We need a thread for the FARGO TV show yah? Oh, yah!

(what I didn't know until a little while ago is that she's Julian Temple's kid!)

Obviously I know that, and just as obviously he's still defined by Don Draper.

You were talking about his own experience - given the amount of broad comedy he did during Mad Men, and the range and quantity of material he's played since, I doubt he has to think about Dick Whitman's whole life every time the camera rolls.

It's possible he chose to and relished playing his own naked bumcrack in this, as a contrast to his experience in Good Omens S2, tho.

If I'd been talking about Woody Harrelson or John Travolta, actors who long since moved past the TV roles that first brought them to prominence, I think you'd have a good point. But Jon Hamm--like James Gandolfini, Mary Tyler Moore, and many others before him--hasn't been able to do that, not yet anyway, so Don Draper is always there. Not just in how I view him, but also, I believe, in how he chooses roles and how he carries them out. Found this piece that makes more or less the same point:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/2023/11/22/jon-hamm-fargo-good-omens-maverick/

Making no secret of his desire to get away from Don, Hamm has worked pretty hard to play against type — as the kidnapper/cult leader Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne in “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” as himself on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” a villain in “Baby Driver,” the by-the-book Air Boss trying to keep Maverick in check in “Top Gun: Maverick,” the jerk in “Bridesmaids,” Fletch in “Confess, Fletch” and a gorgeous idiot on “30 Rock” whose obliviousness to how the world works is obviated by the fact that it (the world) caters to his every whim.

He hasn’t been hiding, in other words. He’s on record as loving comedy, he’s good at it, and he’s been clowning around for years, all but circling and underlining the ways his unsmiling gravitas as TV’s deepest, most depressive ad man was a stylized, highly artificial choice. A performance so self-serious it’s maybe even a little bit silly. He treats the version of American manhood he wielded like a superpower as if it’s a trick — rendering our veneration of it a little absurd every time he deploys that dopey smile. “Really?” he seems to be saying when he’s hamming it up the most. “You fell for this guy?”

Those mild subversions haven’t worked. They usually scan as genial self-deprecation about his own good looks, which only increases the modern-day Marlboro Man’s appeal. Eight years later after “Mad Men” ended, it’s still almost impossible not to see Hamm as Draper.

I think that's true, and I think it's just as true for Hamm: "Making no secret of his desire to get away from Don."

Even the idea of Tillman as the Marlboro Man has some extra resonance, I'd say, because of Don Draper's relationship with Lucky Strike and Lee Garner Jr.

There's an entire subset of the population I've recently encountered who know who Jon Hamm is but never watched Mad Men. I think a generation of tv reviewers and writers will never forget

That makes sense. But I think Hamm himself is part of the group stuck with Don Draper.

Having gotten used to slapstick Hamm, I'm glad that this character has a little more gravitas than he's been bringing in the last decade (even if it's very funny in context, he's playing it straight).

How many people only know of Jon Hamm in relation to Gawker posts about his large penis. Got to be at least a few dozen right? No Mad Men, no The Town, just photographed free balling.

I've been meaning to add that Mad Men isn't exactly ancient history--it went off the air all of eight years ago. Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Some people will take all that into Fargo, some won't.

But I think Hamm himself is part of the group stuck with Don Draper.

Are you getting this from interviews? I only encounter his off-screen persona on his friends' podcasts, where he's as charming and goofy as he was during Mad Men, and as they describe him being (minus the confidence of success) before he got the job.

xp off the air, yes, but a decade since he was on set (and the character was being internally dismantled in those last episodes), with 81 on-camera as-character jobs in TV alone between that and Fargo, plus voice work and a substantial film career.

Not trying to pick on clem, just that the Fargo perf seems completely in line with the rest of Hamm's career as this viewer has intersected with it.

This is a real sticking point for you, isn't it. We disagree. Enough said.

I was a big fan of Mad Men when it aired, but I had to look up who Lee Garner, Jr., was.

So I'm the only one who's never seen a second of Mad Men, then? I've seen Hamm in loads of other things and NOT that! So this whole discourse is bemusing.

I've never seen a second of Ted Lasso. (Not really by choice--not available thus far on what I pay for.) Everyone brings something different. My original point had more to do with Hamm himself. Since none of us are inside his head, speculation.

One thing I started to warm to in the second episode was the way they apply a Burroughs cut-up to the movie--spill it all out on the floor and reassemble it sideways.

I’m about to go in on episode 2. Anticipating more breakfast.

Chekhov's pancakes

Richa Moorjani, one of the two cops, is also the older cousin in Never Have I Ever. Watching that scene early on in ep1 of Fargo, where she and Juno Temple are talking to each other in their Minnesotan accents is a double-whiplash.

She's good. Looked at her film/TV credits, and this is the first time I've ever seen her.

