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

Will: thanks, but I think it's Dave Chappelle for me. My familiarity with videos after about 1999 is pretty minimal.

there's usually something beautiful or interesting happening visually

I think the use of split-screen in Season 2 is beautiful--better even than De Palma.

i find Fargo a bit more refreshing than the usual prestige TV since it does have a decent amount of humor and odd narrative turns, and i wouldn't call it "feel bad" TV, which remains a bit of a crutch for so many shows and has been one for far too long. Which is why i've found GLOW refreshing, or something like Justified (which had a lot of violence but never tipped over into sadism, and somehow ended on a beautifully poetic note.)

S2 is really terrific, I watched it before S1 (also good, but not quite on par with S2.) Lots of good-to-great performances from a number of interesting actors: Bokeem Woodbine is a standout for sure, Patrick Wilson too. Kirsten Dunst is pretty phenomenal i thought, and Cristin Milioti possibly even better in a role that could have been thankless, sort of dealing w/the cancer and likely fate with a kind of wry humor and sadness that reminds me of someone else, but I can't think of who it is now...

The whole Gerhardt clan is conceived perfectly and that works even better because of the superior performances; Jean Smart, Jeffrey Donovan, Angus Sampson, Rachel Keller -- all great.

s2 is better than s1 but allison tolman is so much more compelling than patrick wilson

and wilson was good in s2! he's just kind of a generic hero

they missed the boat in not having an it's always sunny cast member in s2

Tolman was indeed great (and a nice echo of McDormand, without being an imitation), but I do think Wilson's great in his own way. The way he stood up to the Gerhardts was totally different than Grimly in Season 1. There's something about his performance I don't find generic...I loved the scene where he sat down the butcher and his wife and explained who was coming for them.

Found the treatment of Reagan fascinating. Not a cartoon...yet when cornered on how exactly any American was supposed to exercise these unlimited powers to fix things, he just kind of waved and walked away.

I loved Tolman but I don’t think anybody in any season has gotten a line as good as “Am I the only one here who's clear on the concept of law enforcement?”

Basically every time Lou interacts with Dodd is a fucking gem. I kinda forgot about some of those moments until just now looking that up on wikiquote and now I’m grinning at my phone like an idiot

It is just really difficult to picture Chris Rock being good in this

yah

Maybe the fourth season is set in 2016 and Chris Rock is Obama, like how Bruce Campbell was Reagan

"Locomotive Breath"! That was so good.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but whereas the first season was a very good approximation of the movie, the second is much closer in tone to Miller's Crossing/No Country for Old Men.

I liked Season 2 until the last couple of episodes. Season 3, on the other hand, started badly (I really hated the idea of McGregor playing brothers) but got better and better, in a seriously dark and even depressing way. I didn't need the camera to be shoved into David Thewlis's mouth as often as it was, but Carrie Coon was fantastic in it.

I'm bracing myself for the worst with the alien subplot--interesting so far, but not really necessary that I can see.

Agree that the last couple of episodes tailed off a bit. The big shootout was great--the way they'd freeze the frame--but a certain point, it was like they'd killed off almost every interesting character. The deus ex machina moment provided by the aliens was okay, I guess (reminded me a bit of the frogs in Magnolia--the whole alien thing wasn't all that intrusive in the end. Lots of great music: "Sylvia's Mother" was especially good. Didn't really need all the narration in the last couple of episodes.

Words I never thought I'd say outside of Cheers: I was so impressed by Ted Danson.

you should check out The Good Place

Yeah Danson's been good in a few more recent things: this, Good Place and Bored to Death are all great.

Wasn't he in Damages? He was good in that too, iirc.

I didn't need the camera to be shoved into David Thewlis's mouth as often as it was

A good character way overused generally. Would've been much more effective only appearing every few episodes.

i really love the music in this show, it really gives me that feeling of when you're listening to a great song and you can imagine yourself being in a movie or tv show with that song on the soundtrack. "sylvia's mother" was a good one. s3 uses this jam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8 (highly recommend watching that video).

and yeah there's been a dansonaissance over the past 10 or so years. he was fantastic in damages in particular.

Yeah Danson's been good in a few more recent things: this, Good Place and Bored to Death are all great.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, too.

I was very disappointed that they didn't make a season 3 OST album.

Yeah it was pretty dope that they decided to include all that New Orleans brass band music in S3, even if it was incongruous at times!

I've had friends on the soundtrack for both S2 and S3, which adds another level of fun.

finished s3, i agree that it is solid throughout but picks up with the last three episodes. ep 8, which focuses just on mary elizabeth winstead's character, was amazing

I'm five or six episodes in, and she's what's holding my interest more than anything else--she's great. I like whenever Caroline Coon's on screen. David Thewlis is kind of corny, in a way that Billy Bob wasn't in Season 1.

