Before his demise, Malvo was a manipulative contract killer and conman based in Reno, Nevada , who eventually stumbled into Lester Nygaard at the hospital after Lester received a facial injury caused by Sam Hess. Malvo is the only character that directly opposes the rest of the main characters, serving as the main antagonist in the entirety of the first season. He serves as the main antagonist to Lester Nygaard and Gus Grimly , and as the secondary antagonist to Molly Solverson.
Lorne is a manipulative and charismatic sociopath. He is largely defined by his belief that human beings are still very much like primal beasts. He has fully embraced this philosophy and rarely behaves as though he has the slightest inclination of right and wrong. His lack of empathy and emotion while performing acts of murder form the basis of his personality. He is seen to hold almost no moral values, killing who he needs to - and who he is paid to - to get his job done.
He is also willing to kill those whom are vital to his job or career to prove a point; as can be seen when he murders 3 people whilst in Las Vegas with Lester Nygaard. Most of all he holds a cold willingness to kill innocents, and to cause trouble in his daily life for his own amusement. This can be seen with his conversations with many of the inhabitants of Bemidji, Minnesota and Duluth.
It should also be noted that he is willing to admire those who prove themselves to him, notably in the instance where he gives Wes Wrench the chance to go after him in order to avenge Grady's death, mostly because Wrench and Numbers came closer to killing Malvo than anyone else. Lorne also has a habit of taking personal detours when working on his assignments, as seen in his case of cassettes filled with recordings of those he has met and persuaded into committing crimes, ultimately keeping an audio record of their gradual unravellings for his own amusement.
Little is known about Lorne's early life, although he frequently tells anecdotes of the many people he's met and the situations he's been involved in. He also vaguely brings up the fact that he has worked with other hired criminals in the past and has a degree in Sociology, although most of what he says should be taken with a grain of salt as Malvo is talented in the art of deception. On January 18, , Lorne was driving a New Yorker down the highway at night outside Bemidji, Minnesota with a man in the trunk.
