A lot of the time the most critically acclaimed dramas have a blisteringly good first season, but suffer something of a drop-off in season two as the show really starts trying to find its feet.
Not Fargo. As good as it was in its first season – and it was bloody excellent – it was somehow even better in season two.
More evenly balanced. Less focused on a singular “big bad” like season one did (with Billy Bob Thornton‘s outstandingly chilling turn as the devastating Lorne Malvo), and yet as intense and foreboding as ever, Fargo has somehow managed to take a concept that was largely scoffed at on paper (a TV adaptation of a Coen Brothers‘ classic? The NERVE) and turn it into easily one of the best shows on TV.
But its singular seasonal arcs lend itself a rather unique problem. Where does the next season go to when the old one wraps up?
In the case of Fargo‘s now announced third season, the answer to that is “Back to the Future.”
So whilst Season 1 was set in 2006, and Season 2 delved back all the way to 1979, the third season will push ahead on the timeline, with an official setting of 2010. Whilst it’ll still be 6 years in the past by the time it airs, it will remain the most “current” season of Fargo to date.
Even better still, there’s a fair-to-good chance the new season will retain at least one character from season one – along with the actor that portrayed them.
FX chief John Landgraf confirmed both the 2010 setting and the potential return during the Television Critic’s Association press tour over the weekend, stating that showrunner/series creator Noah Hawley has plans to bring back someone from the original shenanigans in Luverne, Minnesota.
“As far as I know, there is one [character returning]. That doesn’t mean [Hawley] might not change his mind and there might not be more.”
Given the spate of deaths in the first season, it’s thunderously unlikely that we’ll encounter Thornton’s Malvo or Martin Freeman‘s Lester Nygaard again.
But as for who’s still alive in Minnesota? If there’s any goddamned justice in this world it means we’ll be getting one more season with the freaking excellent Allison Tolman as Molly Solverson. Or at the very least, another year with the old man version of Lou Solverson, played with quiet confidence by Keith Carradine.
Just getting Colin Hanks back and no one else is simply unacceptable.
The third season of Fargo is due to hit screens later in the year.
Source: Entertainment Weekly.
