This Vince Gilligan quote from this article comes to mind.

http://gothamist.com/2017/06/15/interview_vince_gilligan_peter_gould.php

"Kind of the great thing about doing this job is the unknown, is the challenge of figuring out where you're going. You're hiking across virgin territory. You're trying to make it to the North Pole except you don't know what's between you and there and maybe you'll wind up somewhere else instead. It's the challenge and the voyage of discovery."

Fargo had a story they wanted to tell, and when they felt like they were going somewhere else, they pulled some bullshit to get it back on track.

Having Emmit kill Ray by accident is an example. Having the Swango and the trooper kill each other is another.

Some really good shit after those 2 events, but I thought that was kinda non-committal on the writers part. Based off of how Ray went out, I already knew Swango wasn't gonna kill Emmit. I called that shit before it happened.

It's still way better than a lot of other shit though.