Will the murder mystery be the main storyline of Fargo‘s season three? After the first two episodes, it doesn’t look that way. Though the murder of Ennis Stussy is seemingly the event that will tie this story together and bring former police chief Gloria Burgle from Eden Valley, Minnesota to (presumably) Minneapolis, where the real action is happening.
“I’m here, right?” Gloria asks her doofus deputy Donny (Mark Forward). “You see me?”
One of the quirks of her character we’ve seen thus far is that automatic door sensors don’t notice her. She also has troubles with cell phone reception, and is either fearful or distrustful of technology (such as computers).
For now, Gloria is still sort of on the fringes of the main story, investigating the murder of her stepfather who was found with his nose and mouth glued shut. We know that Ennis was killed by ex-con Maurice, mistakingly thinking he was robbing Emmit Stussy, the parking lot king of Minnesota. But since Maurice met his untimely demise via air conditioner dropping on his head from three stories above, he won’t be confessing to that crime anytime soon.
Is it somehow possible that Ennis’ murder is tied to Thaddeus Mobley, which is either his real name or a pen name used when he was a prolific sci-fi author (presumably in the 1950s)? Gloria seems to think so, though Maurice seemingly had no knowledge of that when he broke into Ennis’ house looking for the Stussy family heirloom stamp. Still, the way Ennis’s body was left for Gloria to find looks like more work than stoner Maurice was willing to carry out.
Besides the murder she’s investigating, Gloria has other problems to worry about — notably her department being absorbed by the county and a new chief taking over. Chief Dammack (the always great Shea Whigham) isn’t too thrilled with what he sees of the Eden Valley police department, which shares space with the public library. Prisoners are kept in a storeroom, and there are no computers on sight. Gloria’s department needs to get into the 20th century, let alone the 21st. The old chief and the new chief won’t be getting along.
But Gloria’s story is still warming up. The heat is in Minneapolis, where V.M. Varga and the criminal enterprise Emmit Stussy unwittingly went into business with is moving into town. Varga is bringing a big rig full of who knows what and parking it in one of Stussy’s lots with no regard for city ordinances against such vehicles doing so. He’s also moving into the empty office space that he noticed on the office blueprints, loading in dozens of boxes full of stuff that Stussy probably doesn’t want in his building.
Emmit and his right-hand man Sy try to be proactive and have their lawyer investigate Varga, giving him all the information he should need about the shady loan they took out. But Irv Blumkin is about as technologically savvy as Gloria Burgle, unaware that a Google search doesn’t begin until you press enter. Irv’s secretary helps him out with that, and the search turns up a single link that leads to a download. Irv impulsively clicks, triggering a web cam photo being taken of him and his secretary and a virus that shuts down his computer.
Unfortunately for Irv, that download turns out to be fatal, leading Varga’s henchmen to his office where they introduce themselves by throwing the lawyer off the parking deck. If only Irv had let his secretary run Norton or McAfee before clicking that download link. Will Emmit and Sy risk employing anyone else to investigate Varga after finding out what happened?
Emmit is also nursing some remorse over how harsh he was on his brother Ray. Maybe he should be more helpful, since he’s in a position to do so. But Sy warns him that Ray will always come asking for more, no matter how generous Emmit is. Yet if Emmit had shown some more kindness toward his brother, would Ray be nursing the resentment that’s compelling him to steal that family stamp? Would his chi be blocked up, something Ray’s fiancee Nikki (she of the nutcracker caboose, as Ray’s boss put it) just can’t ignore?
Of course, Ray’s chi could also be blocked due to him and Nikki killing poor Maurice with the aforementioned air conditioner. But that death was ruled accidental by the police, so it appears that the two have gotten away with murder. Yet Maurice didn’t do the job Ray hired him to do, which was stealing that stamp from Emmit. So Nikki figures the only way to get Ray right is for him to claim what’s rightfully his. Or make amends with his brother. But that wouldn’t provide the same financial gains.
So while Ray pretends to repair his relationship with his brother with a late-night visit to his mansion, Nikki sneaks in to try and steal the stamp. But Emmit is seemingly one step ahead of the pair, having hidden the stamp and putting up a picture of a donkey instead. As we find out later, the stamp was taken away because his cleaning lady broke the frame and there was seemingly no rhyme or reason behind mounting a donkey picture in its place.
Yet Nikki thinks she’s been outsmarted by Emmit and relishes the challenge. She also believes the donkey is an insult directed at Ray. Nikki then decides to leave Emmit a message. Why, exactly? To let Emmit know that she could’ve stolen the stamp had it been where it was supposed to be? To tell him that Ray is after what’s rightfully his? Because she’s kinda crazy and Ray doesn’t really know what his fiancee is capable of doing?
Regardless of the reason, Nikki used “feminine hygiene as a weapon,” as Sy put it,” scrawling a message with the bloody tampon she left behind in Ray’s desk drawer. Gross, but effective in ending whatever chance there was at reconciliation between the two Stussy brothers — which both Ray and Emmit seemed to think was possible after their chat. No more, however. Nikki — and Sy, with his car-smashing visit to Ray later on — have taken care of that. But that might not even matter to Ray with his Varga problem.
