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Positive:
155
Mixed:
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Negative:
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Critic Reviews
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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Sep 24, 2020
Season 4 Review:
There are so very many good and great things to point to — characters whose evil is a thing of warped beauty, plots that balance thrillingly on contingency and bad timing, dialogue whose comedy is cloaked in murderous intention and gluttony, resonant cinematography that speaks of a grimly Disunited States — I don’t know which one to start with. Series creator Noah Hawley has come up with yet another ambitious, dazzling, and entertaining season of his Coen brothers-based anthology series.
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Apr 18, 2017
Season 3 Review:
I just may need to put the show at the top of this year’s list, too. It’s as confidently filmed as season 2, with witty musical choices and a falling-air-conditioner-cam, and the plotting promises all kinds of the cosmic surprises that have become a “Fargo” trademark. And then the script is a model of tonal elasticity and a gift bag of twisted and comic pieces of wisdom.
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Apr 19, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Giving McGregor two roles seems at first like an oddball casting choice for a show that doesn’t need any more weirdness. Two episodes aren’t enough to say whether it is justified as more than Emmy bait for McGregor. Of the two roles, he seems more convincing as Ray. Thewlis oozes menace and charm as a mobster who has seen the world. ... Pack light. Fargo moves fast.
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Oct 12, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Every performer here brings his or her A-game, and the little nods to the day--such as the chatter about a seminar that will help “actualize” the attendees or the salesman who believes that the electric typewriter represents an unparalleled technological revolution--are both striking and sad.... Fargo is terrific.
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Apr 15, 2014
Sep 24, 2020
Season 4 Review:
“Fargo” feels utterly of its time and place. The dialogue is stylized and clever. ... Every episode contains stunning, elaborately choreographed scenes worthy of a major feature film. This is one of the best-looking series of the year, featuring some of the strongest performances of the year from more than a dozen of our finest actors.
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Apr 17, 2017
Season 3 Review:
The hallmarks of a Hawley show are wonderfully offbeat yet endlessly intriguing characters, boldly innovative visual flourishes, a somewhat antic sense of humor, marvelously textured universes, compelling performances and whip-smart writing. Are all of these elements to be found in the immediately riveting third-season opener of Fargo? Oh heck yah, youbetcha.
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Nov 21, 2023
Season 5 Review:
To the extent the latest version delivers a modest kick from its trademark mix of deadpan humor and explosive violence, is it possible to enjoy this season (six of the 10 were made available) strictly on its terms? You betcha. Thus far, though, this feels like a case of an established formula gradually yielding diminishing returns.
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ColliderNov 9, 2023
ColliderSep 14, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Hawley is a creator who loves images, ideas, and words, and not a single episode watched for review (FX provided the first nine) lacks for an unforgettable camera shot, a haunting character choice, or a line of dialogue so weird and wonderful it could only be Fargo. And in a year when pretty much everything feels coated with a layer of tarnish, perhaps it’s right that Year 4 is a season where heroes feel very hard to find.
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ColliderApr 10, 2017
Season 3 Review:
More than anything, though, Fargo’s collection of stellar actors again this year makes every scene a delight to watch. Coon is staid and inscrutable, Winstead is electric and seductive, McGregor finds likability and venerability for this characters in ways we wouldn’t expect, and so forth. It’s a showcase that, matched with the show’s sly humor, produces exceptional television.
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Oct 9, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Despite its endlessly flat landscape, FX's Fargo is elevated by the most spellbinding direction of any drama currently on TV. Season 2 achieves new heights, thanks to writer-director Noah Hawley. The music is exaggeratedly dramatic, and the split-screen device is a throwback to early TV and film's bold experimentation.
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Sep 14, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Earlier iterations of Fargo drew a lot of their power from a wide ensemble of curious people. Here, every introductory quirk is immediately annoying. ... It doesn’t help that, as the two characters with most prominence on their respective sides, Schwartzman and Rock are giving two flavors of bad performance.
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Apr 9, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The dark absurdist tone doesn't land quite as cleanly as in the film, and there's the enormous absence of goddess Frances McDormand, who brought such great plainspoken heart to the movie's otherwise bleak landscape.... But do keep watching, because the show boasts unique and satisfying hooks.
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IndieWireSep 14, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Season 4 may not go down as the best year of “Fargo.” The structure lurches a bit, episode to episode, and the cast can’t collectively hit the highs of prior seasons’ players. (In part because they’re not asked to, given the dour tone.) But Hawley’s choice to evolve beyond his established structure is as necessary as it is invigorating.
