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

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)

I think it's really good, but the story is much bigger than they've ever done before so I'm curious to see how all these multiple strands pull together. I'm relatively confident they will because Hawley is a better writer and show runner than Ryan Murphy (who similarly does shows with too many plot strands, but has a tendency to just leave them after a few episodes because he's bored). Performances are all really good except for Andrew Bird who seems like Andrew Bird.

(I doubt any reviews are based on the full season, this is released week by week; usually reviewers are only given a few episodes for shows like that)

Old timey Chris rock seems like no

we've seen the first two episodes so far, and while we have liked it, it's going pretty heavy on the quirk and hasn't clarified connections yet.

"Old timey Chris rock seems like no" did you watch the show? I'm not sure what constitutes "old timey" to you, it's set in 1950.

(I doubt any reviews are based on the full season, this is released week by week; usually reviewers are only given a few episodes for shows like that)

critics have seen 9 episodes

The character that puzzles me so far--how she's central to the narrative--is the nurse.

yeah. currently just a psycho.

it's set in 1950

Into the timeline of the Atomic Age, but not quite into the Space Age.

the nurse is already central to the narrative, she literally connects the gangster plot to the funeral home plot

yeah, but that's purely functional. I assume given the amount of time we have spent with her she will amount to more than a mere bridge.

Yeah--whatever deeper connection there is. She made me think of this famous case in Ontario, Susan Nelles (case dismissed).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_hospital_baby_deaths

Three episodes in and I'm enjoying it, but fr what is up with all the fart jokes

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ff/d6/e7/ffd6e7d7f23d2f6ed32a86c7097e130e.jpg

fart-go

i'm enjoying it, but it feels like every character and plot in the show is more interesting than the chris rock/jason schwartzman gang showdown plotline, so i hope they add some more weirdness to the story through the season. chris rock is fine but so far they're clearly protecting him by not giving him much heavy acting to do. schwartzman doesn't seem to fit into his part. i really like the sociopathic nurse, everything going on at the funeral home, and whoever plays doctor senator. i'm also really enjoying the italian brother, who is completely chewing the scenery but at least brings some energy to the show.

lol my wife asked me during the last episode if the Italian brother was supposed to be so hammy.

I remember the actor who plays Doctor Senator from his role as a high school science teacher in Gremlins!

The Italian brother and his googly eyes! At first I thought it would be better if they ditched the stunt casting and just had great character actors, but it clearly seems to be going for a mix of gravity and wackiness/schlock (in a different way than previous seasons).

Chris Rock is doing a pretty decent job of not being Chris Rock, Schwartzman can only Schwartzman but I'm not really mad at it.