“Salesmen make their own wins,” snipes Lester’s spiteful wife, but the Minnesota life-insurance salesman is more concerned with the sound his washing machine is making. The hammer he uses to fix it will be used to for more brutal purposes in Noah Hawley’s riveting take on the Coen Brothers’ 1996 masterpiece. Martin Freeman’s Lester is a failure, bullied by his wife and brother, until he unleashes Billy Bob Thornton’s warped hitman to expunge his “problems”. Everything about this 10-parter works, from the cold, harsh setting to the dry, witty writing.
