Fargo Season 5 Is Masterful, Magical, and Close-to-Home for Americans
The genre-bending anthology show that keeps on giving
Fargo is a TV show that’s followed an interesting path. Based on the 90s Coen Brothers classic of the same name, it proved for many the rare remake to outshine its source material. Before the end of the first season, it was clear that it brought enough new detail to the table for the story to be worth the revisit. Given the reign that a full season’s worth of content allows, it was a story that expanded meaningfully on nearly every feature that made the original movie great.
Upon the close of the first season, it was unclear what room this seemingly completed tale still had left to explore in seasons to follow. In a strange twist of fate, though, the show kept its name even as it veered dramatically into what can best be described as an anthology show. As with Portlandia and its Portland-centered satirical skits, each equipped with odd and unique characters, the only focal point that lingers between Fargo seasons is the Minnesota setting and the colloquial accents of the state’s inhabitants.
Unlike most anthology shows that start from scratch with each new episode, Fargo is one whose stories traffic in entire seasons. They’re given the proper time to fully and satisfyingly unfurl.
Without the potential for plot continuations beyond each season’s finale, every story Fargo has told since its first season has been expertly pointed toward a defined ending. The plots are equal parts poignant, meticulous, delicate, and driven. But where so many shows falter under the weight of indefinite futures, Fargo knows how to perfectly pace itself without ever overstaying its welcome. Its conclusions are marked by final — if a bit impressionistic — deadends.
The opening of each season gracefully sets the stage for its climax. The show is an emblem of the rifle above the fireplace that fires before the final act. But how it fires exactly is difficult to predict and the ensuing bombast beforehand is anything but formulaic. The series features its tropes, but finds almost uniformly clever ways of turning them on their heads. It oozes originality even as it forays into territory that feels familiar.
Fargo season five, perhaps more than any season before it, is one that’s rooted in a familiar world. And more specifically — a present, familiar America. The strife that Trump’s election wrought upon the country is apparent in the period depicted. And in Roy Tillman, we see a sheriff who pragmatizes where Trump bumbles. He’s intelligent, manipulative, commanding, and makes for one of the most impactful TV antagonists in recent memory. By keeping the characters so rooted in our modern world, directors and cinematographers Donald Murphy, Dana Gonzales, and Thomas Bezucha make this season a close-to-home watch for many Americans.
Its harrowing exploration of domestic abuse, too, makes the season personal for anyone whose life has ever been affected by that terrible sort of violence. At times, the depictions are brutal enough to elicit the inclusion of abuse hotlines at the episodes’ end.
Played by John Hamm, the Tillman character is an effective representation of the dangers that a more measured and diplomatic “Christian” leader than Trump could pose. He’s restrained and charismatic enough to be a respectable tyrant, but unmoored and erratic enough still to summon armed militants to do his bidding in Trumpian displays of despotism. Flanked by his son Gator, portrayed by the famed Stranger Things actor Joe Keery, the Tillman family is the spitting image of corruption.
Though Trump fails to make an appearance, he’s clearly referenced on numerous occasions. He’s a presence that looms over the entire season’s arc, and his speeches even serve as a backdrop in certain scenes. The lunacy of his armed backers, too, is a propulsive force behind the season’s plot. Tillman speaks in similar language to the former leader Americans know. He derides “Liberals” and the “Deep State” in a way they’ll almost invariably find familiar.
The acting throughout the show is stellar. From its opening seconds, Juno Temple provides a performance that shifts dynamically between extremes of emotion. From stoicism to rage, defeat, kindness, and ingenuity, she’s an impressively spastic on-screen presence. In moments, she’s a nurturing Minnesota mother, and in others, she’s a colossal force to be reckoned with.
One of Fargo’s great strengths lies in its writing. Throughout the show, there’s hardly an undeveloped character in sight. Even the few tropish roles have ways of surprising viewers.
Jennifer Jason Leigh exhibits a controlled megalomania that’s reminiscent of Game of Throne’s Cersei Lannister. There’s a magnetism to her brusque and clever cruelty. And when pitted against the season’s greater tyrant, the show has a wonderfully Westerosi way of getting viewers to root for established criminals.
Neither side is all good, and it’s in viewers’ struggle to pick favorites between these vividly flawed figures that the show finds its footing. It seems to borrow from greats like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, too, in its ability to craft such strangely likable villains. Fargo is a show that knows — in this day and age — nearly the worst mistake a hero or villain can make is to come across as stale.
One of the season’s most fascinating roles is the walking enigma that is Sam Spruell’s Ole Munch. Speaking exclusively in vagaries and metaphors, the questionably immortal, suspiciously magical murder machine is nothing if not memorable. His verbiage borrows plainly from another Game of Thrones character. But in Munch’s imposing, stilted demeanor, he soars high above the heights of Jaqen H’ghar. The third-person aphorisms they both communicate in are far better suited to Fargo’s malevolent mystery man.
But in his grim lack of expression, Spruell still helps to drive home some of the series’ most comedic moments. Fargo season 5 can be almost riotous at times, even while it cements itself as one of the most stressful and violent shows I’ve seen in recent years. Dave Foley’s portrayal of the inexplicably eyepatched lawyer, Danish Graves, and David Rysdahl’s Wayne Lyon also instill the season with a much-needed levity as the plot grows darker and darker.
By only halfway through the season, it grows so climactic that it leaves audiences wondering where it could possibly be headed next. And each new episode after that halfway marker elegantly provides a new answer to the question — culminating in a finale so bold and fiery that it’s hard to even look away from the screen. But once the victory bell sounds following the final battle, and viewers see the majority of the episode’s duration remaining, there’s a palpable confusion about what the concluding moments might still have in store.
But instead of trying to pack plot points into neat little boxes, it skirts around the defined and orderly ending that so many seek in their TV shows and movies. The denouement it settles on instead is a decidedly confounding one. It’s a delightfully oblique coda that still manages to strike a satisfying chord and leave an indelible smile on the faces of viewers.
I rewatched all five seasons of Fargo for those long nights when I was under the weather. Season 5 might be the best, but it's close. What a great show and what a remarkable review, Ben.