Unforgettable! This 4.4/5 Rated Thriller Series Has the Best Opening Scene Ever on TV!

Based on the cult movie by the Coen brothers, Fargo quickly became a must-watch series for AlloCiné users. Created by screenwriter Noah Hawley (Legion, Alien: Earth), it even managed to outshine its predecessor with an average viewer rating of 4.4 out of 5, compared to 4.2 out of 5 for the film.

Far from the lazy remakes that often populate our platforms, Fargo chose to only keep the tone and setting of its original, thus allowing its creators to weave original, gripping, and outrageous plotlines, all with a pronounced taste for the unexpected and experimental. It’s quite simple, when you start an episode of the Fargo series, you never know what to expect except the joy of discovering what new twist awaits you.

Out of all these memorable scenes, one has left a particularly strong impression on us. It’s the introduction of the 4th episode of season 3, titled “The Narrow Escape Problem”. Don’t worry, there are no spoilers ahead, we won’t need them.

An Exceptional Scene

“In this tale, each character in the story is represented by an instrument of the orchestra. For instance, the bird is represented by the flute. Like this.” Music enthusiasts among you will recognize the introduction of the famous musical tale “Peter and the Wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev: followed by the duck (the oboe), the cat (the clarinet), the hunters (the timpani), and finally… the wolf.

Unexpectedly, Noah Hawley decides to start this episode with the same introduction. Each character is reviewed, identified with one of the tale’s heroes, and then accompanied by the corresponding musical theme. A particularly strange moment, which seems to come out of nowhere and won’t be followed up.

We could almost stop there, telling ourselves that Fargo is a series capable of anything, including moments like this one, just for the pleasure of unsettling its viewers. But it would be reductive to see it as a mere narrative joke. Because this scene holds all the secrets of Fargo.

The Message of Fargo

The Coen brothers’ film starts with a famous lie in cinema history: This is a true story, when in fact everything is made up. The approach of the film is thus to question the trust pact between the viewers and the person telling them a story, i.e., the narrator. Is he objective? Subjective? Or downright a liar?

The series carries on this idea by pushing it even further. In this scene, there is the same lie as in the film This is a true story (still not true), but there is also a narrator telling us that this story would be a tale, which is objectively false. The episode hasn’t even started and the viewer has been lied to twice!

And that’s not all: the narrator who mimics Prokofiev in this scene is none other than actor Billy Bob Thornton, who plays the main villain of season 1, Lorne Malvo! A character clearly associated with the Devil, cruel and deceitful, who will make Martin Freeman’s life a living hell… But can we really trust the narrator of season 1? Of course not, and we are even more unsettled.

In a world where some altered images are indistinguishable from reality, the Fargo series chooses to warn its viewers about the power of stories and how easily they can manipulate us. Life is not a fairy tale, and beware of anyone who claims otherwise, especially if they tell you a compelling story. Because if there’s a blur, there’s a wolf…

Fargo (seasons 1 to 4) is available on Prime Video until December 31.

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