I'm a fan of the movie, and think the TV series is taking a big chance following the Coens' classic. I also think the TV thing is very much a worthy tribute.
To what, exactly? Well, first to mood, ambience, blackest of black comedy in whitest of white land rhythms and vibes. Second to multiple twisty plot lines. Third to characters normal, very weird, overdone, undone, and malevolent.
Malevolent as in the close-enough-anagram Lorne Malvo. Billy Bob is wonderful, chaos personified, and he's not the only pitch-perfect actor.
Last evening's "A Muddy Road" introduced us to what may become the constant theme of the remaining episodes of this first season: the "ten plagues of Egypt." Last night we saw the first of the plagues: water becomes blood. And all that stuff about spiders crawling out of skin may play out in a future episode as lice, flies, or boils.
There will be far too many references to Coen films for me to catch, and not limited to "Fargo." But just sticking to the 2 Fargo's, we learned last eve that Molly's father, Lou, was himself previously a cop, and was involved years back in some controversial case over in St. Cloud. Didn't the film's central character, Marge, have a dullish partner named Lou?
Dozens of other things one could discuss. And I will have missed the majority of the clever-to-great stuff in the first 3 episodes. There's a whole lotta stuff going on.