The end of episode 6, where they take Nikki away to protective custody, stylistically that was about as great as television gets.

i much prefered thewlis to billy bob, i can't take billy bob seriously ever and the prince valiant haircut did not help.

I took the haircut to be an homage/reference to Bardem in No Country (there are Coen references all through the series, most to the movie but sometimes more general), so I thought that was okay.

Finished up last night. I've never been sure how literally to take "This is a true story." I read up a bit on the factual basis for Season 2--I assume changes were made, but the basic story did happen. I mention this because I found the end of Season 3 a little disappointing. Nikki was such a great character, and noble--and they end by having her kill a workaday cop just doing his job? But if that's how it happened, and they are more or less sticking to facts, not much you can do. Start to finish, Caroline Coon was great.

Overall:

Season 1 - nice feel for the movie (A-)
Season 2 - for the most part, fantastic (A)
Season 3 - up and down (B)

Also thought McGregor's business partner was a really good character/performance; McGregor was good, but I sometimes got a little tired of him (liked him better as the parole-officer brother).

i thought the "true story" stuff had been a misdirect going back to the original movie.

McGregor's business partner was a really good character/performance

michael stuhlbarg, who was in like every oscar-nominated movie last year, as well as the lead in the coen's "a serious man"

I think I'm the rare Coens fan who didn't like A Serious Man. I've been intending to re-watch it, and that gives me another reason to.

I thought the "true story" stuff had been a misdirect going back to the original movie.

It is. There are no facts they are "more or less sticking to" even if there was some real life inspiration for certain aspects

I mean the UFOs kind of make that obvious don't you think? (quite apart from all the other totally outlandish elements)

>I think I'm the rare Coens fan who didn't like A Serious Man

i'm with you on this one. also didn't really dig Burn After reading.

I did realize they were embellishing sometimes, yes; I realized the aliens weren't real. But where did they draw the line? If almost all of it is embellishment, then I think they made a real bad call with Nikki's end. It should have been her who got to kill McGregor, and they didn't have to have her shoot the cop.

It's not embellishment and there is no line (but it's fine if you think that was the wrong dramatic choice)

I started watching the series from the assumption that it was all made up; it was only after skimming a couple of pieces like this one that I started to wonder, "Wait--did some of this actually happen?" Sounds like I would have been better to stick with my original assumption.

http://www.bustle.com/articles/119085-is-fargo-season-2-a-true-story-its-connected-to-some-very-real-events

well, she started off the seasons as a grifter, more or less, correct? and she had already killed one person earlier on in the season iirc. i don't think i ever saw her as growing out of her morally dubious approach to the world at any point as the season went on.

xpost

A really sweet, likable grifter, though, with--to get really corny--a good heart. Hadn't she only killed bad people before the cop? Anyway, I won't press the point any more. I just thought she deserved a better end.

it did feel out of character, but if she got arrested, she was going to get killed by varga. if i wanted to give the show credit, i'd say it was a commentary on how many prestige shows force us into feeling affection for antiheroes whose actions are objectively terrible if you stop and think about it for a minute. but really i think they just wanted an ending that was deflating, to go along with the ambiguity of the ending of the burgle/varga plot. no happy endings for anyone.

what surprised me about her charter is how genuine her affection for Ray seemed to be. at first i figured she was just using him, but she did seem to genuinely love him as the season progressed.

She did. Maybe the best image of the whole season was her curled up in the bathtub with Ray tending to her.

http://whatelseisonnow.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/the-house-of-special-purpose-ray-finds-a-beaten-nikki-in-her-tub.jpg?w=1000&h=288&crop=1

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_xVbCJXsAAboD9?format=jpg&name=900x900

From here: https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/fargo-season-4-cast-ben-whishaw-andrew-bird-jason-schwartzman.html

The list includes Jack Huston “as Odis Weff”; Jason Schwartzman as “Josto Fadda”; Ben Whishaw as “Rabbi Milligan”; Jessie Buckley as “Oraetta Mayflower”; Salvatore Esposito as “Gaetano Fadda”; Andrew Bird (guess he acts now!) as “Thurman Smutney”; Jeremie Harris as “Leon Bittle”; Gaetano Bruno as “Constant Calamita”; Anji White as “Dibrell Smutney”; Francesco Acquaroli as “Ebal Violante”; E’myri Crutchfield as “Ethelrida Pearl Smutney”; and Amber Midthunder as “Swanee Capps.”

hawley is fantastic at character names.

Andrew Bird!

I assume all these British actors will be doing midwestern American accents?

Also apparently...Chris Rock???

Sure! I mean, Key and Peele were in this already, and great. Plus, we've already had Martin Freeman and Ewan McGregor doing a (solid) midwest accent.

Set in 1950.

i've started watching the show Patriot on Amazon and i love it and i think it would appeal to other people who like the show Fargo. it's not the same but has a similar appeal. so everyone here please start watching Patriot if you haven't already.

Pretty sure they are filming some of the upcoming season down the street from me!