Fargo Season 5 is a Stinky Mess (Season Review)

Midway through the dumpster fire that is the most recent Fargo TV season, I decided to take a break from what’s often a decidedly not-at-all-fun watch and revisit the source material that’s now led to five seasons of television: 1996’s Coen Brothers-directed masterpiece, Fargo. While watching Fargo, I realized just how far the TV show has strayed, in both terms of tone and quality, from what’s a truly perfect film.

We’ll go over some of the main problems with Fargo Season 5 in the sections that follow, something that is often easiest do by comparing it to the original fake “true” story, the Fargo feature film.

**Spoilers for Fargo Season 5 below!**

Is a Colorful Cast of Characters a Recipe for Success?

The story of the movie, Fargo, is a pretty straightforward one. Where the film truly shines and differentiates itself from other crime dramas is its fantastic cast of characters. Our feature players include Jerry Lundergaard, a desperate for money sales manager working in a car dealership, a pair of kidnappers, one who’s a silent psychopath and another who’s a talkative “funny lookin’ fellow,” and, perhaps one of the best characters in cinema history, Marge Gunderson, a pregnant police chief.

Every character in the movie feels distinct and well-thought out. These are extremely interesting people we’re presented with and, as viewers, we’re enthralled in the plot they’ve found themselves wrapped up in. In the case of the movie, yes, a colorful cast of characters definitely is a recipe for success.

Season 5 of the Fargo TV show takes the idea of having colorful characters and manages to completely miss the mark because of one key thing it lacks when compared to the film. In the movie, despite being extremely interesting and quirky, every single character feels based in reality. These feel like real human beings we could meet. On the TV show, this couldn’t be further from the truth. 

An Awful Ensemble 

The entire cast we’re presented with in Season 5, in stark contrast to the film, feel zero percent like they could be actual people on planet earth. The season’s protagonist, Dot Lyon, despite looking like she weighs 120 pounds soaking wet, has the fighting skills of John Wick, and the ability to topple men twice her size.

She’s an expert with weapons and master strategist to boot. And, when we learn Dot’s history, there’s no explanation for how she’s gained all these skills. Basically, Dot has all of this fighting prowess simply because the writers want her to; it’s not at all explained in any logical sense.

Dot’s husband, Wayne, is an equally unrealistic character. Wayne is accepting of basically whatever Dot says in a way no partner ever would be. Despite the fact that he owns a car dealership, he comes across as naïve to the point it seems like he must have the IQ of a small turtle. 

Dot’s mother-in-law, who’s rich and runs a debt collection agency, Dot’s evil ex-husband, a sheriff named Roy Tillman, and Gator Tillman, a police officer and Roy’s son, all feel like, at best, super extreme caricatures of actual people. Even minor characters, like the husband of another police officer who wants to be a professional golfer, are so exaggerated that they feel more silly than interesting.

The worst character on the show is a ridiculous criminal named Ole Munch, who sports an awful haircut, a la Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men. (Another Coen brothers film far more worthwhile than this show!) We’re led to believe that Munch might actually be hundreds of years old, and his ludicrous character drives home just how far the show has strayed from the movie, which when it made its (false) claims of being based on a true story it seemed actually plausible.

I enjoy quirky characters just as much as the next person, but they only really work if they make sense in the world we’re presented with. Even if we’re to accept that this exaggerated TV world is different than the more real one in the film, that’s not what we’re presented with here. I’d be more accepting of Dot fighting skills, for example, if she was raised by a family of ninjas. There’s a big missing piece between what the creators of the show think makes characters interesting and what actually does, and that’s that characters in a show such as this one have to feel like (though extreme) they could still be real people.

The Tone of the Show Doesn’t Match with the Subject Matter

Fargo, the movie, definitely has some black comedy elements, but still has a serious overall plot that revolves around a stagged kidnapping, and later, involves murder. The story has enough funny moments that we can smile or chuckle at, but also enough serious moments with really high tension. With Season 5 of the show, given the fact that we have more outlandish and wacky characters, you might think we’d have a wackier plot we’re dealing with at the heart of the season. And, at first, it seems that way.

There’s an episode early on in Season 5 where bad henchmen put on Nightmare Before Christmas masks on Halloween and attempt to kidnap Dot from her house. Luckily, in earlier scenes straight out of Home Alone, she’s outfitted her house with booby traps. It’s all extremely goofy and it feels more like a cheap nostalgia play meant to please audiences. (“This setting up the house is like Home Alone! I know the movie those masks are from!”) To me, this all felt more tonally similar to something like Stranger Things than the original Fargo film.

Do you know what’s not a goofy/wacky subject matter you’d expect from a show with hijinks like this? Domestic violence. At the heart of Fargo Season 5 is the fact that Dot’s first husband brutally emotionally and physically abused her. The entire main conflict of the show comes about because the evil ex-husband finally learned where to find Dot after she escaped years ago to start a new life.

If a show wants to tackle dark, more serious, subject matter, it should tonally fit with the rest of the series. Fargo Season 5 gives us less realistic, goofier characters than the movie, while, at the same time, presenting us with a story that’s far less fun and darker. It doesn’t work.

Did You Get that He’s Bad?

I don’t have a problem with a show or movie having an agenda behind it. If there’s a point a creator is trying to get across with a piece of art, that’s a good thing. There should be some sort of message. However, sometimes a little subtlety goes a long way.

Season 5 has all the subtlety of being hit over the head with a lead pipe. The creators really want to focus mainly on two subjects: debts (and forgiving debts) and women overcoming abusive men. Neither of these topics is a bad focus for a show, but there should be some nuance, some skillful decisions on the part of the production that really makes us think or consider something in a way we hadn’t before.

Everything here is presented in such a black and white way. The sheriff is presented as so unabashedly evil that, of course, he’s a villain and we hate him. He’s a corrupt, ultra conservative, gun nut.

It feels as though the show is presenting us with a character who’s so obviously bad and then saying, “Look! Isn’t he bad? Look how bad he is!” Newsflash, 99% of your audience is going to think he’s bad. We get it. By stating the super obvious, you’re not really saying anything interesting.

The debt issue is handled in the same way. Do you think some debts are awful and should be forgiven if they’re ridiculous and unreasonable? Should a woman who escapes her abusive husband still be held in his debt because she was forced to marry him years ago as a child? Obviously not. Again, it feels like the show is pandering to a general audience with messages just about everyone will agree with.

So, Should You Watch It?

Fargo (the show) has both wacky characters that don’t feel like actual human beings and also a major focus on the serious real-world issue of domestic violence. The end result is a show that’s at times goofy, without ever being actually fun.

Fargo (the movie), however, is fantastic. It’s the perfect example of a black comedy crime drama crafted to perfection. It’s a 10/10 and it is even better than you remember.

While some of the earlier seasons of the Fargo show are at least pretty good, this particular season isn’t worth your time. If a show’s message is just stating the obvious, it’s not really saying much at all, and that’s basically the case here. Throw in bonkers characters, lose all the charm of the original movie, and you’ve got the misfire of Fargo Season 5. Just go watch the movie instead.

Fargo Season 5 Grade: 3.5/10