Analyzing Evil: Lorne Malvo From Fargo

Hello everyone and welcome to the one hundred seventy-sixth episode of Analyzing Evil! Our topic for this video is Lorne Malvo from Fargo. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for watching. If you have any feedback or questions feel free to let me know below!

The song in this video was provided by CO.AG

#fargo #evil #villain

[Oneiriel]

"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..." - Lorne Malvo

[carcosa_swamp]

"No, highly irregular is the time I found a human foot in a toaster oven. This is just odd."

[oakraidergrllif]

Malvo was a straight up malevolent, evil, mischievious demon. The emmissarry of the the devil himself. Billy Bob was great in that role.

[webseries]

I always took the wolves as more metaphorical, like he was abandoned, hungry, then taken in by gangs, criminals, etc.

[robcain]

"Lester, is this what you want?" One of the coldest moments from any villain I've seen. Billy Bob Thornton did a superb job as Lorne Malvo and he's still the best antagonist of the series by a mile.

I wonder how he would measure up in a fight against Vincent from Collateral?

[matthewjaco]

To me, the creepiest moment with the elevator massacre was the little eye twitch that you mentioned. What was creepy was that the facial gesture wasn’t a tic of frustration but instead seemed to be Lorne winking to Lester, like, “Hey, check this out.”

[danielsantiagourtado]

"Your problem is that you've spent your whole life thinking there are rules" All you need to know about the best villain in Fargo. His name is Even a play on the word "Malevolent"!

[haydnmalyon]

I never realized there were so many animalistic references with Lorne Malvo. It's fascinating to consider.
As you touched on in the video, I recall coming across a theory that Lorne is actually a demon. There's even a scene where a Jewish man approaches him for staking out Gus's apartment, and he even refers to Lorne as a demon after their brief conversation. And I recall a comment (which I'm only paraphrasing, as it's been so long) pointing out how it's common in folklore that knowing a demon's true name is a way of defeating them, or at least getting their attention. And right before the "shades of green" riddle, Gus called Lorne out by name, which broke his facade immediately. Those details, and the way he barely flinched and just stared for a moment after being shot, was just so creepy and fascinating in a way that makes him seem like something other than human.

(I forgot to mention the couple scenes where he just seems to disappear from a room too.)

[sean]

He’s probably worse than Chigur, Chigur does kill random people who aren’t his targets who may just be at wrong place wrong time, he just kills this epeople, Lorne on other hand torments and plays psychological games and actually ruins peoples lives for the devilish enjoyment

[BiffBangledong]

I think being "raised by wolves" is just a narrative metaphor. It isn't literally true, but a quick metaphorical approximation of his background. The great thing of any great villain is we have no idea where most of them came from, but we can imagine the basic details just by their actions.

[ProsperoCh]

It was an absolutely phenomenal performance. Love the way he could go from being sinister, to charming, to suave, and then become a helpless-looking nerd in the interrogation room before going straight back to being a scheming killer.

[willhoss]

Finally I’ve loved this character for years

[Hackfraud]

And Gus, first a dog catcher and later a mailman, is hunting him throughout the show. The two occupations that are direct enemies with canines.

[danielsantiagourtado]

"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..." BEST villain in fargo!Billy throrton was amazing in the role! Loved his performance been waiting for this one!

[michaelharvest]

Yes! Lorne Malvo is my favourite villain of all time. He’ causes havoc for the sake of chaos, he revels in all the mayhem he causes… With a grin

[ItsKask]

The fact that the name “Lorne Malvo” is literally a play on the word “malevolent” makes his character even more interesting

[Melonzy]

Yess!! I recently finished Fargo season 1 and this character sends chills in my spine. Great job Billy Bob Thornton.

[Sumkneegrow]

The conversation Lorne has with Lou at his diner contradicts the feral child theory but does suggest he had an abusive upbringing. What he said to Stavros was likely just an allegory for how he felt about his place in the world.

[CharlieApples]

I find it interesting you compared him to Chigurh from No Country For Old Men, because I consider the two of them very different characters. Forgive the following mini essay, but your videos always inspire my inner critic.

In the McCarthy novel, Chigurh is a highly symbolic and almost phantom-like character motivated solely by a supernatural drive to act as the literal hand of Fate; less of a man and more of a natural disaster in the shape of a man, bringing the consequences of human beings’ actions to them.

The Cohen Brothers made an ingenious creative decision in the movie adaptation, where such symbolism would inevitably be lost without the prose to explain his existence, and made him a real person who merely _believed_ he was the chosen agent of Fate, but was ultimately a mortal and delusional man. Albeit a hard boiled psychopath and a clinically insane one at that, completely detached from reality apart from where his all-consuming delusions of grandeur met the real world. Chigurh is associated with cars because he considers himself to be an emotionally vacant vehicle of death, as well. He feels nothing other than a singular, highly focused drive to enact what he crazily believes fate has in store for others, something which only he is aware of and for which he was put on earth to make real.

By comparison, Lorne Malvo is much more present, visceral, and grounded. While Chigurh is relentless, unstoppable, and fatalistic, Malvo is much more…human. _Almost_ empathetic, at least by comparison to the ice cold vacuum that is Chigurh. Malvo is sadistic and playful and comprised of the same meat and bones everyone else is, and is well aware of this. He is undeniably different from everyone else mentally, but is vulnerable to the same emotional foibles us normal people are, but expressed in much more predatory ways. If there’s one emotion that I associate with Lorne Malvo, it’s glee. Something which Chigurh seems neurologically incapable of experiencing. Joy, lust, satisfaction, hunger, desire, the capacity and willingness to embody false warmth and get close to people in deeply personal ways, stick his fingers in their wounds and twist them just to see how they flinch.

Chigurh is like a gun; he only has one purpose, which is to definitively end life, or use his potential power to change the course of things. And once his goal is met, he returns to being a cold, hard, yet dormant weapon. He aims carefully and seeks to do the job in a single shot.

Lorne Malvo on the other hand, is like a knife. Something also very dangerous and lethal, but which is seen first as something familiar and banal, and a weapon second. Lorne Malvo lives inside your father’s old pocketknife sheath, or in the butcher’s block on your sunny kitchen counter. He’s not dangerous until he is, and when he is it’s both messy and intimate.

[kobewankenobi]

*He along with Gus Fring, are my all time favorite villains in any genre. They both are excellent puppet masters*