit in Lord of the Rings? Love him. Adorable sex-scene stand-in in Love Actually? Love him. Cutie in a bathrobe in Hitchhiker's Guide? Love him. Curmudgeonly doctor on Sherlock? Mostly love him. Murder genius rat-man in an orange coat on Fargo? So. Confused. Do we root for anti-hero(ish) Lester? Do we hate Lester? Do we feel like strangling Lester with a tie we bought online? All of the above? 

 In any case, while Lester Nygaard is an awful person, he's also extremely smart when it comes to self-preservation. If we had just sent our wives into our insurance office to be murdered by Billy Bob Thornton, our first thought would not be to go to a diner, order two grilled cheeses, and sneak out the back door while pretending to go to the bathroom so we could call the police. We just wouldn't think of that. Maybe, just maybe, we could pull of the oh-geez indignance in the interrogation room, but it would genuinely not occur to us to hide a bear trap under a pile of clothes to keep Billy Bob Thornton at bay.

The one regret we have about the way Lester's story ended (other than Molly not getting the full victory she deserved) is that we'd like to know what brought him to be riding a snow mobile through Montana. Had he been doing that for the full two weeks since Molly found the tape, or was that just his escape vehicle of choice when he heard sirens? He was fully bundled up (in another garishly orange-red coat, nonetheless) , so we're assuming that he just happened to be out on a snow mobile ride when the police finally caught up to him, but still. We're curious. (And we wouldn't be completely shocked if he even managed to weasel his way out of freezing to death under that ice.) 

One thing we're not confused about is the awesomeness of Molly Solverson, played by the equally awesome Allison Tolman. Molly was right there on Lester and Malvo's tails from the beginning, as literally the only person who wasn't fooled by Lester's act, and she never wavered on believing Lester to be the little rat that he was.

Gus was equally great, though his determination got him into trouble, which is probably what motivated him to do what he did in the end. Instead of taking his knowledge of Malvo's cabin to Molly and the rest of the police, he took matters into his own hands and simply waited for the killer to come back so he could personally get rid of the guy who had done so much damage.

We were sad to see Pepper and Budge go, because we could easily watch a spin-off of those two, but their final scene – as they crept ever closer to the car that was surely being driven by Malvo, only to discover a duct-taped car dealership guy at the wheel – was so darn chilling that we might be ok with it. (Who else votes for Budge and Pepper sketches to start showing up on Key and Peele? We'd be very into that.) 

Things we're not ok with? Close-ups of Malvo's broken, bear-trapped leg, and, as we mentioned before, the image of Malvo baring his bloody teeth as one last attempt to be terrifying. We could have done without that as fuel for our future nightmares.

All in all, excellent finale. Gus, Molly, Greta, and Lou all lived to protect and serve Bemidji another day. Malvo got at least some of what he deserved, and Lester deserved worse than what he got, but this is a "true story," after all. Not everything can be perfect.

Check back at 6 a.m. ET for our exclusive postmortem with Fargo boss Noah Hawley, or, in the meantime, head over to our Fargo gallery for 11 facts you might not know about the show! 

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