TV Review - Fargo: Season 4

Noah Hawley has gotten perhaps a bit too ambitious in this season. Strangely, after watching the first, three episodes, I still had no clue what the show was doing or where it was going. In the previous seasons, especially the first and second seasons, which were the best, Hawley was very clear about his characters and the direction they were going. By the fourth, I have somewhat of an idea, but it feels like there's a lot of going around in circles, instead of along one solid, cohesive path. If I were generous, I would say that Hawley was being epic and expansive. As a filmmaker goes along, that's always the impulse, to go bigger and bolder. Even though Hawley probably has a clear trajectory, this season felt aimless initially. Hawley crafts an interesting tableau of the 1950's and the Midwestern United States, of which this series is fascinated. It feels like an ensemble where we're following not one but many people in this world who are connected but often feel galaxies apart. Neither of whom are compelling by themselves or represent anything for which one can root.

Chris Rock (Grown Ups and Death at a Funeral) stars as Loy Cannon, an African-American gangster in Kansas City, Missouri in 1950. He's also the head of the black gangsters in that area. He's not the narrator of this story. He's not even arguably the main character. He's not where this story starts. He doesn't enter until 15 minutes in the first episode, but he's only sporadically seen in the episodes that follow. He seems like he's trying to grow his power, wealth or control, but, in order to exist in this area, he has to deal with the Italian mob.

Jason Schwartzman (Moonrise Kingdom and Rushmore) co-stars as Josto Fadda, a member of the Italian mob. He becomes the head of the mob after his father dies. Because of various reasons, they are those within his family that don't think he should be the leader. Some think he doesn't have the temperament, personality or wisdom to lead a crime family. One of those people includes Josto's brother, Gaetano Fadda, played by Salvatore Esposito (Gomorrah and My Big Gay Italian Wedding), a very macho and brutish man. However, Josto is at times unsure of himself. He also knows that his family has various enemies or those that would try to take power away from them. He has to juggle all of it. What's interesting though is that we see Josto experience bigotry and discrimination from people who are essentially racist against Italians.

Of course, there's racism against Loy and the black people in town, but it's not depicted as blatant as it is against the Italians. Some of that fuels Josto's desire to retaliate or get revenge against those who have offended or hurt him. Yet, the series doesn't really do enough in the first, few episodes to get me invested in Loy's ascension to power or his attempt to hold onto it. This is because the series diverts to another plot line that feels unrelated but is related.

Jessie Buckley (I'm Thinking of Ending Things and Wild Rose) also co-stars as Oraetta Mayflower, a nurse at a local hospital in Kansas City who is revealed to be an angel of death. There are certain patients at the hospital whom she is secretly murdering. At first, it might seem like she's euthanizing them, but that's not really the case. She's murdering people at the hospital. When the managers of the hospital notice her patients are dying, they fire her, but she's able to get another job at another hospital. However, the series doesn't really do much to make me care about her, as the series diverts to yet another plot line. Maybe it does in the most recent episodes, but at first she's just too much of a nut job.

Emyri Crutchfield plays Ethelrida Pearl Smutney, a 16-year-old black girl who isn't related to Loy or anyone in his gang. What connects "Ethel" to Loy is her parents possibly needing money, but the series keeps that at a distance from Ethel and thus the audience, given that Ethel is the narrator. We follow her home life, which consists of her black mother and her white stepfather, but, since we're kept at a distance from them and their plight, it's difficult to care about them either. Things get somewhat exciting when Ethel's maternal aunt arrives. Ethel's aunt is an escaped convict and she's being pursued.

What was great about the film Fargo (1996) on which this series was inspired was that it had a great policewoman character, a person for whom we could root. She was the positive force working against the criminal element. Hawley carried that idea into the first season of this series. He carried it into the second season but made a policeman and not a policewoman. That positive force was absent from the third season, which is why it felt further away from what the series felt like it was. This series has Timothy Olyphant (Santa Clarita Diet and Justified) who plays Dick Wickware aka Deafy, the cop or cop-like character who is pursuing Ethel's aunt. He's meant to be that positive force, but he's not introduced until the third episode and he feels more like a caricature or cartoon character that isn't supposed to be taken seriously. There was some comical parts to the cop played by Frances McDormand in the 1996 film but for sure you took her seriously. Deafy isn't a character to be taken seriously.

The 1996 film was directed by the Coen Brothers who have done the kind of neo-noir crime stories where there is no positive force or police characters. It's just criminals rising and falling, reaching for something high and often spiraling down to something low and then even lower. However, the Coen Brothers were typically more focused. They weren't as all over the place as this series feels.

TV-MA-LV.
Running Time: 1 hr.
Sundays at 10PM on FX.