The Big Picture

As Fargo enters its fifth season, it may no longer be considered a limited series, but it still has fun. While not every season of Fargo has been as good as its peak in Season 2, there are always enjoyable moments in the ensemble. The standout of Fargo’s fifth season is Juno Temple, who delivers perfect comedic timing, charm, and range, making a mostly engaging experience.

A particular joke has been making the rounds recently about whether a show like Fargo, a now rather expansive extension of the basically perfect 1996 film, can still be considered a limited series as it enters its fifth season. At this point, the answer is probably no, even as one can call it an anthology to get around such questions given that each new installment basically starts fresh. However, not every season has itself felt refreshing, even with a new cast of characters.

Some of this comes down to how Fargo peaked with the greatness of its second season, which boasted great performances across the board from Jesse Plemons to Zahn McClarnon, with the subsequent Season 3 and Season 4 not quite reaching those same heights. Still, there have always been at least some pleasures to be found in the ensemble and the way their lives end up intertwining in a typically explosive fashion. Like the show’s characters, it’s remained flawed yet often fascinating.

Fargo Release Date April 15, 2014 Cast Chris Rock, Jason Schwartzman, Ben Whishaw, Jack Huston, Gaetano Bruno Main Genre Action Genres Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery Rating TV-MA Seasons 5 Studio FX

What Is ‘Fargo’ Season 5 About?

The same can also be said of the show’s fifth season, which brings us right up to the modern setting of 2019 as trouble soon strikes Minnesota and North Dakota once again. At the center of this is Dorothy “Dot” Lyon, played by a wonderfully unhinged Juno Temple, who is having a rather rough week. This kicks off with a darkly absurd slow-motion fight at a community meeting for a fall festival that has spiraled out of control. This culminates with her “accidentally” using her Taser on multiple people, including a police officer, while trying to escape with her daughter and being arrested. Though she is later released, this ends up setting in motion a series of events that, without spoiling any of the precise reasons behind them, will involve the first of several different home invasions, a kidnapping followed by a shootout, and multiple escapes that Dot will then attempt to claim never happened in order to put it all behind her to go back to her quiet life. Of course, this is not so easily done.

There is plenty that is good fun over the course of the six episodes shared from the ten-episode season, but the best are those that involve Temple. While the rest of the cast includes Jon Hamm, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joe Keery, Lamorne Morris, Richa Moorjani, Sam Spruell, Lukas Gage, and more having a good time with the silliness that a series like Fargo provides, Temple is the highlight of the experience. Although the season is about buckling up for a new mystery, this ends up being less interesting on the whole than the sequences where she is at the center. Temple brings not only the perfect comedic timing to deliver some real zingers but also the necessary charm to ground the chaos that begins unfolding. For all the times the season pulls back to set other twists in motion and starts to drag, she will kick it up a notch when it needs to move. This season is also not likely to reach the heights of Fargo’s sophomore outing, as it can often feel a bit too bogged down in some of what almost feels oddly like extraneous subplots happening around her including when she nearly disappears entirely. Getting to see Temple hit the much-needed high notes from center stage is where it rings true.

‘Fargo’ Season 5 Boasts Strong Extended Set Pieces
Image via FX

While it would be a bridge too far to call this show an action romp, there are many parts to it that feel more kinetic than it has any business being. There is the aforementioned initial home invasion, where Dot must rely on what is at hand to defend herself, but the most effective bits involve the seemingly ordinary homemaker really leaning into her violent side. The standout fourth episode plays like an extended riff on Home Alone crossed with some of the iconography of The Nightmare Before Christmas. If this sounds goofy, it very much is, but there are also plenty of grim moments sprinkled throughout to give it more spark. Fargo has always been about interweaving violence with the everyday while its characters mostly try to keep up a cheery disposition as the world threatens to crumble around them. Season 5 might not be the most completely engaging in how it does this, but it still manages to mostly work when we see Temple take the wheel to drive the story in key moments.

One such scene actually comes after a more explosive sequence where there is an unexpected cost to the confrontation. It then falls on Temple’s shoulders to bring some genuine emotion and gravitas to the fallout. Not only does she do so with ease, but it proves to be just as much a gut punch as the preceding violence. That she can then give a great comedic performance in the subsequent episode, which again involves yet another escape, is a testament to her range as an actor. Even when the material she’s working with can feel a little hit-or-miss, especially when it often clumsily excises her from the experience for large stretches to focus on less compelling characters, all is forgiven whenever she takes hold of the scene. Though this so-called “limited” series may be getting long in the tooth, each and every moment that Temple sinks her teeth into ensures it still has bite. While Season 5 might not be Fargo at its best, it is through performances like hers that it comes close.

Rating: B

Fargo Season 5 premieres November 21 on FX and is available to stream the next day on Hulu in the U.S.

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