| The Rooster Prince | |
| Season 1, Episode 2 | |
 | |
|---|---|
| Episode Information | |
| Air Date: |
April 22, 2014 |
| Written by: | |
| Directed by: | |
| Episode Chronology | |
| Previous Episode: | |
| Next Episode: | |
| Crew • Gallery • Transcript | |
The Rooster Prince is the second episode of Season 1 of Fargo. The episode premiered on April 22, 2014.
Description[]
Molly begins to suspect that Lester is involved with the murders, but her new boss points her in a different direction. Meanwhile, Malvo investigates the blackmail plot against a man known as the Supermarket King.
Plot[]
Hitmen Grady Numbers and Wes Wrench, the latter of whom is deaf, are sent by the Fargo Crime Syndicate to find the killer of their associate, Sam Hess. They meet with Syndicate representative Max Gold, who tells them about and describes the man who had harassed Sam a few days before his murder. Meanwhile, Chazz holds a memorial service at his house for Pearl, his sister-in-law. Lester hides his infected hand wound as Chazz offers him a place to stay while police continue investigating his house. Lester secretly returns to the house and reflects on his murder of Pearl.
Molly visits Vern's grave before attending a memorial service at his house. She washes dishes with Ida, and they reminisce about Vern together until Bill, now chief of the Bemidji Police Department, comes to talk to them. Molly states that they should question Lester again, because it was him that Vern was going to interview and it was in Lester's house where he died. Bill believes Lester to be too meek to hurt anyone, theorizing the murders as the work of a drifter, but agrees to question Lester when Ida references Vern's methods of investigation.
Lester is weeping into one of Pearl's sweaters when Molly and Bill come to question him. Bill is more interested in conversing with Lester, but Molly directly asks him for his recollection of the night of the murders. Lester claims he found Pearl dead when he came home and was knocked out from behind but becomes nervous when Molly references Sam and the man in the hospital. He deflects by claiming the nurse who overheard him misheard the word "mess," and that he cannot remember what the man looked like because of his head injury. Bill leaves satisfied, but Molly is more suspicious than ever.
In a Duluth post office, Malvo picks up a package sent by his new client. Inside is a book written by supermarket mogul Stavros Milos that marks him as his target, as well as a fake ID that gives him the name of minister "Frank Peterson." Malvo practices his minister's persona by making the sign of the cross and cheerfully telling the post office worker to "have a blessed day." He meets with Milos, who is unaware that "Peterson" is targeting him, and shows him a blackmail note that demands exactly $43,613 or they will "tell the world". Milos asks Peterson to find the blackmailer and start with his wife Helena, who is planning to divorce him and sue for half his worth. Before leaving, Malvo gets Milos' autograph on the book he was sent.
As Duluth Police Chief Ben Schmidt informs the force of the investigation into Vern and Pearl's murders, Gus guiltily looks at the ticket he was going to serve Malvo. He brings food home to his daughter Greta and awkwardly rebuffs his married neighbor's seduction attempt. Over dinner, Greta tells him about a school assembly that talked about defending oneself from bullies. Greta doesn't agree with it, believing that not everyone has time to call for help. Gus tells her about his encounter with Malvo, framing it as a hypothetical scenario, and says that he let him go because Greta having at least one parent is important to him; Greta affirms that she would stop him regardless.
Wrench and Numbers question the stripper who was with Sam when he was murdered, but get nowhere. When Numbers describes their target using the description given to them by Gold, she muses that it sounds like Lenny Potts, a frequent visitor of the club who has a dislike for people with Sam's temperament. When they politely approach Potts, he insults and antagonizes them. They force him into the trunk of their car and drive him back to Gold, who confirms they have the wrong man.
Malvo, now posing a divorce attorney, visits Helena to ask whether Milos started his business the way he described in his book, but Helena dismisses his version of events. Before she can explain further, she is interrupted by her son Dmitri. Malvo, who had met him earlier and noted his passion for cheesy jokes, gives him one to tell his father. He later listens to a recording of Lester calling him after murdering Pearl. Noticing a brown smudge on Milos' blackmail note, Malvo figures that the blackmailer is Helena's dim-witted personal trainer Don Chumph, who wears excessive spray-tan. Malvo is visited by Milos' head of security, Wally Semenchko, who has gone behind his boss' back and orders Malvo to leave town, mistrustful of him. Annoyed, Malvo uses the bathroom in front of him, getting Wally to leave.
