Fargo Season 5 started this week, and I'm going to give you a thematic summary if you wonder why people like this Coen brother dark crime comedy so much. (Because each season is a separate narrative, there isn't much plot or character to catch up on, though some redditors will definitely become obsessed with the few world-building connections between seasons.) I'm not going to make effort to avoid spoilers, so if you really care about those, go watch the series now.
Fargo, as you probably know, was first a movie by the Coen brothers starring William Macy and Frances McDormand, about a car dealer who hires thugs to kidnap his own wife, so he can ransom her to his rich father-in-law. Things spiral out of control immediately, get far worse than anyone could have wanted, until salt-of-the-earth pregnant police officer Frances resolves matters with the law triumphant. Its tragic and its a black comedy, and a long beloved movie.
Noah Hawley (Legion) took this world and style and made a ten episode television show that told a similar story in one season. They then made three other seasons, and a fifth now. Though not being by the Coens, it shares a lot of similarity to the movie and many, many callbacks to the Coen's work overall.
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One recurring theme of Fargo especially, but really a lot of Coen brothers' work, is there being four types of characters, on a lawful vs criminal, naive vs effective grid:
Lawful Criminal
Naive Sheep Goons
Effective Sheepdogs Wolves
Sheep are the innocent Minnesotans who can't recognize anything going wrong, and would never harm a fly. Goons are the selfish people who see an opportunity to make money but have no idea what they are doing (such as William Macy in the original Fargo). Wolves are the apex predators who give us the viewing pleasure of seductive violence and easily take advantage of both goons and sheep (such as the woodchipper guy in the original Fargo). Sheepdogs are the police and various characters on the side of the law who are the only ones who have a hope of standing up to the wolves (Marge and the FIL in original Fargo.) A great deal of the comedy of the show is from the inept fumbling of Goons and Sheep (and plot is almost always driven by the mistakes of Goons spinning wildly out of control.)
A lot of the Fargo series's are about the dynamics between these characters. Like what drives a Sheep to become a Wolf (S1, Martin Freeman) or a Goon to become a Sheepdog (S3, Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Season 5 is exploring "a Wolf that hides as a sheep" (Dot) and a corrupt, evil Sheepdog (Jon Hamm.)
On an even deeper meta-level, the theme of Fargo and Coens work is an existentialist morality: Goodness, meaning are justice are not inherent in the world and not something you can count on the world to maintain, but things you must decide to enact yourself. Something terrible and meaningless will happen, and nihilism wins the day if you let it, but the only solution is to take up arms or tools and make the world right yourself.
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Each season so far also has a theme about the American story.
Season 1: (I'm not sure about this one, something about predators and choosing to be one.)
Season 2: National progress steamrolls local communities.
Season 3: Is truth objective or just a plaything of the powerful?
Season 4: National progress steamrolls local communities.
Season 5: Society is collapsing so you have to defend your own and "pick a side" (or better yet, don't do that)
Seasons 2 and 4 are the seasons that take place in earlier periods of American history (the end of the 70's, and the early 50's, respectively), and also both have a theme of "racism is the horrific Real underlying the American story" (against native Americans and black slaves, respectively.)
Seasons 2, 3, and 4 have been big sprawling stories about multiple communities and plotlines that intersect in chaotic ways. Seasons 1 and 5 (so far) are more about one person and their one act of violence, and everyone responding to it as the originator desperately tries to cover it up. The first episode of the season always has a major crime committed and the rest of the season is spent trying to "solve" that by others.
Lately, in seasons 3 and 4, there has been one "bottle" episode of one or two characters in a completely different setting, surreally working through the themes of the plot writ large. I love these episodes, and I hope there will be one this season.
Lastly, the supernatural elements. The Fargo series is a very down-to-earth show following normal physical laws, except once per season there is the intrusion of some supernatural element that changes the course of the plot, is completely undeniable, and no one wants to talk about. These are obviously metaphors for the Real polite society doesn't want to talk about.
Season 1: There's a rain of fish that causes a key traffic jam.
Season 2: A UFO shows up twice, just as violence is climaxing.
Season 3: An angel shows up and helps out characters, twice (though only one is obvious.) This is a metaphor for God announcing that objective truth and right and wrong do exist (though we have to enforce them ourselves.)
Season 4: An undead, Candyman like figure haunts the town and the funeral parlor. This is a metaphor for the chains of slavery on the voyage from Africa.
Season 5: I'm not sure yet, but it could just be the unexplained riot in a school board meeting we open with People definitely avoid talking about it..
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So what do I think of Season 5 so far? Spoilers for the first two episodes:
Dot is obviously a "wolf in sheep's clothing", though in denial about it as she genuinely wishes to be a sheep. The hitman who was hunting her is a classic wolf, and entertaining like the previous charismatic wolves who carried their seasons. At first I thought he was Sticks (a mute gunman who shows up in multiple seasons), or maybe Vargas (the main villain of S3), but I think he's just some thematic mix of both, which is great for sure. Jon Hamm is extremely funny as a corrupt, evil Sheepdog and his scenes have been a delight. Funny to see Dave Foley here. His aw shucks Canadian accent being in a Fargo show seems long overdue. Funny to see two shows nearly simultaneously released that have "Succession like character drama, with a very famous character actor playing the svengali-like Lawyer" (him and Mark Hamil.)
The season is definitely being carried on the back of Juno Temple's acting. She's pretty good but I'm not sure good enough to carry 10 hours of television. We'll see.
But otherwise, I'm kind of disappointed so far. I preferred the sprawling cast of characters model, since it gave us amazing characters played by Nick Offerman, Bokeem Woodbine, Jean Smart, Ewans MacGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Carrie Coon even far away from the central plots. And I really don't like Hawley's analysis of 2019 American culture, which is the same jokes about heartland Trump conservatives we've been seeing for 8 years now.
I came around on S5 theme remembering the very first scene and very first shot, which is Dot holding her daughter tight as everyone around them is fighting. She looks small and lost. Of course this sense of fear and chaos leads her to pull out the tazer and taze a cop, which is when her real problems start. Throw in Hamm's slogan (A hard man... for hard times), multiple uses of the phrase "pick a side," and the gun Christmas card, and Dot's speech at the end of Ep 2 looks very on topic.
The only question is how this will extend to the politics they keep highlighting of cosmopolitan left vs Trumpist right. The mob riot at the beginning was a school board meeting, presumably exploded by arguing about evolution or something. Multiple unreliable narrators insist we "pick a side." So will this go the direction of saying "it's not the sides that matter, it's our polarization and personalization about them" (a la Screwtape letters), or (more likely) will it say we should just stick with the friendly-looking left.
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