When Good Shows Go Bad

Fargo’s latest season is drowning in obviousness.

the fourth season of Fargo, about a gang war between Blacks and Italians in 1950 Kansas City, there comes a moment that sums up the show’s worst tendencies. In a dingy warehouse, Black gang boss Loy Cannon (Chris Rock) regales corrupt white cop Odis Weff (Jack Huston) with a story about a World War II infantry minesweeper who missed a mine and got an officer killed. “Boom!” Loy hollers. “They gotta send him home in a tureen!” Then Loy glances over his shoulder at his assembled henchmen and explains, “It’s a pot they put soup in.”

How does such a cringeworthy moment make it to air? Did an FX Network executive, Chris Rock, or Noah Hawley—Fargo’s showrunner as well as lead writer and director—worry that somebody might stop watching because of an unfamiliar word?

Or was this a “character note,” based on the assumption that