Fargo

Given that Fargo has always stood out, it is strange that it seems to be settling for blending in.

Fargo has always been more a triumph of style than substance, but here, the discrepancy is broader than ever.

Fargo still creates an absorbing, cinematic viewing experience, with painterly framing, pointedly deployed split-screen and arcane yet evocative needle drops. ... With such a crowded plot, it’s no wonder the show can’t maintain a consistent tone. ... Like this nation, the new season is a beautiful and ugly, inspiring and infuriating, a tragic and sometimes darkly hilarious mess. As frustrating as it often was to watch, I couldn’t look away.

At this point, even after three years between seasons, the Fargo model has gotten a little stale. Season 4 is feeling a bit like diminishing returns. Which is not to say the show is at all bad; it's still fun to watch and exceptionally well-made. It just doesn't feel as vital as it once did.

The new "Fargo" isn’t terrible — it’s loaded with talent, the story rolls along, there’s lots of nice dialogue. But it’s just not near as good or unique as the previous three seasons. Great shows breed great expectations.

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.)

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

Fargo is full of riches—decadent set pieces and fascinating visual choices—but they ornament a sparse narrative. ... Fargo isn’t bad. It tries to do so many things, and it kind of succeeds at a lot of them. But it serves too many masters to transcend the sum of its parts.

It’s a more ordinary show, a more mundanely plotted and “watchable” show (through the nine episodes available for review), with less of the strangeness and arch surrealism that didn’t always work but generally kept you engaged with the stories. Its oddities felt original in earlier seasons; here, they tend toward caricature. And cliché.

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.