SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the Fargo finale yet, just stop reading. Seriously.



Fargo Season 1 has come to an end, and what a wild ride it was, eh friend-o?



The finale saw good winning out over evil in the most satisfying way, with Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) and his improbable killer protégé Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) both meeting their end while feeling vulnerable and like prey, just as they'd made their own marks feel before.



Yahoo TV talked to the show's creator and executive producer Noah Hawley about a few dangling questions, some ideas, and his thoughts on Season 2. Will it be the Gus and Molly rom-com we've all been waiting for? Or maybe a take on another Coen brothers cult classic like The Big Lebowski? "I'm going to reserve the right to do just about anything," Hawley teased. And now we wait.



Bravo. It was truly a perfect 10 episodes. I think I'm only a little sad that we never really got any Malvo backstory.

I don't know the value of backstory, necessarily. I certainly don't feel like the Coens worry a lot about it. I like having it when it's informative — Lou telling the story of the case he worked and the savagery that he's seen — but all you need to know from Malvo is that he hasn't had a piece of pie like that since the Garden of Eden. [Laughs.]



Interesting you should bring that up! So what happened in Sioux Falls in Lou's story… was Malvo the man, the monster, Lou had been tracking? Or did that story get told to maybe hint at what could be next?

I don't know that that's what I was getting at. I think it was more about, you know, Lou saying, I'm seeing a little something in this moment that's making me think of this case that I worked and something that I saw. But no, it wasn't about tying Malvo to it necessarily.



Did 10 episodes end up feeling like the right amount for this story?

Originally the idea for 10 episodes was sort of a guess. FX's usual series last 13 [episodes] and so, to distinguish us, we talked about 10. Then once we started breaking story, 10 ended up feeling like the perfect amount. I feel like if we had to do three more, we would've needed some other elements to come into it. Ten hours is kind of the perfect length for this kind of television film.



But some episodes ran long — one was an hour and 18 minutes. I really applaud FX for being so flexible with the runtimes because it kept certain episodes from feeling too rushed.

Yeah, you're not wrong — the fact is that their only concern was that we tell the best story possible. Once it became apparent that I was not going to be able to make a 42-and-a-half minute episode of television every week, they basically said, "However long it is, we'll put it on the air."



In the finale, Malvo let his car salesman hostage go when he said he had a daughter, even though he'd seen Malvo's face and watched him assassinate two FBI agents. Was that him showing empathy? He also didn't directly go after Molly and Gus when he realized they had a kid…

Right. It was never my goal to present Malvo as a psychopathic killer or homicidal maniac — he's not a serial killer. He does what needs to be done in the moment, and I don't think there was any value to him to killing that guy, so he let him go.



You had so many fun Easter eggs and riddles and hidden symbolism… it really was a lesson in storytelling.

That’s the fun of it — knowing that audiences might want to spend more than just the hour it takes to watch your show thinking about the show. Putting that stuff in there… I would not be offended if people watched my show multiple times.



Well you certainly immersed yourself. Are there any other Coen brothers movies you'd like to bring to the small screen?

I don't think I should sign up to remake their entire canon. I think that would be a cheesy thing to do. But no… what I was able to do in this first season was sort of work with three movies — Fargo, No Country For Old Men, and A Serious Man — as sort of the heart of this season.



So is the plan to make Fargo Season 2 incorporate elements of a few more of their movies?

There's nothing concrete for Season 2. The reason to do it is if I can tell a story that's as good or better. If I can't then we shouldn't do it, and I think we all agree on that. So it's really up to me to figure it out.



























































