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Following an unexpected departure to Kansas City in season four, Noah Hawley’s offbeat crime anthology series, Fargo, returns to its spiritual home on the border between Minnesota and North Dakota. And oh you betcha it’s good to be back.
We begin with a signature blend of brutish violence and devilish humour. At a school board meeting a dispute about how best to raise funds for the library leads to actual blows. Caught in the carnage is Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (Juno Temple): a wholesome mother who spells out mild expletives, but apparently isn’t above kicking some a-s-s when needed. Lyon by name, lion by nature — but could she also be lyin’ about who she really is? Arrested after the riot, she’s noticeably wary of having her fingerprints go on file.
Sure enough, Dot’s suburban serenity is soon disturbed by the arrival of two kidnappers. On the way to an unknown destination, she grabs an opportunity to take out her captors in a way that suggests this isn’t her first, or likely her last, encounter with dangerous men. Back home after her escape, she begins booby-trapping the house — though not before making pancakes for her daughter and allaying her husband’s concerns about the blood in their hallway.
The show’s masterful, suspense-ratcheting approach to action sequences is matched by its assured writing and considered character work. Temple in particular deserves nothing short of critical reverence for a textured performance that increasingly reveals more of the identity Dot has hidden under a cosy blanket of “Minnesota nice”. In one standout moment, the shift from one persona to another occurs in a single breath as she warns her prying mother-in-law (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to “sleep with both eyes open” before letting out a cheery “anyhoo”.
Also excellent is Jon Hamm, who plays a diehard libertarian sheriff with unnerving conviction. Without wishing to give away too much, the cigar-chomping, hot tub-soaking Roy Tillman looms large in Dot’s story. But his slogan of “a hard man for hard times”, his sense of being above the law and his chauvinism ensure that the orange-hued shadow of another populist running for re-election hangs over the series.
★★★★☆
Episodes 1 & 2 on Prime Video in the UK and Hulu in the US. New episodes released weekly
