by Conan Simmons – September 28, 2020 – 9:55 pm
The premiere of the newest season of ‘Fargo’ aired last night on FX. Noah Hawley continues his impressive run as a television show runner with series very loosely inspired by the Coen brothers 1996 Oscar winning film of the same name.
This time around it’s 1950 Kansas City, Missouri. A brief history of the changing landscape of gangland illustrates the commonality of double crosses. Between the Jewish gangs, the Irish gangs and the Italian gangs nothing much seems to change. Until the Black community gets a gang of its own and makes an uneasy partnership with the Italians.
This gang is the Cannon Limited headed by forward looking entrepreneurial Loy Cannon (Chris Rock) who goes around pitching the idea of credit cards to various banks. His counterpart in the Italian mafia is Donatello Fadda (Tommaso Ragno), an aging godfather with a couple of hot tempered sons, Josto (Jason Schwartzman) and Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito) both with their own ideas of how the family should do business.
After an accident takes Donatello out of the picture Josto begins making plans for becoming the new head of the Fadda family. But first, he enlists the help of eccentric nurse from Minnesota, Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley). He also wants to get revenge on the head doctor at the hospital after having to endure some racist discrimination.
All this happens around what takes the central plotline, that of a teenage girl, Ethelrida Pearl Smutny (Emyri Crutchfield), who excels in school while simultaneously suffering racial discrimination. She lives in a funeral home that her parents own and one night she finds Loy Cannon and his gang seated around the kitchen table having some kind of discussion with her parents.
The multiple storylines are loosely connected in this first episode, obviously they will collide as the season progresses. You do not need to have seen any previous seasons to follow the story as each season does its own thing.
The show is very well cast with Chris Rock and Jason Schwartzman making a perfect pair to challenge each other. Emyri Crutchfield does a great job at anchoring the show amid all its odd threads. Jessie Buckley is a real stand out as the friendly, casually racist, eccentric Mayflower. It is going to be fun to see how her character plays into the inevitable gang war that is brewing.
The cinematography is very nice looking, the muted tone of the picture still allowing for colorful cars and clothes to pop. The production design is well done making for a very believable Kansas City, Missouri. Which brings me to my one agitation with the show, as a native born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, I was annoyed that the main character pronounced it “Missourah” instead of the long E sound that I found most common growing up.