History Recap / FargoS03E01TheLawOfVacantPlaces

Ray later blackmails another parolee, Maurice [=LeFay=] (Scoot [=McNairy=]), who has failed a urine test, and coerces him into stealing Emmit's remaining stamp. However, while driving, Maurice loses the address and only partially remembers it. So instead of visiting Emmit Stussy in Eden Prairie, he goes to the home of ''Ennis'' Stussy in Eden ''Valley''.

In Eden Valley, police chief Gloria Burgle (Creator/CarrieCoon) and her teenage son Nathan (Graham Verchere) leave the house of her stepfather Ennis (Creator/ScottHylands), but return for a forgotten gift to find him dead and the house ransacked. Because of the name/address mix-up, Maurice has mistakenly killed the wrong Stussy. He later goes to blackmail Ray, but Nikki and Ray kill him by dropping an air conditioner on him as he leaves.

* LoanShark: Subverted. Emmit thought that he was borrowing money from one and is prepared to pay a hefty interest on the loan. However, Varga counters by revealing it was actually an "investment", and insists that Emmit pay him back by using his business to launder their money.

* RansackedRoom: Maurice ransacks the old man's house in search for the stamp.
* RippedFromThePhoneBook: When he arrives at Eden Valley, Maurice looks up E. Stussy in a gas station's phone book and rips out the page with his address in full view of the attendant. Not only does it lead to him killing the wrong person, it also provides evidence that the killing wasn't random.

In Eden Valley, police chief Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon) and her teenage son Nathan (Graham Verchere) leave the house of her stepfather Ennis (Scott Hylands), but return for a forgotten gift to find him dead and the house ransacked. Because of the name/address mix-up, Maurice has mistakenly killed the wrong Stussy. He later goes to blackmail Ray, but Nikki and Ray kill him by dropping an air conditioner on him as he leaves.

In 2010 Minnesota, St. Cloud parole officer Ray Stussy (Creator/EwanMcGregor) wants to marry his parolee girlfriend Nikki Swango (Creator/MaryElizabethWinstead) and asks to borrow some money from his brother Emmit (also [=McGregor=]) to pay for a ring. Emmit refuses, and the brothers argue over their father's inheritance that they had traded each other: Emmit traded the Corvette left to him with Ray, in exchange for a valuable stamp collection.

Ray later blackmails another parolee, Maurice [=LeFay=] (Scoot [=McNairy=]), who has failed a drug test, and coerces him into stealing Emmit's remaining stamp. However, Maurice loses the address and only partially remembers it. So instead of visiting Emmit Stussy in Eden Prairie, he goes to the home of Ennis Stussy in Eden Valley.

Meanwhile, Emmit seeks to repay a business loan from two years ago, only to be informed by a shady businessman named V.M. Varga (David Thewlis) that the loan was actually a partnership agreement from a shady corporation.

* {{Fanservice}}: Mary Elizabeth Winstead [[ToplessnessFromTheBack flashes her rear]] getting out of the bathtub.

* ShowSomeLeg: Nikki steps out of the bathtub completely nude in an attempt to distract Maurice long enough for Ray to get the gun away from him. It works on her part, Ray's just too slow to the draw, and she has to prompt him to disarm Maurice of his gun.

-->'''Sy:''' Where are you from?
-->'''Varga:''' America.

* ContrivedCoincidence: It's a pretty big coincidence that there's another E. Stussy living in Eden Valley, while another E. Stussy lives relatively close by in Eden Prairie.

* LoanShark: Subverted. Emmit thought that he was borrowing money from one and is prepared to pay a hefty interest on the loan. However, the people who gave him the money thought of it as an "investment" and insist that Emmit pay them back by using his business to launder their money.

* ShowSomeLeg: Nikki steps out of the bathtub completely nude in an attempt to distract Maurice long enough for Ray to get the gun away from him. It works on her part, Ray's just too slow to the draw.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Emmit reads a newspaper article about Ennis Stussy's murder, and doesn't even comment on the similarities in name and location.

'''Season 3, Episode 01:'''
!!The Law of Vacant Places
!!!Written by Noah Hawley

->''"We're not here to tell stories. We're here to tell the truth."''
-->-- '''Horst Lagerfeld'''

* RippedFromThePhoneBook: Maurice rips the page with Stussy's address from the phone book at a shop. The shop owner complains as Maurice bolts out.

* RippedFromThePhoneBook: Maurice rips the page with Stussy's address from the phone book at a shop. The shop owner complains as Maurice bolts in a hurry.

* RippedFromThePhoneBook: Maurice rips the page with Stussy's address from the phone book at a shop. The shop owner complains as Maurice leaves in a hurry.

----

* DistractedByTheSexy: Nikki steps out of the bathtub completely nude in an attempt to distract Maurice long enough for Ray to get the gun away from him. It works on her part, Ray's just too slow to the draw.

