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Positive:
155
Mixed:
19
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews
The TelegraphNov 22, 2023
Nov 21, 2023
Season 5 Review:
Dorothy’s story, about a woman fearful of her past as well as what might be coming for her in the immediate future, is unmistakably a Fargo story. But it artfully captures something new within that story: the palpable tension in a contemporary America where men with guns, badges, and cowboy hats think they make the rules, leaving smart, savvy women with no choice but to prove them wrong.
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Nov 21, 2023
Season 5 Review:
Temple, best known here for “Ted Lasso,” is terrific. .... Three-fifths of the way in, the story feels comparatively conventional, notwithstanding that medieval flashback. But with four hours left to go — two whole “Fargo” movies — there are certainly surprises ahead, twists around corners hidden behind corners. Things will probably get crazy, and I’m eager to see it.
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Nov 15, 2023
Season 5 Review:
Promises to be an entertaining, stylishly filmed one. It’s not going to be peak “Fargo,” at least based on the four (of 10) episodes made available for review, but it features a few dynamic performances, a nicely focused story line, some compelling action, and a turn by Jennifer Jason Leigh that is so excessive you’ll wonder if her acting tutor is Nicolas Cage.
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Oct 1, 2020
Season 4 Review:
By throwing caution to the frostbiting wind, rather than trudging over former glories, Hawley and co. give TV’s great snow swept saga quirkier characters that cover greater thematic ground. Is it a departure? And is that what makes it great? On both counts: oh yeaaah, you betcha.
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Sep 14, 2020
Sep 14, 2020
Season 4 Review:
It's a period drama featuring two dozen (or more) main and guest characters. Yet even with those moments in which Fargo loses track of who was supposed to be the story's heart or which narrative threads have the most urgency, when the show works — when its vision is realized entirely — very little on TV can compete.
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UPROXXApr 13, 2017
Season 3 Review:
There’s a palpable joy throughout, not only in the performances by actors like Thewlis and Winstead who play the more outgoing roles, but in the way that Hawley and his collaborators assemble the pieces. ... If the new season turns out to be a slightly diminished version of what came before, that’s still a pretty good place to be.
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Oct 12, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The story is muddier and more complex than last season’s, full of halfway nice and semi-awful people rather than the purely good and bad. Every episode starts with a ’70s jam and a jaunty split screen. The Midwestern accents are inconsistent and strange, but that only makes them funnier.
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Apr 15, 2014
Season 1 Review:
At times, however, Hawley goes a little too heavy on the quirk, and Thornton, who last regularly appeared on TV in the John Ritter political comedy “Hearts Afire” in the early 1990s, overly indulges in that smirk. Bits between mob enforcers Mr. Numbers (Adam Goldberg) and Mr. Wrench (Russell Harvard) also wear out their welcome. The overall quality of TV's Fargo is high.
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Apr 15, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The pilot can be alienating, and not in a good way. It's often too schematic, too obvious.... The next three episodes get incrementally weirder, stronger, and more original, to the point that you forget to measure this Fargo against its namesake, or against any of the Coens' masterworks, and simply enjoy the odd, sour, frightening, occasionally splendid thing in front of you.
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The Daily BeastNov 20, 2023
ColliderNov 9, 2023
Sep 23, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Fargo occasionally strains under the weight of what it’s attempting to accomplish: a lively examination of the history of different groups of Western European immigrants who have gradually been granted whiteness, and the many Black Americans, whose ancestors were brought here by force (and greed), but are now, as Doctor Senator puts it, a “part of this land, like the wind and the dirt.”
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Apr 18, 2017
Season 3 Review:
The show’s reputation continues to attract a variety of actors you wouldn’t necessarily put in a room together. Fortunately, McGregor underplays the dual role, avoiding caricature and subtly altering his Minnesota accent to suggest Ray and Emmit have had two completely different lives.
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Apr 18, 2017
Season 3 Review:
The season’s second episode signals that Hawley will probably make great use of the “Fargo” template. But three seasons in, it has to be more of a challenge to take similar characters, situations and sensibilities, all of which are narrowly defined, and make them feel completely fresh. For now, though, we’ll give Fargo the benefit of a very slight doubt.
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Sep 23, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Hawley’s writing is vivid, sardonic, smart, and brilliantly deadpan, in keeping with the tone of the original “Fargo” movie. His characterizations are deft, nicely nuanced and compelling, offering more than enough for the actors to work with. Danson feels a little out of place, but he may grow into his role. Culkin, Garrett, Smart, Plemons, Dunst and Donovan are outstanding.
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Apr 11, 2014
Season 1 Review:
At times, there are actual punch lines in the script and the show veers into "writerly" territory.... But make no mistake: You should overlook the shortcomings and enjoy the series on its own otherwise considerable merits, chief among them, of course, Billy Bob Thornton.
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Nov 22, 2023
Season 5 Review:
Later surprise-laden and richly complex scenes handily salvage Fargo’s fifth season after a ham-fisted start. That, and consistently remarkable performances at even the most shoddily written early moments, along with breathtaking action and bleak humor, show Hawley is still a TV visionary well suited to build on the Coen Brothers’ Fargo 1996 film legacy–even if he takes commendable big swings that occasionally miss.
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Sep 25, 2020
Season 4 Review:
I had no trouble watching nine hours of the new series at a sitting, except for the sitting. ... Because criminals dominate the action, the story seems not so much morally complex as unfocused, and because there are so many storylines competing for air, including one involving Jessie Buckley as a nurse with bad habits (and a Minnesota accent to honor the franchise), the show robs some promising characters of screen time.
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Apr 18, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Once we’re aware that’s coming, we can’t help but to expect it to happen. That puts the onus on Hawley and his writers to cook up an act so unexpected that it jolts us nevertheless. Whether initial crime of Season 3 fulfills that promise is debatable. The auxiliary circumstances and characters surrounding it, however, don’t initially hold enough tension to makes us salivate with anxiety for where this story will go next.
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Apr 14, 2017
Season 3 Review:
It’s a somewhat slower build--and there’s a seemingly non-sequitur prologue to wade through at the start--but eventually this Fargo premiere suggests reason for excitement for the new season. But then episode two comes along and also fails to ignite the addictive interest of past installments, so this year’s Fargo will require a wait-and-see approach.
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Apr 13, 2017
Season 3 Review:
In the early going, the third season of Fargo, which is set in 2010, offers a sprinkling of skillful characterization, dialogue, and production design without providing enough psychologically compelling components to balance out the largely dry and even perfunctory aspects of the drama. The elements viewers have come to expect are accounted for, as if by checklist.
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Apr 15, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The singular quality of the Coen Brothers' Fargo was the breathtaking, almost palpable tone it created by threading violence and wit through a staggeringly vapid Midwestern milieu. Fargo the series cannot recapture that fission, but it is enjoyable, funny, and, something TV rarely is, weird.
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