If you aren't watching the new FX original series "Fargo," you're doing it wrong.
A kind of parallel universe adaptation of the beloved Coen Brothers' movie of the same name, the series is deeply perverse and just as hilarious. And while the series has tipped its hat to the Coens-verse on multiple occasions in these first few episodes, this week's episode actually crossed over into the original big screen version "Fargo." It's pretty neat. Although, it should be noted, spoilers follow from here on out.
This week's episode started with a flashback to 1987, with one of the series' main character, Stavros (played by Oliver Platt in the main body of the show but a younger, different actor here) riding with his wife and young child along a snowy road. The car runs out of gas and he prays to God to save him from his miserable luck. Out on the side of the road he notices a red ice scraper sticking out of the snow. That is the same ice scraper Steve Buscemi (above), in the original movie, uses as an indicator for where he's buried $920,000 -- ransom money for a failed, phony kidnapping. When worlds collide!
"I, like everyone else on Earth, thought that was such a hanging element. What happened to that money?" executive producer and writer Noah Hawley told Vulture. "I loved that all of the press and reviews focused on the face that the show and the movie were completely separate -- but then four episodes in, suddenly, we connect the two. It's a 'holy sh*t!" moment."
While he submitted the script to the Coens, he has never heard back from them, and doesn't even know if they are watching the show. "I like to think that they're watching, but I don't even know if they are. I don't know that they know about it," Hawley told Vulture.
Hawley also told the site that this might be the only major nod to the original film, although from what we understand, there's some much more blatant crossovers towards the end of the season (you didn't hear that from us). The only way to know for sure whether or not there are more Coens nods in the weeks to come is to watch the show; you won't be sorry.