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

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!

yeah they've been filming in uptown in recent weeks. i had the day off on tuesday and thought about going to scope it out but couldn't find any indication online they were doing anything that day.

I'm in Oak Park. We just a minute ago passed a block populated by vintage cars, with a house lit and dressed for filming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7zSHExPsFA

Well Chris Rock and Schwartzman aren't exactly character actors, but it looks fun

not even Olyphant can lure me back into this shitshow

he's only good in Justified and Deadwood imo, but very good in them both tbf. But perhaps therein them two very good series' is his entire range.

he's also good in A Perfect Getaway and in thankless roles in a bunch of other movies

i like him in p much anything i see him in. he's very funny and likable in the frankly very poor netflix comedy with drew barrymore "santa clarita diet".

bad as a villain in die hard mind you.

i can't see myself watching this show again. exhibit a in the "we have too many scripted tv shows trying to be prestige which are actually dumb and bad" hobby-horse of mine

yup

I'm gonna give it a shot because the other three seasons are all hits imo

Second season was fantastic.

Rewatching Season 2. I've got to mention again a scene in the fourth episode where Lou drops in on the Blumquists--he's onto their ruse with the car before anyone else--to let them know what they've accidentally gotten involved in. That scene is so great. He uses the war analogy of the doomed soldier who doesn't know he's doomed yet but has a certain look. That scene is the very essence of noir's the-noose-is-tightening foundation, as good as Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity saying he couldn't hear his footsteps.

Also loved, in the meeting between Mrs. Gerhardt and the Kansas City people, the way one of the flunkies sidles up to Joe Bulo to whisper in his ear what happened at the hospital. Right out of The Godfather.

The performances are so good, especially Bokeem Woodbine and Jean Smart. Woodbine seems very familiar, but when I look through his filmography, all I come up with is a cop in Dead Presidents--did he really make that much of an impression on me in what was probably a small role? I must be overlooking something.

― clemenza, Sunday, September 23, 2018 9:19 AM

I was. I must have just checked his filmography on Wikipedia, where TV is listed separately. I've started a Sopranos rewatch--that's why he seemed so familiar, Massive Genius in Season 1.

They're filming by our house again. Someone we know saw Chris Rock in the wild this morning, and one of my kids and her friend are currently stalking the set.

apparently it starts back up in a couple of weeks. surprising seeing as they were still filming as recently as a couple of weeks ago. i don't know how these things work.

I think this show in particular must really take some risks as far as starting to air the beginning of the season while still working on the end. Last season, my friend's song got used for a big moment, and they got the call only a week or two before the episode aired (this was ep9).

Seems insane to do it in this era, why not just wait until it's done? Unless they want to see the social media reaction or something, which would also seem weird for a tightly scripted show like this. Maybe he just likes the pressure.

And maybe music licensing goes last, but if it hadn't worked out they would have at least had some re-editing to do.

Still have half of episode 2 to finish, but good start. In tone and in look so far, much closer to S2 than the other two--great. Chris Rock is totally credible. Not so sure about Jason Schwartzman, who's forever in danger (for me, anyway) of veering off into Max Fischer.

reviews for this are all over the place

Based on the full season? I'll have to wait and see.

We’re bothered by the negative reviews so far. Leaning towards “wait and see” if we add this to the watchlist (later seasons of Legion were amazingly unrewarding given the cast)