* {{Fanservice}}: Mary Elizabeth Winstead flashes her rear getting out of the bathtub.

In 2010 Minnesota, St. Cloud parole officer Ray Stussy (Ewan [=McGregor=]) wants to marry his parolee girlfriend Nikki Swango (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and asks to borrow some money from his brother Emmit (also [=McGregor=]) to pay for a ring. Emmit refuses, and the brothers argue over their father's inheritance that they had traded each other: Emmit traded the Corvette left to him with Ray, in exchange for a valuable stamp collection.

-->--'''Horst Lagerfeld'''

East Berlin, 1988. Colonel Horst Lagerfeld (Sylvester Groth) is interrogating a terrified man named Yuri Gurka accused of strangling his girlfriend. Except this man isn't Yuri at all, but Jakob Underleider (Fabian Busch) who has been arrested due to an error of the state. But the state can't be wrong, so Jakob is caught between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go.

Minnesota, 2010. Emmit Stussy (Creator/EwanMcGregor) is a highly successful parking lot magnate with the world in his palm. He's having a party to celebrate his wedding anniversary to Stella (Linda Kash), but he's upstairs with his lawyer/close friend Sy Feltz (Michael Stuhlbarg). They're meeting with a business acquaintance, Buck Olander (Dan Willmott). Emmit and Sy are seeking to pay back a shady loan they took out with one of Buck's contracts, but are having difficulty contacting them. The number they have is answered only by clicks and buzzers; Buck isn't very helpful, as he was merely a conduit.

Emmit goes back downstairs to give an ode to his wife, but two attendees look very different from the money in the room: Emmit's brother Ray (Creator/EwanMcGregor) and Nikki Swango (Creator/MaryElizabethWinstead). Ray is a parole officer, and he's aiming to make his parolee girlfriend Nikki into his fiance. He asks to borrow some money from his brother for an engagement ring, but Emmit refuses: he's given Ray too many handouts. There's an immense deal of bitterness between the two brothers, with Ray feeling cheated because they traded their father's inheritance. Ray got a flashy Corvette that he can no longer afford to maintain, while Emmit got a valuable stamp collection that he used to build his parking lot empire.

In Eden Valley, local police chief Gloria Burgle is awaiting the merging of her department with the country police. A divorced mother of one, she arranges to have dinner with her young son Nathan (Graham Verchere) and stepfather Ennis (Scott Hylands).

Ray goes through his day, repeatedly meeting with interesting figures and pocketing their urine. Maurice [=LeFay=] (Scoot [=McNairy=]), a dimwitted burglar out on parole, has failed the drug test and it immediately becomes clear why. He's forever stoned out of his gourd, but a desperate Ray still sees fit to coerce him into stealing a stamp from Emmit.

On the drive over, Maurice loses the directions Ray gave him out the window. He stops at a gas station, using the phone book to locate "E. Stussy" who lives in Eden Prairie, not Eden Valley. Maurice gets on his way. The E. Stussy whose address Maurice has secured, however, is Gloria's stepfather Ennis.

That night, Sy summons Emmit to the office where a representative of those mysterious loaners has arrived: V.M. Varga (Creator/DavidThewlis), who informs them that they will not be paying back the loan. Emmit is confused, Varga is bemused. It wasn't a loan, he explains, it was an investment. "You never thought to ask why we might lend you one million dollars with no collateral required?" asks Varga, before explaining in clear terms that the time for questions is over, and the time for obedience has come.

Gloria, Nathan and Ennis celebrate Nathan's birthday and Ennis gives him a little carved statue of a boy fishing. While driving home, Nathan remembers he left it behind, and Gloria turns around. When she arrives, however, Maurice has been and gone. The place has been upturned and Ennis is tied up, dead.

Ray and Nikki are having a good night; they just won big at a bridge tournament and Ray knows that Maurice will be stealing his brother's stamp. But Maurice turns up very much worse for wear, having stolen one of Ennis' normal postage stamps. A self-pitying and angry Maurice demands money for his silence; as Maurice leaves, Nikki loosens her window air conditioner and has Ray kick it outward, sending it crashing down on Maurice's empty head.

Meanwhile, Gloria arranges for Nathan to go to his dad's.

-->'''Gloria:''' Mommy's gotta work now.

!!Tropes

* LoanShark: Subverted. Emmit thought that he was borrowing money from one and is prepared to pay a hefty interest on the loan. However, the people who gave him the money thought of it as an "investment" and insist that Emmitt pay them back by using his business to launder their money.

->Written by Noah Hawley

-->--Horst Lagerfeld

Gloria arranges for Nathan to go to his dad's. "Mommy's gotta work now."
!Tropes

* WeHardlyKnewYe: Maurice is killed by the end of the premiere.

* ContrivedCoincidence: It's a pretty big coincidence that there's another E. Stussy living in Eden Valley, while another E. Stussy lives relatively close by in Eden Prairie.