Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Episodes: 10
Duration: 54 min (per episode)
Fargo: Season 3 (DVD) – Series Review
What’s fun about Fargo, is that each season has a totally different story, with a totally different cast and is even set in a totally different period of time. That way, each season has a finished story, which is actually a nice change from many series we see nowadays. Still, there are some similarities between the seasons of course, as it could hardly be called a series otherwise. The protagonist, for example, is always a bit of a nitwit who accidentally finds himself in a precarious situation, and the ‘bad guy’ always has some kind of mystery hanging around him. In season three, these characters are Ray and Emmit Stussy, and V.M. Varga as the bad guy.
Emmit Stussy (Ewan McGregor) and his wife are celebrating their wedding anniversary with friends and family at their home in Eden Valley, Minnesota, when Emmit’s brother Ray (Ewan McGregor) asks him for money. Ray is a parole officer who fell in love with one of his parolees, Nikki Swango (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). He wants to marry her, and wants to buy her a fantastic ring. While Ray is only a parole officer, Emmit, together with his friend Sy Feltz (Michael Stuhlbarg), became ‘the parking lot king of Minnesota’, earning him quite a lot of cash. Emmit refuses to give Ray the money, but Ray is convinced he is entitled to the money, as Emmit unrightfully sold their late father’s valuable stamp collection. Emmit won’t budge though, and thus Ray decides to call in the help of another one of his parolees. He pays Maurice LeFay (Scoot McNairy) to break into his brother’s home and steal the last stamp of the collection, so he can sell it himself and buy Nikki a ring. LeFay enters the wrong home though, and kills an old, innocent man. Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon), the police chief of Eden Valley, opens an investigation. For Ray, it’s becoming a web he desperately needs to get out of, but he just keeps getting more and more stuck.
Meanwhile, Emmit and Sy suffer their own problems as well. In order for their business to grow, they leant a whole lot of money last year from a source they trusted, but now that the time has come to pay this mysterious source back, the trouble begins. V.M. Varga (David Thewlis) comes into their office one day, saying that they can keep the money they lent, but that he will have his office there from now on, as he claims he owns part of the company now. Sy and Emmit want nothing more than just to pay the man back his money, but no matter how hard they try, Varga is only interested in staying, and slowly but surely works his way into the company. It’s all shady business, but this Varga guy doesn’t shy back from anything it seems, thus Emmit and Sy are at a loss as to how to get rid of him.
Fargo has never been a series for the fainthearted, and season three is no different, as you will still get treated to quite a lot of intrigue and murder. As we’re used to by now from this series, the story is well built up, and the violence both physically and mentally, makes for some haunting scenes. Sometimes, the images may be a bit brutal, but it fits in with the story, and no murder is ever done without a reason, which makes the story more believable. The story actually begins with a series of unfortunate events, making for the big mess Ray and Nikki find themselves in, but also the (maybe even bigger) mess that Emmit and Sy are in. Both storylines are quite different, yet still connected. Adding in Gloria Burgle’s angle, you’ve got three points of view to a story that becomes one big whole, and that’s exactly what keeps this show interesting from start to finish.
We all knew that Ewan McGregor is a great actor, with roles in films like Trainspotting and Moulin Rouge. Apparently, he was up for a new challenge, as in Fargo’s season three, he plays not one, but two characters. The brothers Ray and Emmit look quite similar, but thanks to a great makeup team, they do have their differences in appearance. They are quite different in character as well, and McGregor really does a splendid job portraying them both: Emmit, the wealthy brother who owns a booming business, and Ray, the probation officer who has virtually nothing.
This season comes with quite a lot of extras, be them al quite short. Most of them revolve around a certain character or a certain scene, giving you a bit more information on what the point of view was, how they managed to put it all together, where the inspiration came from etc. There were no deleted scenes or anything of the sort, but all in all, we found the special features quite satisfying.
Conclusion
Fargo: Season 3 shows a story that is well built up, well thought out and well played. It’s certainly not a light story, and thus probably not everyone’s cup of tea, but for those of you who like good intrigue, this is certainly worth the watch. Great story, great acting and a proper ending, it’s all a good series needs.
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