Several major things happened this week, and yet somehow it was the smaller, lingering moments that really stuck. There is a lot of waiting in this episode, and several moments have so much suspense that I found it hard to even breathe. Three of these moments stand out: The scene with Lester and Malvo in the elevator, the scene with Lou and Malvo in the diner, and the scene with Lester sending Linda, practically gift-wrapped, to her death.
Similarly, the episode was filmed with lots of empty spaces surrounding our characters. Lester often found himself in shadows or big, spacious rooms. The diner scene was made even more tense by how empty the place was, and Gus and Molly always seemed to be pushed to the very edges of the frame. This created the feeling that anything could happen at any moment, and that anyone could simply step out of the shadows or into our line of sight and throw things into chaos.
Of course, as bleak and tragic as much of the episode was, there were several happy moments as well. The first diner scene, with Molly, Gus, Lou, and Greta, was beautifully shot and scripted, making me even more worried about all of them making it out of this alive. Budge and Pepper were originally set up as the new buffoons in the show, but all of that changed when they finally arrived in Bemidji and gave Molly the victory and validation that she (and we) had been waiting for.
We really get the sense that this case is finally drawing to a close. As each character almost runs into each other, the encounters feel more like the swing of a pendulum. After the time jump, things lost course and were displaced from their proper trajectories; but as all of the characters slowly converge, the pendulum swings back toward equilibrium, and will eventually touch the ground.
Lester’s encounter with Malvo in Vegas didn’t just leave three people dead, it raised suspicions that he thought would never point back to him. With Budge and Pepper now in Bemidji, and on Molly’s side, the investigation will continue, and things are going to look even more suspicious when Lester’s second wife is found dead in his own insurance office. Additionally, Gus now knows that Malvo is back in town, and as more bloodshed finds its way into their quiet, close-knit community, it won’t take long for he and Molly to begin connecting the dots.