As far as I’m concerned Fletch is now Jon Hamm’s signature role

Eric, did you like that one or at least deem it worth watching? I’ve held off

I give it five stars

It’s a fantastic second-gear comedy. I still laugh at Fletch’s response to a detective telling him there’s a surveillance corner “around the corner.” (“Where the fudge is made?”)

First episode was about as good as TV, or anything, gets.

I figured out the new one wasn’t the payoff episode, but I definitely hope next week is worth the setup

I watched E3 last night...completely mystified right now by the Munch character.

Second episode was great as well. I wonder what the hell went wrong with the previous season? It had been firing on all cylinders before that. But even so, the quality of the writing, direction, acting and cinematography of this current season is top notch.

Definitely. And has got me excited for his Alien series, whenever that hits

Man, episode three was great, too. Just a masterclass in ... everything.

The 500 years ago bit... what are we meant to make of that? Was that Ole, or an ancestor? I mean it was the same actor. I keep thinking he's like a stockier Richard E Grant.

The mood music is on point in this season too, there's this strong undercurrent of weird puritanism goin on and some of the droney music made me think of things like Midsommar.

I guess he's been wandering the earth without a soul for 500 years, is what I make of it.

it reminds me of the scenes from the Coens' A Serious Man with the dybbuk accusations

Not that this is exactly a Coen Brothers effort, but from the very beginning their movies often featured a primal, almost supernatural killer. This is kind of in that mode, though previous seasons kind of were as well, like the one with Billy Bob Thornton, or David Thewlis. Iirc they were portrayed as something not quite human.

Yes, there is typically a malevolent evil character in each season

I get that Dot is trying to make like everything is fine and all but I would have thought she’d come up with an excuse to get the husband and kid out of harms way.

Hope we get a flashback to show where she picked up her survival / home defense / MacGyver skills.

Lotta gun toting factions in this season, seems inevitable that at some point they will all start shooting at each other.

Gator keeps talking about gunfights, so I wouldn't be surprised if he meets a Justified-ish fate where he tries to go all high noon quick draw but gets himself casually blown away before he can even pull.

Another killer ep. I know this is not a horror show, but boy does it know how to utilize the tropes of horror films.

Pancakes !

Wayne giving Dougie in Twin Peaks s3 vibes

Thought I heard a smidge of Tangerine Dream ish music same as in S2. Seems it was only Jeff Russo work though.

Great ep. I loathe the grandmother so JJL is doing something right there, yikes.

If there's anything about this season that bugs me it's that she's recycling the same mid-Atlantic accent from "Hudsucker Proxy," but given that was Coen Bros., too, maybe it counts as an easter egg. Like "pancakes!".

JJL and Jon Hamm look like they are having a blast playing their horrible characters

I think Joe Keery is having a ball, too!

He's leaning into the gormless guy thing nicely.

I'm back on the fence again. I found the first 15 minutes of E4 interminable, and at this point quite unnecessary: hasn't it already been established that Dot's impossible to kill (especially this early)? The rest was better, and I liked the two FBI agents before the judge. I don't find Munch nearly as interesting as Anton Chigurh (a sideways comparison, I know).

I would like to see the story start to focus more on the FBI guys vs Jon Hamm, for sure, because it feels like the wider story hasnt progressed much.

i liked seasons 3 and 4 much more upon second viewings because i kinda knew where and on whom to focus my attention. they're pretty good tv by tv standards but suffer by fargo qua fargo standards. and that's ok.

i possess a minimum of critical faculties so am still in the middling quantile as a consumer of creative product. i need the show itself to direct my focus, like trace says, so i can receive the optimal viewing experience. i think the final scene of s3 put everything in perspective: coon vs thewlis, and their respective worldviews. s4 i dunno, it's a surfeit of interesting people and their interesting problems. it was an intriguing thinkpiece but i'm not sure what the think was other than the usual cohen character invokes fate kind of thing. all in all, i think seasons 1 and 2 work so well for me is because the creators did all the heavy lifting, but still there's some room for active engagement from the likes of me. 3 and 4, but mostly 4, because frankly 3 has aesthetic undercurrents that i feel but can't consciously understand, they require that i try to understand what was being shot for.

in conclusion and in summary (will forte reference), i hope this isn't bad fargo. but bad fargo is still pretty 0k, so far. there's been more ACTION in the previous episodes than in all the last two seasons combined; i don't know how they'll handle that going on in from now on. pacing, jesus . hey, fuckit. we're all in, so let's just deal with it like we do with the people we married.

i mean, last two seasons, didn't you feel like nothing happened forever, and when it did, it didn't matter? and this season, like clemenza says, dot has a season climax every episode? talk about overcompensating. no, go ahead, talk about it. still, love you hawley, you're my boo-boo kitty. keep up the good work. i hope this shit goes to season 20, at which point i hope to have dementia to the degree i won't notice the difference.

i think ideally in this age show runners should have a post-episode podcast in which they interact with engaged viewers with prominent concerns given that's not happening it's the wild wild west in here. therefore my opinions.