Bizarre, eccentric, enjoyable… “Fargo” returns in great shape for its season 5 on Canal+.
What is it about ?
A series of unexpected events throw Dorothy “Dot” Lyon back into a life she thought she had left behind. The North Dakota sheriff, Roy Tillman, who has been looking for him for a long time, calls on the enigmatic Ole Munch to find his trail. As her darkest secrets threaten to rise to the surface, this seemingly ordinary housewife tries to protect her loved ones from her past. Her unusual behavior attracting the attention of the authorities, Dot, cornered, could well show why you should never provoke a mother Lyon…
Fargo, season 5, a season written by Noah Hawley with Juno Temple, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Richa Moorjani…
Who is it with?
For this new season, Noah Hawley has decided to give the starring role to Juno Temple. The actress, confined to supporting roles for too long, is incredible in the skin of Dot. She is a heroine like we too rarely have the opportunity to see.
She faces Jon Hamm, also very impressive in the role of Sheriff Roy Tillman, an absolutely detestable man in every way. The two of them will play a game of cat and mouse, claws out. And Joe Keery (Steve from Stranger Things) plays Roy’s son, an indestructible violent moron.
It is also not without pleasure that we find Jennifer Jason Leigh who plays Dot’s billionaire, republican and misanthrope mother-in-law. She is detestable for the way she despises people but her character gains nuance throughout the episodes until she is irresistible at the very end. (We won’t tell you any more).
Finally, Sam Spruell plays a key character – and one of the best – of the season. You’ve probably already seen him somewhere (The Minesweepers, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Snow White and the Huntsman) without remembering his name, but from now on you will always associate him with the role of Ole Munch. This killer, which borrows a lot from that of No Country For Old Men, will certainly go down in the history of the series.
We also meet other actors who are less known but nevertheless all very good in their respective roles: David Rysdahl who plays Wayne Lyon, Dot’s somewhat simple-minded husband; Lamorne Morris in the role of Witt Farr, a police officer whose life Dot saves or Richa Moorjani in the role of Indira Olmstead, a police officer who investigates Dot’s kidnapping.
FX
It’s worth checking out ?
We haven’t seen an episode of Fargo since 2020 with season 4 carried by Chris Rock, Jessie Buckley, Jason Schwartzman and Ben Whishaw. While this one didn’t really get people talking about it, now season 5 is making a comeback with a bang, with what’s best on television. In the program ? (Very) dark humor, violence and a vitriolic portrait of Trumpist America.
If we love Fargo so much, it’s because Noah Hawley, its creator, was able to make it a series that is unlike any other. And this is confirmed with this new opus and its heroine, Dot Lyon.
Here is a happy housewife who sees her traumatic past resurface and unleash the tiger in her. And the tiger is not a metaphor. Because throughout the season, she will never stop trying to escape the awful Roy Tillman and deploying all necessary means.
Which essentially amounts to an unleashing of ingenious violence. Dot is not an ordinary TV heroine who fights like a karate champion. She’s a little bit of a good woman – 1m60 and 50kg all wet – who knows how to hurt effectively (or even permanently) with whatever comes to hand.
And if this inexhaustible energy is due to his temperament, it is above all the mother hen and the protective woman who reacts to the extent of the threat. This threat is Roy Tillman, a sheriff who does not respect the Constitution. A brutal evangelist, with a worldview dating from the Middle Ages, who does not hesitate to trigger a series of murders to have Dot kidnapped. It is he who sends the famous Ole Munch of whom we speak to you above.
FX
A scathing critique of archaic America
Tillman is also a barely exaggerated representation of this entire horde of Trumpist supporters, with archaic thinking, who are ready to mount a coup d’état, or even a civil war, to save an America, according to them, decadent that they see it wasting away before their eyes.
The only problem is that all these violent men have never dealt with someone as relentlessly resourceful as Dot. To put it simply, the first episode of this season essentially consists of an enjoyable remake of Mom, I Missed the Plane, but in a version not recommended for under 16s.
“He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing“, says her mother-in-law Lorraine (Jennifer Jason Leigh) with mixed admiration. Lorraine immediately shows her teeth. Imperious and cruelly disdainful, this CEO at the head of a debt collection company and who does not tolerates no weakness is at least as terrifying as Tillman’s awful jojos, if not more. We can imagine him having built his fortune during the subprime crisis, on the misery of the evicted, and with undisguised pleasure.
She doesn’t trust Dot, but doesn’t underestimate her either, especially when the latter growls in her face: “If you want to fight with me, you better sleep with both eyes open. Because no one takes what’s mine and lives.“
This season is pure chaos, but chaos that shows the slippery slope America is sliding down. But in Fargo, even if we laugh, we laugh! We are therefore treated to a gallery of colorful characters. Each episode is a pure delight, from start to finish!
Fargo season 5 from Monday January 18 at 9:10 p.m. on Canal+ with two episodes per week, also available on MyCanal.