FXs Fargo Maintains High Quality in Second Chapter | TV/Streaming
Much of the greatness of season two of “Fargo” (which premieres October 12) is in the way it unfolds, and so I will be very careful with spoilers. One of the most interesting things about the season premiere of “Fargo,” which I actually watched twice in one day, is that it doesn’t embrace the same parallels to the film as season one. Last year, it was easy shorthand to describe Lester as the “TV-version Jerry” (William H. Macy’s character from the film). This year doesn’t have that direct parallel. In fact, the first episodes feel like they have more thematically in common with the Coen's “No Country For Old Men” with their examination of the dark, changing times.
Those times take place in 1979, allowing Hawley and company numerous chances to reference Vietnam, Watergate, Jimmy Carter, and even the Military-Industrial Complex. The world is changing. As a character says in episode four, the ‘70s were the hangover for the free love era of the ‘60s. And that hangover is getting violent.
“Fargo” opens by introducing two brothers—the dominant Dodd Gerhart (Jeffrey Donovan) and his younger brother Rye (Kieran Culkin), who is late to a meeting and being verbally abused. Rye is the lowest player in a criminal family run by Otto (Michael Hogan) and Floyd (Jean Smart), and there’s another brother named Bear (Angus Sampson). The Gerharts are notorious in Minnesota and neighboring states, although they’re facing an incursion into the criminal enterprise by people from the South, including characters played by Bokeem Woodbine and Brad Garrett. Just as a turf war seems about to break out, Otto has a stroke and Rye makes some very bad decisions.
Those decisions lead him into the world of State Police officer Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson), a name that will be familiar to hardcore fans of season one (Keith Carradine played the character older). So, of course, Lou has a young daughter named Molly and a wife named Betsy (Cristin Milioti), who is dealing the nightmare of chemotherapy for cancer treatment. The “case” of season two will bring in Lou’s father-in-law Hank (Ted Danson), a local police officer. In the same small town, butcher Ed (Jesse Plemons) and his wife Peggy Blumquist (Kirsten Dunst) will be drawn into the world of the Gerharts in completely unexpected ways.
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