The Law of Vacant Places

In a dark and dingy police station, 1988, East Berlin, Jakob is questioned by a soviet official over the murder of his wife. He stutters as he shakily answers, the fear in his watery blue eyes have set in. The official gives him the death stare. You see, a woman has been found in the snow, by the rocks, and shares the same surname as his wife. He insists his wife is still at home. A drain is leaking nearby, and he looks down as he shakes the snow off of his boots. Is this coercion or confession? We never find out the truth. ‘We See What We Believe, Not The Other Way Around’.

The camera pans to a photo on the wall, and we awake in the icy and desolate landscape of Mid-West Minnesota. It’s 2010.… to the law of vacant places. The first episode for season 3 of Fargo. We are greeted with the familiar thunderous theme tune, something epic awaits us.

I’ve been savouring season 3 for some time, but with news emerging that season 4 will soon available on Amazon, it’s given me permission to blitz right through. It’s the same format as the first two seasons; small towns, small feuds, small lives in mid-west Minnesota, where larger networks, global conspiracies, crimes horrendous and boundless descend into this small little town and the simple people of Fargo. It’s scattered with the same series of coincidences, quirky characters, cryptic dialogues, the moral lawmaker, and the outsider.

The notion of truth and fiction has always animated Fargo and is at the heart if it’s very concept. The absurd is the reality. At the start of every episode, “THIS IS A TRUE STORY” appears in text on the screen. “At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.”

The whole series is set in a fictional town of Fargo, which does exist. It’s dedicated to the fact it’s telling a true story which is in fact a blatant lie. (…The actors only found out it was a fictional tale three weeks into filming).

Season 3 is centred around a bitter feud between two brothers and a murder of a man who shares the same surname. Multiple stories of greed and revenge start, interlink, but don’t all end, leaving your mind tinkering days after.

Of the two brothers, one feels embittered that his wealth was stolen from him. The other feels like it was fair exchange. They are hardened to their view. In the end, both truths were interchangeable, then it’s too late.

Of the murdered man; Varga says “And yet, if evidence is collected, if confessions are made, if a verdict of guilty is entered in a court of law, then its happening becomes as the rocks and rivers. And to argue that it didn't happen is to argue with reality itself”.

We are taught truth is a solid concept, it’s a fact. But Fargo teaches us that it is unreliable, it can melt like the snow in Minnesota and fluid like the lakes there. Stories can be shattered, until everyone has their own truth, their own reality.

Truth is personal - the truth is just a story.