The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
‘Fargo’ creator reinvents show for second season
New batch of episodes takes place decades earlier
“Let’s do something different that feels exactly the same.”
As baffling as it might sound, that was the directive “Fargo” head writer Noah Hawley gave to himself and his team as they embarked on the second installment of FX’s sensational snowcapped crime anthology. But could they pull it off?
Based on the four episodes made available in advance to critics, our response is a hearty “You betcha.” A prequel of sorts, the latest version of “Fargo” that debuts at 10 p.m. Dec. 12 is a total creative reboot, with a stellar new cast, a new plot and a new time period — 1979, when a battle between two crime syndicates draws some regular folks into the crossfire.
And yet, much of it feels familiar. And riveting.
Once again, warm and neighborly Midwestern decency is juxtaposed with heinous acts of bloody mayhem against a bleak wintry landscape. There are the shrewdly observed rhythms of small-town life, the pathetic schemes that go horribly awry, the amusing deadpan dialogue and the dark absurdist tone — all of which had their roots in the masterful 1996 Coen brothers’ film, and were so beautifully distilled in last year’s acclaimed series.
If you’re still skeptical, I can’t blame you. After all, “True Detective” was a crime anthology that enjoyed lots of critical love in its first season, only to become a great big buzzkill in its second go-round. Wasn’t Hawley feeling pressure to avoid a similar fate?
“Well, there are two dumb ideas here,” he said, during a recent conversation in Beverly Hills. “The first was taking this beloved movie and trying to make a television series out of it. And then, when miraculously, it worked, the second idea was throwing it all out and starting again. So on some level, the pressure is eased, because what I’m doing is so crazy that I just hope I’m rewarded for taking the risk.”
What Hawley has concocted is a much bigger story — kind of an American epic — with many more moving parts. Set in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Luverne, Minnesota, it follows Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson), a young state trooper and Vietnam vet, as he investigates a grisly multiple murder.
The case, it seems, has ties to a local crime gang, a group of Kansas City mobsters, a young hairdresser named Peggy (Kirsten Dunst) and her husband, Ed (Jesse Plemons), a local butcher. As the story unfolds, Lou pieces things together with the help of Hank Larsson (Ted Danson), his father-in-law sheriff. Their investigation brings them into contact with a number of colorful and twisted characters played by, among others, Jean Smart, Jeffrey Donovan, Nick Offerman and Cristin Milioti.
At first, you may find yourself pining for Lorne Malvo, Lester Nygaard, Molly Solverson and other
indelible Season 1 standouts (we do meet the 6-year-old Molly), but eventually “Fargo” 2.0 wins you over with its terrific performances and a plot that keeps churning and twisting as it reveals curious new angles. And once again, the story is told with such vision and verve that it makes other shows feel like they’re just not trying hard enough.
In this new version, the time period plays a huge role, not only via its visual presentation (1970s-style split screens, freeze frames, etc.), but through the angsty mood that hangs over it.
“On some level it’s the polar opposite of our first year, set in 2006,” Hawley explains. “That was a boom time in America, pre-recession and crash. We were in Bemidji — a small sleepy town where nothing bad had ever happened to anybody. And into that world walked Lorne Malvo. And the idea was: Are we up to handling this challenge in this town that had been sleeping for so long?
“This is the opposite: This is the low point in modern American history — postVietnam, post-Watergate. It’s a moment where it feels like the soldiers returning from Vietnam brought the war home with them. You have these people who are looking at the world, and it doesn’t make any sense anymore. So, in this case, it’s not so much about our heroes in a bucolic setting trying to fight evil. It’s how do these people get their community back to the good times they remember?”
If it sounds like the people of “Fargo” — and the nation — could use a hero, be aware that the specter of Ronald Reagan hangs over the proceedings. There’s a wildly offbeat opening sequence referencing the Gipper that we won’t spoil here, and we’re told that he even makes a cameo appearance — as played by Bruce Campbell — in a future episode.
“I wanted to play with the idea that Americans, in 1979, are waiting for Reagan to arrive,” Hawley says. “They didn’t know they were waiting for Reagan, but it turned out that they were.”