Fargo Should Have Left Fargo Behind

Maybe it’s apt that the two best films written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen each feature climactic scenes that are remixed as the two bookends of the recently concluded fifth season of FX’s Fargo. In the Coens’ Fargo and No Country for Old Men, a female character is confronted with an implacably evil man who refuses to see the brighter, simpler side of humanity that woman represents. In FX’s Fargo, creator and frequent writer Noah Hawley takes each of those scenes and attempts to shake up what those unforgettable moments mean. However, in doing so, he robs his own show of a more powerful opening and conclusion. It’s a shame, too, because the bulk of the new season — once Hawley sidesteps the aggressively obvious Easter eggs — is much more compelling than the references would portend.

Hawley is, of course, no stranger to riffing on different aspects and elements of the Coens’ filmography, from the first-season assassin (Billy Bob Thornton) recalling the strangely coiffed Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) in No Country for Old Men to the spineless, cowardly salesman (Martin Freeman) inspired by Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) in the film version of Fargo. Even someone with just a mild familiarity with Fargo the film, though, would recognize some of the key details of the opening of Fargo the show’s fifth season.

The officious Deputy Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) arrests housewife Dot Lyon (Juno Temple) after a school board meeting gone wrong, and though the circumstances are vastly different, Hawley’s script has Olmstead (unknowingly) quote the climax of Fargo the film. In that 1996 thriller, Sheriff Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) chides Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), who’s just been arrested after having murdered a handful of people, including his obnoxious accomplice. “There’s more to life than a little money, ya know. Don’t you know that? And here you are. And it’s a beautiful day,” she says almost wistfully.

Later in the premiere, there are other obvious connections from show to film. The housewife is married to a fast-talking car salesman who tries and fails to get customers to buy an unnecessary accessory known as TruCoat. Their only child is named Scotty. Most crucially, Dot is kidnapped by two men in her quaint suburban home, one of whom is as unnerving as Grimsrud and the other of whom is chattier and mustachioed, à la Grimsrud’s partner portrayed by Steve Buscemi.

It’s only when Hawley genuinely flips the script that the new season of Fargo becomes compelling. Dot may appear to be a hapless homemaker, but she’s able to evade capture by her abductors, leading to a violent gas-station shootout in which she proves herself to be very comfortable wielding a gun. We soon learn that her ability to mask hidden abilities is thanks to her past life as a teenage bride to a monstrous self-made politico, Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm). Her escape from the vengeful Tillman years ago led to the abduction in the season opener, and his later attempts to get back a woman he sees as his God-given property, not a person with agency.

Fargo ends its 10-episode fifth season with another bookend to a Coen classic, and is slightly worse for it. This new season is much more cut-and-dried, with a less deliberately convoluted story that wraps up about as happily as anything Coen-inspired ever could. Tillman tries and fails to encourage his fellow “patriots” to arm up against “the deep state” represented by teams of FBI and SWAT agents, and is arrested and wounded in the process. Dot escapes, returns home to her loving husband and child, and even becomes closer to her fierce mother-in-law (Jennifer Jason Leigh, previously a co-star in the Coens’ underrated The Hudsucker Proxy).

The ending is slightly bittersweet, seeing as the well-meaning and heroic state trooper Whit Farr (Lamorne Morris) was killed in the climactic battle, though both Olmstead (now working for Dot’s mother-in-law) and Dot pay their regards to his grave. All should be well, until Dot is surprised at home by the creepy man who led her failed abduction, Ole Munch (Sam Spruell). Earlier episodes made it clear that Ole was not the average hired hand, as both Tillman and his son Gator (Joe Keery) realized once Ole all but swore revenge on the younger man. (A 500-year-old flashback also implied what the finale makes plain: that Ole is a centuries-old sin eater, sustained by the misdeeds of others.)

Ole has arrived at Dot’s house, a year after having armed her at the Tillman ranch so she could take revenge on her misogynistic and violent ex-husband, to get “a pound” of flesh back. The ensuing conversation recalls the climax of No Country for Old Men, in which the kind but unlucky Carla Jean Moss (Kelly Macdonald) winds up in a room with the murderous and faux-philosophical Chigurh, who offers her the chance to call a coin flip. The idea is that she’d have a 50-50 chance of not being murdered by the unwavering Chigurh due to his baffling moral code, but she refuses. “The coin don’t have no say. It’s just you,” she pleads before he kills her offscreen.

Though he doesn’t flip a coin for Dot, Ole feels directly cut from the same cloth as the terrifying Chigurh. But where Carla Jean was only somewhat able to rouse Chigurh from his murderously philosophic bent after she refuses to call the coin flip, Dot pierces beyond Ole’s old-world ethos. Though he’s arrived to kill her, she and her family essentially wear Ole down, cheerfully and calmly encouraging him to help them prepare a homemade dinner of chili and biscuits. Once Ole eats the biscuits (“made with love,” as she says), he bursts into a huge smile as the familiar Carter Burwell score from Fargo the film blasts on the soundtrack and the season concludes.

Though that last image of Fargo’s fifth season may seem baffling considering where the season begins (with a slow-motion suburban brawl in a school auditorium), it’s just as hard to square with the Coens’ more cynical view on the world. Sheriff Marge from the original Fargo is perhaps their kindest character, living on with her husband Norm and their unborn child, but just about every other aspect of the film is intentionally quite bleak. It’s as much to Hawley’s credit as writer as it is to Temple, Moorjani, and the rest of the ensemble that the characters in this new season are compelling and well-drawn, even though it’s pretty straightforward how much we want them to survive or perish. But the strengths of this new season are when the Coen-based Easter eggs are either entirely absent or much harder to suss out.

One of the most prominent shifts is in the real-world connotations represented by Sheriff Tillman, whose proudly far-right-wing approach to his family and fiefdom in Stark County, North Dakota call to mind Ammon Bundy, the militia leader who led a fight against federal agents in the 2010s. (It’s no accident that when Tillman calls his “patriots” to arms, he name-checks Bundy by his first name.) It’s funny to see Jon Hamm sporting nipple rings (when Tillman calmly reveals his naked form to two FBI agents in an early installment), but he’s clearly relishing the chance to play an unquestionably nasty character who serves as a commentary on the cruelty of 21st-century misogyny. Temple is as charismatic here as she is on Ted Lasso, even as she portrays a vastly different type of modern woman, hiding an immense intellect behind a sunny, Minnesota-nice demeanor. (It’s worth noting that, just as was the case with Freeman in the first season, Temple’s American accent is extremely impressive.)

However, the way that the fifth season of Fargo opens and closes calls to mind not just two classic Coen films, but also a recurring sketch from Saturday Night Live from the 1990s, “The Chris Farley Show.” In that sketch, Farley (playing himself) would invite a pop-culture icon such as Martin Scorsese or Paul McCartney, and his questions would consist of repeating some of the most memorable moments of their careers before sweatily saying “...do you remember that? That was awesome.” Though Noah Hawley has been no stranger to referencing Fargo the film in past seasons of his TV adaptation, the “Chris Farley Show”-like nudges were perhaps no more emphatic than they were in the premiere and finale of this fifth season. Each season has quoted Burwell’s score and opened its installments with the tongue-in-cheek “This is a true story” caption, but even those seem like quaint bygones compared to such direct references that only heighten this show’s limitations. Even more than in past seasons, the actual truth is that Hawley’s much better served by moving beyond his inspirations instead of constantly rubbing our noses in those more accomplished pieces of work.

Josh Spiegel is a writer and critic who lives in Phoenix with his wife, two sons, and far too many cats. Follow him on Bluesky at @mousterpiece.