This FARGO review contains spoilers.
Fargo Season 4 Episode 9
If last week’s Fargo featured a climactic shootout at a train station that felt strongly influenced by The Untouchables, “East/West” looks back even further in film history for inspiration. In a not-so-subtle homage to the Wizard of Oz, Fargo goes black and white and prominently features a small dog and a Kansas tornado, but here the fortune teller that Dorothy finds while running away is replaced with a vague billboard, which takes on a deeper and more ominous meaning by episode end. By far the most stylish episode in the season, “East/West” is brief but welcome detour ahead of Season 4’s final two episodes.
Though the episode invites comparison to the Wizard of Oz, it’s also deeply informed by the Coen Brothers’ filmography, more so than the typical installment. The hour finds Rabbi and Satchel on the road, trying to flee Constant Calamita’s pursuit. Their journey leads them to the Barton Arms’ hotel in which they encounter a whole house of colorful characters despite the black and white presentation. There’s a chatty Dale Carnegie disciple, an aspiring oil tycoon on his way to Texas for a fresh start, and a strange pastor traveling with his mother. The whole hotel is split right down the middle, a product of deep-seated ideological differences between the pair of sisters that own the business.
The quality tips over into being a little too effortful and obvious when Rabbi becomes tripped up over a half-finished billboard across the street from the hotel. Instead of letting viewers chew on the imagery and symbolism for ourselves, the writers have Milligan ask the billposter “The future is what? What’s it going to say?” and the billposter reads the subtext back to us. Still, it somehow ends up being emotionally affecting seeing the young Satchel, alone and in a strange new land (now in color, of course) standing underneath the taunting billboard by the episode’s end.
