Ty Watches "Fargo" Season Four Premier
I'm back after a day away. I had some personal stuff to deal with, some tough stuff, and I needed a day to just vent and cry with my wife and kids. But, it is all good now, and I am back. And I am back to talk about the new season of "Fargo".
We have made no secret, RD and I, how much we love the movie and love the show. It is one of the best portrayals, or continuation if you will, or a great movie turned television show. They took this classic movie, and have now made four seasons of some of the most watchable TV out there right now. I was particularly excited for this new season because I am a humongous Chris Rock fan, and I also really, really like Jason Schwartzman. When I saw that they were cast for this new installment, I was pumped. And they are wonderful on the show. This is the first, of four, that doesn't take place in North Dakota or Minnesota. This one is in Kansas City. There is a character from Minnesota in the new season, more on her in a minute, but this is all about the Midwest.
The way the show started off, there were two new episodes, almost three hours of material, and it was tremendous. We got a back story from a young African American student, expertly played by Emyri Crutchfield, about how mob families have come through Kansas City since the early 1900's. It was interesting and cool to see how it was run by one family, a Jewish family, and they made a deal with an Irish family. Then the Irish family takes over and makes a deal with an Italian family. In each one of these deals, a child is traded from family to family too, making it seem that much more ruthless and wild, that people were willing to give up kids to have control over a town and city. After the Italian family takes over, this is where we get the African American crew, led by Rock, coming in to form an alliance with them. When they make the trade off, this is where the show totally takes off. The stakes rise so very much because Rock and his crew are, not only well formed and ready to fight, they are smart too, smarter than any other mob family that has come through. After the trade of children, things get pretty wild. The Italian family loses their leader, mini spoiler alert, when an errant pellet hits an artery in his throat. This pushes Schwartzman to the front of the line. He becomes the leader. He seems ready, but he is also a bit hot headed and hostile. He seems like a bomb that is ready to explode. When he is in the hospital, watching over his father, we meet this crazy nurse who relocated to KC from Minnesota. Jessie Buckley plays the nurse, Nurse Mayflower, and she is crazy. She has been getting compared to Nurse Rathcet, but I think she may be more crazy, and also smarter. She is an evil genius essentially. Her arc over these two episodes was wild, and I am completely in for her journey. As for Schwartzman, he was good, like he always is, and I want to see where he goes from here. He had some great scenes in the first two episodes. Rock and crew were my absolute favorite part so far. Rock is the poised leader of the new mob that comes to town. He is pointed and careful and smart and knows what he is doing and how to do it. It is so cool to see him in a role like this. This is like the stuff he did early on in his career, like his role in "New Jack City", or more in tune with what he did on his own with a movie like "Top 5". Chris Rock is a good, adaptable actor, and roles like he has in "Fargo", and the aforementioned movies before prove that. His crew is also pretty great. Again, they follow his direction, and Doctor Senator, played by Glynn Turman, is a great second in line. Again, he is calm, but he also seems like he has a very, very dark side.
I have enjoyed every iteration that Noah Hawley and crew have done with the "Fargo" TV series, but this one feels different. This one feels like it could be a classic. This feels like this could be the season where everyone is talking about it years and years from now. It has the potential to be that good. I was enthralled, didn't look at my phone and watched with intense focus the whole time. That doesn't happen much anymore, but this fourth installment has my undivided attention. I cannot wait to see where they go from here.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.
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