Fargo: Five Reasons To Tune In To Season 3

The all-new third chapter of FX‘s Fargo premieres Wednesday with a 90-minute opener at 10 PM (9 PM Central) that cannot be missed.

After a long hiatus, the critically-worshipped show is poised to capture a massive new audience hot on the heels of Legion –the new year’s freshest and closest-watched debut.

Returning fans of Fargo already know the first hour promises a gripping introduction that won’t be forgotten anytime soon. If you’ve managed to avoid this thriller sensation thus far, Wednesday’s premiere is your warmest invitation.

Set in 2010, the third installment of Fargo centers on “Emmit” and his slightly younger brother “Ray Stussy” (Ewan McGregor). Emmit, the Parking Lot King of Minnesota, sees himself as an American success story, whereas Ray is more of a cautionary tale. Forever living in his more successful brother’s shadow, Ray is a balding and pot-bellied parole officer with a huge chip on his shoulder about the hand he’s been dealt – and he blames his brother. Their sibling rivalry follows a twisted path that begins with petty theft but soon leads to murder, mobsters and cut-throat competitive bridge. Carrie Coon stars as “Gloria Burgle,” the steady chief of the local police department. A newly divorced mother, Gloria is trying to understand the new world around her, where people connect more intimately with their phones than with the people around them.Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as Ray’s girlfriend, “Nikki Swango,” a crafty and alluring recent parolee with a passion for competitive bridge. David Thewlis stars as “V.M. Varga,” a mysterious loner and true capitalist whose bosses plan to partner with Emmit, whether “The Parking Lot King” likes it or not.

Fargo hails from Executive Producers Noah Hawley (creator/showrunner/writer/director), Joel & Ethan Coen, Warren Littlefield and John Cameron. Fargo is produced by MGM Television and FX Productions, with MGM Television serving as the lead studio.

A New Spirit of Classic Crime

Born from the same “TRUE STORY” as Joel and Ethan Coen’s stone-froze film classic Fargo, Noah Hawley’s cable debut has told a progressively wilder tale while going great lengths to impress the beloved filmmakers’ naturally skeptical cult audience.

The third installment seems to look deeper into the nature of crime and crime fiction that inspired the Coens from their earliest days as filmmakers.

With the genre’s native appeal spawning subgenres in podcasts and television based in truth and fiction alike, Fargo‘s new chapter is a landmark in “crime” on screen thanks to the depth of the characters and strength of the cast.

It’s also the latest effort from the same humming empire that made Legion, currently the #2 user-rated tv series on ComicBook.com.

Hear No Evil

Everyone knows the right soundtrack makes any situation tolerable. If you live in an inhospitable tundra, it’s natural to keep singing even when the speakers are unplugged.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s Fargo planted its flag in unwitting minds with the infamous “musicality” of its characters’ accents and has been parodied countless times since.

A fluent speaker of so-called “Minnesota nice” makes a continuous apology for opening his or her mouth via the sing-song accent. But each person’s idiosyncratic speech is his or her way of revealing how to survive in the cold.

Emmit and Ray Stussy — the two brothers both played by screen icon Ewan McGregor — speak with an appropriate similarity, but their subtle differences are drawn out by their alternate fortunes. In Emmit’s case, we hear what it sounds like when an “apologizing” accent has to address an audience at length, and it isn’t pretty.

Fargo for the True Era

The truly heightened setting of Fargo always places its contemporary viewers a few steps removed, using the benefit of hindsight to a recently past era to underscore how much has changed since.

This year’s new chapter of Fargo is the closest the series or film has come to using the parlance of its own time, giving it a new profundity in a century that’s taken a few unexpected turns.

The way we communicate is our adaptation to the avenues of communication available to us. The mountains and waters that could keep two speakers from hearing each other in 1980 or 2008 are no obstacle in this “true” era.

24-hour long-distance communication brings family and strangers alike together but can continue to upset a society’s old order until “order” loses its meaning. Families struggle to hear each other amongst the chatter, and some of Fargo‘s new heroes may have to go external.

Nikki Swango

Nikki Swango, a parolee who threatens the established powerhouse partnerships of Midwestern competitive bridge with her passion for observation, is going places.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (10 Cloverfield Lane, BrainDead) has already cast a distinct career as a lead actress by bringing depth and meaning to almost impossible roles (like a “ninja delivery girl” first seen in a dream in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). As Nikki Swango, she’s the kind of dynamic and cunning accelerator who isn’t afraid to sign her name before setting the terms of the deal.

Contract bridge, one of the most tactically-complex card games ever devised, is the only officially recognized “mind sport” by the International Olympic Committee besides chess. A skilled player like Nikki makes calculations with every card played that a supercomputer could agonize over for weeks, or longer.

Nikki knows that standing out makes it easier for her friends to blend in. A 10-hour Fargo story naturally allows all cast members to create characters around their unique talents, but letting Winstead loose makes Nikki Swango possibly the boldest Minnesotan yet.

You’ll Get Lost

When Joel and Ethan Coen created Fargo — a highly specific tale of Minnesota families that became a strange kind of mainstream sensation — the story was a “TRUE” one, even though it was a pure creation of fiction.

While we praise entertainment for its “escapist” qualities, the most powerful creations show us the characters’ failures and how they could come out better on the other side. A Fargo saga has a center in the rare officer of the law who just wants to do what’s right.

Carrie Coon (fast-rising star of HBO’s The Leftovers and prior Tony Award nominee) makes Gloria Burgle the most humanly identifiable officer in Fargo yet, as she seems to have found that life outside of the police force is a truly open plain of confusion.

Ambitious films and stories have declared themselves to be recollections of history since a long time ago in galaxies far away, but only Fargo uses an actual “logic” of continuous reality.

Over each of its ten hours, more happens in a chapter of FX’s Fargo than any fictional story being told today. That means you’ll want to watch it again and again. Real lives have roads untaken, and the conclusions are more chilling the farther we stray from the path.

— Zach Ellin is a freelance feature writer for ComicBook.com. Follow him on Twitter for more of his insights on Fargo and other projects. 

MORE FARGO NEWS: ·Kirsten Dunst Engaged To Fargo Costar Jesse Plemons
·Harry Potter Star David Thewlis Joins Cast of Fargo For Third Season
·Fargo Season 3 Adds 10 Cloverfield Lane Star Mary Elizabeth Winstead