TV Review: Fargo - Season 2: Episode 8

TV Review: Fargo – Season 2: Episode 8

December 1st 2015, 1:21am

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Season 2, Episode 8: Loplop

SUMMARY: Dodd (Jeffrey Donovan) finds himself the unexpected prisoner of Peggy (Kirsten Dunst) and Ed (Jesse Plemons) Blumquist, with Hanzee (Zahn McClarnon ) hot on their trail.

REVIEW: The danger of reviewing a show like Fargo week-after-week is that it's so consistently amazing, each review feels like just another rant about how amazing the show is rather than jumping in to any real critique. Like most shows, you can only really give it a full review once it ends, but the ride so far has been absolutely incredible. After two weeks focused mostly on Lou (Patrick Wilson) most of this week's episode, “Loplop” focuses on the unlikely trio of Peggy, Ed, and Dodd while Hanzee cuts a homicidal path through the Midwest hunting the couple down in order to rescue his boss.

Last week's episode revealed that Dood was now Peggy and Ed's prisoner, and this episode flashes-back to show the events leading up to Ed's call to the Mike Milligan, with him trying the Gerhardt's several times with no avail, explaining how his smile at the end of last week's episode wasn't merely pride at outsmarting them, but also relief at having finally passed him off to someone else.

Most of this week's episode focuses on Peggy and Dodd, with Peggy's sanity clearly starting to waver somewhat, although the more unhinged she gets the more confident and happy she seems – and the closer her and Ed seem to be getting. In some ways, it took them going mad to really see the value in each other, specifically Peggy towards Ed, who she now sees as a confident protector rather than the provincial butcher she thought she was married to.

It's fun to see Peggy dominate the despicable Dodd, with her casually stabbing him a few times after he threatens her, with Jeffrey Donovan playing his increasing sense of fear and helplessness to the hilt. Of course, Dodd wasn't going to stay helpless for long, with Peg getting sidetracked by an old (fictional) Ronald Reagan yarn, “Operation Eagle's Nest” (Bruce Campbell loops the actor playing the young Reagan).

Luckily, Peggy's able to fight him off after he gets the drop on Ed, only for Hanzee to come-along, fresh-off of slaughtering of a bar full of racists who make the mistake of disrespecting him, including a few cops who call him “chief.” This week's big jaw-dropper is him casually shooting Dodd in the head after finding him, and while Peggy and Ed came pretty close to doing him in, Lou and Hank came along in the nick of time to give him a second to escape their clutches. All in all, it was a pretty thrilling end to an already amazing episode. With only two episodes left, Fargo just keeps upping the ante, and I'm breathless in anticipation for next week's episode.