What the F was with the flying saucer? It's been a few years since the second season of FX's Fargo was released and most fans are still trying to figure out why aliens were included in the show.
Don't get us wrong, we love aliens. We love Ridley Scott's Aliens. We love the Ancient Aliens... even though it's greatly exaggerated. Seriously... everyone loves aliens. Even Seth Rogen wants to make a movie about aliens. But aliens are just about the last thing you'd expect to see in Fargo.
Back in 2015, when FX released the second season of Fargo, fans were VERY confused about why a flying saucer kept poking around the crime series. It felt completely out of place, to say the least. And it only minimally impacted the story. Mostly, it was just odd. At the very least, fans were expecting some sort of payoff that made sense within the fairly grounded world of the show... But they never got one.
Well, in 2016, Fargo creator Noah Hawley gave an answer... Sort of... Here it is...
Noah Hawley Did NOT Want To Answer The Question About The UFOs
According to IndieWire, while at the ATX Festival in his birth town of Austin, Texas, Noah Hawley was pressed about the aliens in the second season of Fargo. Although he was there to talk about his book "Before The Fall", fans inevitably asked him about behind-the-scenes details of his most famous television show, which is spun-off of the Coen Brother's 1996 Academy Award-winning movie, which starred Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, and Steve Buscemi.
At first, Noah didn't want to answer the question from an audience member which was worded as... "What was the deal with the UFOs?"
In fact, Noah clearly wanted to leave some mysteries... a mystery.
"What was the deal with the UFOs?" Noah said. "What was the deal with the fish falling from the sky in the first year? I mean, these things happen."
Fargo fans knew that he was referring to an odd moment in the first season when a bunch of fish fall out of the sky and smash into Oliver Platt's character's car. ...It was a crazy moment but it did get an explanation in the following episode.
But luckily for this audience member, as well as many around the world, interviewer Beau Willimon (the creator of House of Cards) pressed Noah for an answer. After all, Beau had asked the audience of Noah fans to ask the most "fanboy/fangirl" questions they could come up with. So, Noah really did have to answer...
"Yeah but you explained [the fish]," Beau Willimon said, pressing Noah. "Granted, it was a tornado that hit a lake, but there was an explanation."
The aliens in the second season weren't afforded that luxury.
Then Noah finally gave an answer... sort of...
Aliens Were Part Of The Time
Noah's answer to why he included UFOs in the second season of Fargo had to do with the time.
"Well, it was part of the moment," Noah said of the season which was set in the 1970s in Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota. "Post-Vietnam, it was that both the political paranoia and the conspiracy theories went all the way to the top — with Watergate; that sense that people were feeling paranoid on some level."
Much of this was reflected in the inclusion of Ronald Reagan, the news clips on the televisions, and basically every bit of dialogue the hilarious ranting character that Nick Offerman played.
But the UFO sighting by Kieran Culkin's character in Fargo Season Two and by most of the rest of the cast in the penultimate episode was based on a true story... Granted, very roughly... But that's the truth about all the stories in Fargo... None of them happened anywhere near what the main title sequence of the show suggests. In fact, the main title sequence, Noah has claimed, is done so the audience buys into some of the story decisions that are made. Basically, the audience will sit up for anything they believe actually happened... even if only a shred of it is truthful.
"If you look at the internet research device, there was a state trooper/UFO incident in Minnesota in the ’70s, which I thought was interesting."
It Was Also An Homage To The Original Film
On top of it being 'true' to the time, the inclusion of the UFO was also a very obscure reference to the Coen Brothers' original film.
"Very early on, I asked, 'What is our Mike Yanagita?'" Noah said. "Mike Yanagita was the character in the movie Fargo who Marge met after being friends in high school and they had a meal, and he talked about marrying his high school sweetheart and then she died and he was so lonely. But then, later, you found out he made all that up. And I thought, 'Why is this in the movie?' It has nothing to do with the movie — except the movie says, 'This is a true story.' They put it in there because it 'happened' Otherwise you wouldn’t put it in there. The world of Fargo needs those elements; those random, odd, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction elements."
Noah went on to say that those moments engage the audience's imagination.
"When you’re not spoon-feeding a linear story, when you’re leaving gaps for the imagination, the audience is going to have to invest more in it"
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