The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
‘Fargo’ is coming back to FX, starring … Chris Rock
FX has also ordered ‘Sh gun,’ a limited series based on James Clavell’s novel
FX announced recently that it has ordered another edition of the acclaimed saga that was inspired by, but not beholden to, the 1996 Coen brothers film.
In other FX news, the network announced that it has ordered “Shogun,” a 10-episode period drama based on James Clavell’s best-selling novel. FX also has given the green light to “Devs,” a limited series about a young computer engineer (Sonoya Mizuno), who investigates the secretive development division of her employer, a cutting-edge tech company based in San Francisco, which she believes is behind the murder of her boyfriend. Nick Offerman also stars.
According to a media release issued at the Television Critics Association Press Tour, the fourth installment of “Fargo” will be set in 1950, at the end of two great American migrations — that of southern Europeans from countries like Italy, who came to the U.S. at the turn of the last century and settled in northern cities like New York, Chicago; and African-Americans who left the south in great numbers to escape Jim Crow and moved to those same cities.
It triggered “a collision of outsiders, all fighting for a piece of the American dream.
In Kansas City, Missouri, two criminal syndicates have struck an uneasy peace. One Italian, one African-American. Together they control an alternate economy — that
of exploitation, graft and drugs. … To cement their peace, the heads of both families have traded their eldest sons.”
Rock will play the head of one family, a man who — in order to prosper — has surrendered his oldest boy to his enemy, and who must in turn raise his son’s enemy as his own. It’s an uneasy peace, but profitable. And then the head of the Kansas City mafia goes into the hospital for routine surgery and dies. And everything changes.
“It’s a story of immigration and assimilation, and the things we do for money,” says FX. “And as always, a story of basically decent people who are probably in over their heads.”
Returning to the fold as creator/showrunner/ writer/director will be Noah Hawley, who has guided the previous three editions of “Fargo” to the screen.
The first installment of “Fargo,” which premiered in 2014, won three Emmy Awards, including outstanding miniseries, two Golden Globe Awards, including best miniseries or motion picture made for television, and a Peabody Award. The second installment received two Emmy Awards for outstanding cinematography for a limited series or movie and outstanding sound editing for a limited series, movie or special.
The third installment won an additional Emmy and Golden Globe Award. The first two installments were also honored as an AFI Television program of the year.