The faux-true-crime procedural, Fargo, is back for a fifth season and I am absolutely loving this return to form. It’s interesting that the inciting incident for this mystery is simply a botched kidnapping. I just loved the whole sequence. It does this amazing thing, by not feeling like a ripoff or a blatant homage, but really like an alternate reality take on the movie kidnapping. It was really fascinating to watch it diverge from the film.
Let’s look back on Fargo (the series):
The first two seasons are some of the best television ever made. Period.
The first season, with Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton, presented sheer evil with a force matched in my experience only by The Wire Season Two.
I especially loved the second season. Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst were great, as was Zahn McClarnon as the American Indian who was tired of being a second class citizen. Finally, Ted Danson just shined as the enigmatic, approaching retirement sheriff. Just terrific. His opening line was quintessential Fargo/Coen Brothers. He surveys a gory scene with several dead bodies and says “This is a deal.” Later, when confronted with a bad guy who says “you must think I’m stupid.” His reply is classic: “Son, I could fill a steamer trunk with all the kinds of stupid I think you are, but …” It’s a masterpiece upon rewatch. The most profound season of an always watchable series.
Season 3 was a tad too philosophical. I liked the episode with the I Can Help robot but it was absolutely a side story with no bearing on anything and the ending was lackluster.
I really wanted to like Season 4. It had a solid premise, it had Jessie Buckley as a crazed nurse serial killer based on a woman I’ve heard about, Jane Toppan. East and West was a brilliant little episode in general. But it just didn’t come together and was too big and over stretched. Too many characters, too many plotlines that never remotely interconnect. Each actor seemed to be in a different show. Jessie went broad. Chris Rock went serious. And Jason Schwartzman’s brother, Jesus, I’m not sure what he was doing. But it’s probably no coincidence I haven’t seen him in anything else since. I mean, Noah Hawley could’ve done something based on the Bobby Greenlease Kidnapping, which if it were not true, would seem like precisely the kind of story the Coen Brothers would write. It has hapless kidnappers, an absurdly rich man, corrupt cops, mafia, and a suitcase full of money that was never found.
And just so we are clear, we all agree that we want the Tillmans to die slowly and painfully in this current installment? I think I actually hate Gator more, because he is the cowardly sycophant of the bully, which is always one of the most hateable archetypes. Still, I wonder how many viewers are first learning about “Constitutional” sheriffs from this. Jon Hamm is just going to embrace that whole cult leader typecasting from now on, huh? Good on him for finding a niche he enjoys.
Fargo season 5 is available to stream now on Hulu.