I always thought Fargo was an interesting name for a city.
Turns out I was wrong.
I figured Fargo was the combination of two shorter words, because getting there from anywhere already settled was a “far go,” But the city was actually named for William Fargo, a director of the Northern Pacific Railroad and one of the founders of Wells-Fargo Express Company.
It was a city I never expected to visit. The closest I had ever been to North Dakota was Sioux Falls, South Dakota, just after Christmas 1987. I had driven there from Colorado to cover a holiday college basketball tournament and was heading on from there to Virginia to visit my parents.
Fargo was about 250 miles to the north, and except for changing planes in Minneapolis in 2002, it would be more than 30 years until I got any closer. I was in Minnesota for a wedding in the summer of 2018. about 110 miles from Fargo.
It was less than a two-hour drive on I-94 from where I was staying to Fargo, and North Dakota was one of the five remaining states I had never visited.
I only spent an hour or so there, and aside from taking the above picture of the Fargodome, I didn’t do much of anything.
I wish I could say that I know a lot about the city from seeing the Coen brothers’ movie “Fargo,” but that movie wasn’t about the city or even filmed there. Ditto for the TV series in its fifth season on Hulu.
I’m about two-thirds of the way through the first season, and it’s fascinating in a weird way. I can’t remember the last thing I watched that was so dark, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a character that creates such a sense of dread as Billy Bob Thornton’s Lorne Malvo.
One scene in the first episode in particular.
Malvo is stopped for speeding by Colin Hanks’ young police officer Gus Grimly.
Lorne Malvo: Evening, officer.
Gus Grimly: Evening. License and registration, please.
Lorne Malvo: We could do it that way. You ask me for my papers. I tell you it’s not my car, that I borrowed it. See where thing go from there. We could do that. Or you could go get in your car and drive away.
Gus Grimly: [chuckles] Now, why would I do that?
Lorne Malvo: Because some roads you shouldn’t go down. Because maps used to say, “There be dragons here.” Now they don’t. But that don’t mean the dragons aren’t there.
After a short pause …
Lorne Malvo: I’m gonna roll my window up, then I’m going to drive away and you’re gonna go home to your daughter. And every few years you’re gonna look at her face and know that you’re alive because you chose not to go down on a certain road on a certain night. That you chose to walk into the light instead of into the darkness.
Another pause, and Malvo rolls up his window and drives away.
Of course, this happen in Duluth, not Fargo.
It’s a helluva show.