Yeah....I have nothing against Chris Rock but I don't like to see him in this role. In fact I don't like to see him in any role.
Boring, without direction or concrete plot and devoid of any higher meaning, this season is just boom - boom, bang - bang, gangsters killing gangsters, vying for control of whatever. No one cares. Also includes: badly performed Italian language and a duo of romantically involved bandit ladies that murder a bunch of police officers and innocent people at a station. What are we even watching here?
Season 4 of Fargo is a terrible season of television, with every single episode being poor or worse. Stay clear from this failure.
Average Episode Rating: 2.9 (Terrible)
This season was very pointless.
I was pretty into the first few episodes, but by the end I was struggling to find a reason to care. The "everyone kinda dies randomly" thing is common enough in Coen Brothers movies, but It didn't feel earned here. I liked Chris Rock in his role & Jason Schwartzman did ok (that character's a bit too silly for the tone of the rest of the show, tho, Imo), but very few of the other characters stood out. There's also like 3 different 'The Joker's in this show? I guess there's been 1 in each of the previous seasons, but at least those characters were really crucial to the events of their season, in S4, the Nurse, the Brother and the Mormon felt secondary in each of their stories...
Maybe Legion has pushed Noah Hawley in a Style Over Substance direction? But this season more than the previous ones didn't really feel like a Coen Brothers movie anymore. It didn't quite feel like a capital-G Ganster thing either, tho, so it didn't scratch either itch very well.
This is a minor review of the fourth year.
Ok, so my ranking of the seasons definitely has to be: 2,1,4,3
This was definitely the messiest season of the series. The only reason I put it ahead of 3 is because the characters were a lot more colorful and the scope was grander. This was the most ambitious season of Fargo but it failed in meeting up with all of its expectations. The biggest of those expectations was Chris Rock as the lead. Rock did his part, he's great, however Noah Hawley failed to write a great adversary in Loy Cannon, making the character the greatest missed opportunity of the whole series. In the episode after Doctor Senator's death Loy is beating one of his cronies with his belt and crying over the loss of his mentor, this felt a lot like Vince Vaughn pulling the teeth out of a gangster in True Detective S2. I'm not saying this was bad like the second season of that HBO series, but in terms of falling into the trap of trying to prove a comedic actor can be serious, Fargo unfortunately fell into it. Then there's Loy being a good guy who hires two robbers to do some of his dirty work because he's just that cool of a guy, sorry, but the character of Loy is definitely Frank Semyon 2.0 but with better lines.
Also, the two first episodes felt foreign to the series. We don't get the famous theme music instead we see a history lesson which was great but its tone and aesthetic didn't channel what was shown in seasons 1-3, which if watched out of order, you could still say: "Hey, that feels like Fargo!" This could be due to Noah Hawley always attempting to pay homage to certain Coen Brother films, except he should know something like No Country for Old Men isn't in the same universe as let's say Raising Arizona. S2 for example used plenty of cues from Miller's Crossing but did so in a way that still felt like it was in the same world as the first installment. We also didn't see any snow throughout the series, and although global warming may be a reason for this, it added to the detached effect. Think of Breaking Bad being set in Brooklyn for its fourth season. It would be weird!
The 1950s gangster setting was a treat and seeing comedic actors like Rock and Jason Schwartzman felt epic in a Fargo sense but some characters could've been saved for future seasons. I think Odis and Deafy would've made a great duo for a different year (though it's great that Hawley ignored using a cop as the hero this season due to the unfortunate travesties that occurred throughout the year). Even Swanee and Zelmare felt like they could be the leads of a season rather than supporting characters. The tension between the two families and Ethelrida being our narrator made it enough for a season. The packed amount of characters also tainted the pacing, the death of Doctor Senator could've been emotional but he wasn't on screen enough to make it sad. And it even got messier once Odis kills both Swanee and Deafy and the penultimate episode having him get offed pretty quickly. It got messy.
