[4] She appeared as a minor character in season 2, portrayed by Raven Stewart as a child; Tolman also briefly reprised her role in a cameo.

In the first season, she is introduced as a deputy, and is a major figure in the solving of the case involving Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) and Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman).

Tolman reprised her role (along with Colin Hanks, Joey King, and Keith Carradine) in a dream sequence by her mother, Betsy Solverson (Cristin Milioti).

"[8] Noah Hawley has stated that the main reason he created the character Vern and Ida Thurman and initially set it up to seem like Vern would be the protagonist of the series, was so that the audience would not compare the character of Molly to Marge Gunderson, the protagonist of the original film, stating: "I knew that if I started the show with "Molly" as the chief of police, everyone was going to make a direct comparison to Frances McDormand and no one could survive that because Frances' performance was so Oscar winning and iconic.

[10][11][12] Dan Fienberg of HitFix praised Tolman's performance, writing: "Character acting gets no better than the performances by Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Oliver Platt, Adam Goldberg, Keith Carradine and a dozen other familiar faces, but it was unknown Chicago theater actress Allison Tolman who grounded this perfectly contained gem of a season.