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IndieWireOct 9, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The most important thing about what's before us is that Fargo remains a risk-taker. Between Ronald Reagan and moments lifted straight out of "The X-Files," it's a show that is having fun, while also being real about the costs of having fun, while living outside the law.
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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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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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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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Sep 24, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Season four of Fargo isn’t interested in subtext unless it can be turned into text, underlined and boldfaced, with directional arrows. ... Anachronisms sink otherwise serviceable exchanges (the Twitter-certified warning “slow your roll” shows up twice), and lit’ry word-clots fail to translate from page to screen.
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Apr 19, 2017
Season 3 Review:
Even if some of the characters seem familiar or we recognize some of the narrative beats before they’re hit, we know from the very moment it begins that Fargo once again has a great, big story to tell us, and that means it’s time to settle in for the ride, wherever that old “Ace Hole” Corvette may take us.
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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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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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Nov 21, 2023
Season 5 Review:
Despite this laundry list of great characters, what differentiates this season from the last is that the writers are telling a more intimate story. It’s ridiculous in several facets, but the absurdity has a way of contributing to, not detracting from, that intimacy. The characters become more riveting with each twist.
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Apr 11, 2014
Season 1 Review:
A larger, wholly engrossing story about crime syndicates and hit men. [21 Apr 2014, p.43]
Oct 12, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The second season of Fargo is just as fantastic as the first. And viewers who didn't catch the first season can easily slide into the second. Some nuances will be lost, but those are minor compared to how good this series is.... Hawley and his writers' greatest strength is incredible control of tone and atmosphere.
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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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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 15, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Hawley’s film noir plot is reasonably Coen-esque in its twists and misunderstandings and character-motivated actions. But it can’t match the extremely particular style of the inimitable and unpredictable Coens, a target Hawley apparently chose for himself and misses by a country mile.
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RogerEbert.comSep 23, 2020
Season 4 Review:
This latest “Fargo” installment suffers from too much muchness. There are isolated scenes of excellent melodrama, some thoughtfully pointed questions about the decay of the American dream, and a few standout performances. ... But with more characters than backstory, some particularly predictable turns, and a certain simplistic approach to its questions about race, this fourth season of “Fargo” sometimes feels like a tornado: all bluster and destruction, but with hollow emptiness at its core.
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RogerEbert.comOct 8, 2015
Season 2 Review:
This is confident, clever, fantastic television. It doesn’t have a trio of characters as instantly vibrant as the three at the core of season one, and it doesn’t have a premiere episode that will make jaws drop like last time around, but the first four episodes develop into something remarkable of their own, again thematically referencing back to the last trip to the snowy North, but in its own, mesmerizing way.
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RogerEbert.comApr 10, 2014
Season 1 Review:
With an amazing ensemble driven by great performances from top to bottom, an incredibly smart writers’ room, brilliant callbacks to the original that feel more inspired than forced, and a filmmaking style that feels as cinematic as this grand Minnesotan tragedy deserves, Fargo is one of the most addictive new shows of the year.
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Sep 14, 2020
Sep 28, 2020
Season 4 Review:
Previous seasons of "Fargo" achieve a balance between quotable dialogue and surprising action. That former features much more heavily than the latter in this season that slow-walks the narrative toward inevitable death and violence. If you have an ear for logorrhea and a hankering for quirk, these new "Fargo" episodes should deliver satisfaction. If that previous sentence made you roll your eyes or curse its writer, save your televisual peregrinating for another title. (To put it more simply, you can let this one pass.)
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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 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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Apr 18, 2017
Season 3 Review:
In some ways, this season of Fargo checks all of the boxes of its precedent seasons: the down-on-his-luck schlub with a surprise knack for crime; the sly yet intoxicating evil force; the righteous, morally sound cop; and the absurd, easily avoidable crime that sets everything into motion. What sets the season apart is its comparatively small cast of players.
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Nov 22, 2023
Season 5 Review:
It’s much easier to emulate the arch performance style of the Coens’ movies than it is to convey a sense of the character beneath the quirks, and Temple never gives a sense of who Dot is at her core, even when it turns out later in the season that there are many more shoes left to drop. Leigh too seems overdirected, all nasal consonants and power-suit scowls. Hamm strikes a more effective balance. .... Hawley is disinclined or perhaps incapable of replicating their [the Coens'] self-effacing charm.
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Sep 24, 2020
Season 4 Review:
This is a highly professional endeavor, and there’s nothing (too) embarrassing happening here. The show’s self-seriousness leans toward the dull more than the ridiculous, although some ridiculousness would be more fun. It doesn’t help that Rock, who has described this as the best part he’s “ever, ever, ever” had, is in such single-mindedly dramatic mode that he does not bring any looseness or lightness to his role
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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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