Come Emmy season I think the costume design for this series deserves the biggest award. Each character felt so distinct due to their fashion. Performance wise, I didn't find Rock to be that big of a presence and seeing folks like Ethan Hawke in The Good Lord Bird and some of the leads in Small Axe, it's gonna be difficult for Rock to get in. He should be happy that the series got delayed since he wouldn't have lasted a chance against this year's nominees. Jessie Buckley however might've been the most memorable adversary this year (another thing missing is that I didn't get a villain as memorable and likable as V.M. Varga or Mike Milligan). This has been Buckley's year and I could totally see her taking away a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the villainous Nurse Mayflower. People can make the argument for Gaetano but he felt like Dodd 2.0, someone who's trying to prove their intimidating.
All in all, I enjoyed tuning in every Sunday for this and it's in no way awful like let's say True Detective S2, it's just messy. This may only be an honorable mention in my best of the year list, there was a lot of great TV this year and this did contain plenty of excellent moments but in no ways did it match the excellent storytelling in its first two seasons. Anyways, I do hope Noah Hawley does a fifth season. Like one of the less stellar seasons of The Sopranos (2 or 5), it may be flawed but it's better than everything else on TV.
I rated the show a 9 after the first season. S2 and S3 were to the same excellent level. S4 however, is a mess. Clearly some elements of the first 3 seasons are here, but like many apparently, Ireally did not care for the story and the characters. I watched it all, but it was a chore. On a side note, you get your mandatory dose of "diversity and inclusion" as we have come to expect from Hollywood, with clearly some minorities being added for the sake of. It's probably not what kills the season, but it is never a good sign when a series puts political agenda forward.
The Fargo-spirit is weak in this one and it just feels like a basic run of the mill gangster drama.
Whereas true Fargo had characters that where just over the top for comedic effect here we see characters that are so severely overplaying that they feel cartoonish, yet the dark humour of the previous seasons is completely lost.
Without a doubt the worst of the seasons and they have strayed so far from the franchise now they should frankly just stop.
If you liked the previous seasons of Fargo, you should like this one. It's not the best of the four seasons (definitely the weakest), but it is very good.
The final episode is a bit of a mess, but it wraps it up.
The final scene during the closing credits is a "WTF was that?" moment. I'll give it an 8.5/10
Yep. Definitely a large step down from the first three seasons but still some great stuff throughout. Noah Hawley took a more overt approach to the show being about America this time around. A little TOO overt in my opinion. Episode 9 is a clear standout!
Skipping season 4 and heading for season 5 - it can’t be worse surely ?
If there was not 3 totally ninja seasons of Fargo before this, I doubt this would be made.
Skip this.
Season 4 is definitely the weakest one, but still a great season. this ain't that GOT S8 BS. don't expect the typical Cohen bro incompetently bumbling criminal formula. the acting is great in my opinion. Chris rock didn't take me out of it but the rest of the cast was insanely good! Glynn Thurman as doctor senator was A++ so was Jessie Buckley as nurse mayflower. Salvatore Esposito had some cartooney moments but I was down for that. 100% recommend
Season 4 doesn't have the same kinetic energy that the previous three seasons had, but it still coalesces into an engaging story by the finale. The themes weren't nearly as rich as in previous seasons, opting more for generic crime themes of dealmaking, betrayal, and violence. None of the characters reached the heights of my favorite character from any of the previous seasons, and plenty of the characters (all the Italians except Josto) I didn't like much. Buckley plays a crazy, frustrating character really well, Chris Rock is great as the lead, and I really appreciated Ethelrida as one of the only positive characters. Season 4 is definitely still quality TV, even if it's not at the heights the show has reached before.
Shout by ragreynoldsVIP 7BlockedParent2021-01-28T20:14:10Z
A boring, uninspiring season of television. Huge let down compared to previous seasons. Characters are not as interesting as they usually are, and the plot just doesn't hold up to the same standard that we're used to.