Bill tells Molly to focus on his drifter theory instead of Lester. Meanwhile, Lester sneaks into his house again and retrieves the hammer used to kill Pearl, hiding it somewhere else. He accepts Chazz's offer to live with him and moves into his nephew Gordo's room. Chazz offers to take Lester out shooting with him and Gordo. Lester accepts, surprising Chazz when he states intent to sell his house. When Kitty reassuringly squeezes his infected hand by accident, he decides to treat it himself. He comes across Molly at a local pharmacy, who asks him more questions. He leaves, claiming harassment and forgetting his medication to treat his hand.
Molly talks to Lou, a retired police officer, who agrees that her suspicions are valid. Bill takes Molly off Vern's case because of her questioning of Lester, instead putting her on the man frozen in the woods. Meanwhile, Wrench and Numbers drive Potts out to a frozen lake and drown him below the ice.
Deleted Scenes[]
- Numbers & Wrench foil gas station robbery (1:58): In this deleted scene, Grady Numbers and Wes Wrench enter a gas station and interrupted an attempted robbery. Numbers ended up killing the robber as well as the gas station owner for having a running security camera. The scene ends with Wrench killing an eyewitness knocked over by the robber earlier and Numbers taking the money from the cashier and stealing a bag of chips.
Cast[]
Main cast[]
- Billy Bob Thornton as Lorne Malvo
- Allison Tolman as Molly Solverson
- Colin Hanks as Gus Grimly
- Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard
Recurring cast[]
- Bob Odenkirk as Bill Oswalt
- Keith Carradine as Lou Solverson
- Joshua Close as Chazz Nygaard
- Adam Goldberg as Grady Numbers
- Russell Harvard as Wes Wrench
- Glenn Howerton as Don Chumph
- Brian Markinson as Max Gold
- Tom Musgrave as Bo Munk
- Joey King as Greta Grimly
- Julie Ann Emery as Ida Thurman
- Rachel Blanchard as Kitty Nygaard
- Peter Breitmayer as Ben Schmidt
- Barry Flatman as Wally Semenchko
- Oliver Platt as Stavros Milos
Co-starring[]
- Spencer Drever as Gordo Nygaard
- Lori Ravensborg as Paprika
- Gordon S. Miller as Dmitri Milos
- Allegra Fulton as Helena Milos
- David LeReaney as Mail Clerk
- Graeme Black as Young Man #2
- James Dugan as Olaf Creech
- Peter Strand Rumpel as Wink Jourdain
- Paul Braunstein as Lenny Potts
- Sarah Elias as Bartender
- Marty Ronaghan as Perky Checkout Clerk
- Leah Cairns as Rachel Ziskind
- Chad Stanley Martin as Police Officer (uncredited)
Deaths[]
- Unnamed burglar (Deleted scene)
- Unnamed gas station owner (Deleted scene)
- Unnamed eyewitness (Deleted scene)
- Lenny Potts
Trivia[]
- First appearance of Grady Numbers.
- First appearance of Wes Wrench.
- First appearance of Ben Schmidt.
- First appearance of Greta Grimly.
- First appearance of Stavros Milos.
- First appearance of Helena Milos.
- First appearance of Dmitri Milos.
- First appearance of Don Chumph.
- First appearance of Wally Semenchko.
- First (and last) appearance of Lenny Potts.
- Pearl Nygaard (Kelly Holden Bashar) and Vern Thurman (Shawn Doyle) appear in flashbacks, but are not credited.
- Vern Thurman's birthday is revealed to be September 28, 1961.
- The title "The Rooster Prince" refers to the parable of the same name. A prince is put under a curse where he believes himself to be a rooster, and sits under the table naked pecking at the floor. The king and queen ask around for someone to help cure their son, when an old man volunteers, saying he knows how to cure him. He too takes his clothes off and sits under the table with the prince, pretending to be a rooster. Eventually the prince befriends his "rooster friend" and the old man shows him how a rooster can do human things such as sit at a table and wear clothes. Eventually, the old man is able to bring back his old human habits one bit at a time, curing him.
Goofs/Errors[]
- In this episode, Molly states she is 31 years old, making her birth year 1975. However in Season 2 she is 6 years old in 1979, making her birth year 1973.
| Season 1 episodes | ||
|---|---|---|
|
01. "The Crocodile's Dilemma" |
06. "Buridan's Ass" | |