SURREAL TIME
Take 5: ‘Fargo’ returns with a typically skewed look at the weird and absurd
The latest iteration of “Fargo” lives up to its four predecessors — awash in weirdness and an offbeat, off-kilter sensibility that imbues every facet of its 10-episode season set in Minnesota and North Dakota.
I’ve found that, when it comes to “Fargo,” it’s best not to think too hard about what you’re watching, to just sit back and enjoy the FX anthology series like a fine wine, savoring its flavor and, at times, its goofiness in the moment — to revel in its colorful gallery of oddball characters and quirky sensibilities courtesy of creator Noah Hawley.
Season 5 (Tuesdays at 10 p.m.) takes place in 2019 and revolves around Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (Juno Temple from “Ted Lasso”), a devoted wife and mother living in Scandia, Minn. She’s married to nebbishy Kia-dealership owner Wayne Lyon (David Rysdahl) and they’re parents to preteen daughter Scotty (Sienna King).
Dot and Wayne live modestly — their biggest problem an inability to afford a home alarm system — though Wayne hasn’t cut the cord from his domineering, insufferable mother, wealthy Lorraine Lyon (Jennifer Jason Leigh). She’s the CEO of a billion-dollar debt-collection service and lives in a nearby mansion while pulling the strings on her son’s life. Lorraine employs a full-time, indefatigable inhouse counsel, Danish Graves (Dave Foley), who sports a white eyepatch matching his white hair and mustache — delightful, spot-on “Fargo” flourishes, as is the huge painting of the word “No” in Lorraine’s office.
Meanwhile, in North Dakota, powerful, law-skirting Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm), he of the pierced nipples — first glimpsed as he sits “in moist repose” in his outdoor wooden hot tub — is still searching for his wife, Nadine, who disappeared 12 years earlier. He married her when she was 15 and she left him two years later, vanishing into thin air. Roy, who likes to quote the Bible, is remarried with two young daughters (and is into role-playing); he employs his doofus, self-conscious son, Gator (Joe Keery, “Stranger Things”), as deputy sheriff, though he’s inept at just about everything.
The plot kicks into high gear when Dot is kidnapped by two masked men she fights off ferociously (earning her the sobriquet of “Tiger,” apropos for a “Lyon”) and, in escaping their clutches, comes to the lifesaving aid of North Dakota state trooper Witt Farr (Lamorne Morris) in a convenience store before disappearing. Farr, in turn, joins forces with Scandia cop Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) to investigate the mysterious Dot … and away we go.
“Fargo” fans will revel in the ins and outs of this season’s arc, which include a flashback to Wales in the year 1522 (don’t ask), a hired killer named Ole Munch (Sam Spruell) with a bad haircut and ritualistic tendencies and, for mysterious reasons, prominently displayed drum sets in the homes of Dot and Olmstead — surreal flourishes that are the series’ stock-in-trade, not to mention sepia-toned cinematography and a soundtrack that includes Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “16 Tons” and Tiny Tim’s (!) rendition of Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe.”
The British-born Temple does a nice job of hiding her English accent under mountains of Minnesota-speak; it’s meant to sound cartoonish, and it is, but I’m sure that made it easier for Temple to just go with the flow and have fun without fear of sounding “unrealistic.” Hamm is solid as the imperturbable Roy Tillman, who’s linked to a local militia and won’t let the Constitution — or the hated state government — stand in his way. Rysdahl is fine as milquetoast husband Wayne Lyon and the unsmiling Leigh is deliciously evil in that malevolent, imperious mother kind of way.
This fifth season of “Fargo” is, by turns, funny, dramatic, violent, slapstick and frightening — everything fans of the series have come to expect. Dig in.