Interestingly, outside of 'Fargo' the movie, the devil is rarely if ever defeated in the rest of the Coens' oeuvre.

The problem is that "silencer" is a misnomer, but "2% less louderer" doesn't roll off the tongue as well.

I seem to be in the minority as it comes to Emmitt's death by Wrench—I thought it was horrifying. I never saw Emmitt as any worse than Ray. They each had their flaws but it's not like Emmitt didn't try a million different things to get out of Varga's clutches.

Not even being right about who walks through the door makes him all-powerful. The ability to read and predict human nature makes the devil just as powerful as any supernatural control over events.

Yep.

I thought he was God at first but now I'm more inclined to see him as an angelic messenger—Paul Marrane being the name of the 'Wandering Jew' is the giveaway to me, plus his line at the bowling alley about having to argue for Wrench's fate. Who does God have to argue with?

Nikki's plans all succeeded due to the divine hand guiding her vengeance until she chose to seek her own pride and wrath by targeting Emmitt instead of Varga. She was supposed to die on the bus with Wrench but was divinely rescued and given a second chance at redemption. As soon as she blew that chance, adios. That's…

I think the offing of the lawyer was meant to scare Emmitt and Sy more than anything else. And I think Sy was meant to die from the poisoning but it didn't take.

That's a fair criticism.

It's possible, although I think Paul Marrane didn't give her an explicit divine ordinance to carry out vengeance as he gave to Nikki for a reason. I think this was as much a test for Nikki as it was anything else. He knew that Gloria was pure.

I had almost the exact same thought, only with the Coens making 'No Country For Old Men'.

I didn't really think about this until you mentioned dumbass Moe, but you're right, and it lends even more credence to my theory that Varga's right about who's walking through the door.

Full confession: I rewound and watched the scene where her legs walk into Gloria's PD at least twice last week.

I saw Assorted Goonery at CBGB in 1985.

The really frustrating part is that if you believe Ray Wise was working for God, it means that Varga's right about who's walking through the door.

So let's just get this out in the open: My take is that Varga was the Devil or at least a demon, and Nikki died because her orders were to exact God's vengeance against him but she either misunderstood or willfully chose to disobey her divine purpose. The frustrating, oblique ending forces a viewer's hand on whether…

Yeah, I'm amazed after all the completely baffling and nonsensical pathways the story took that the explanation for the Departed turned out to be so simple and almost lovely.

I'm not sure I'd say that Packingham "boasted" about beating the parking ticket—he simply said (paraphrasing) "Thank God the ticket was thrown out." North Carolina's ruling against him was absurd and one of the most egregious tramplings of a citizen's First Amendment freedoms I have seen in a while. SCOTUS' ruling was…

The Trumpsters doth protest too much, methinks.

I can actually see this being accurate.