Fargo's fifth season is a spectacle that somehow manages to be both wildly unremarkable and excruciatingly painful to endure. It's as if the creators took all the charm of the original Coen brothers' movie, which I absolutely detested for glamorizing violence with a goofy brush, and said, "Yes, let’s dial up the absurdity without any of the wit or intelligence."
We are given our protagonist, Dot (Juno Temple), the quintessential Minnesota housewife who moonlights as Jason Bourne. She is attacked in a very Home Alone style and manages to rough up her attackers with the finesse of my cat when I'm trying to trim his toenails. Where did she get these skills? Who knows! The writers certainly don't, and they're not about to let pesky things like logic or backstory get in the way of their gore-fest.
One of the attackers (the one who is still alive, that is) is Munch (Sam Spruell), a character so nonsensical he makes Alice in Wonderland look like a documentary. He's a mystical, immortal zombie aficionado with a fondness for kilts and gibberish who's clearly wandered in from a Renaissance faire and decided to stay for the bloodbath.
Other characters follow the trend. Dot's husband is an imbecile perfectly matched to her 'Minnesota Nice' demeanor, and her tiger of a mother-in-law is rampantly psychotic without reason. The script is nothing less than a train wreck. There aren’t enough cliffhangers to keep a toddler interested, and by the fifth episode, every plot device has been beaten to death or abandoned. By that time, I was praying for the sweet release of cancellation. But no, we must endure watching characters flip-flop in their non-existent development unless you count abrupt and nonsensical 180s—some inexplicably falling in love after a couple of corny phrases, others simply by going from being alive to being very dead, usually after being slaughtered in a most gruesome manner.
Jon Hamm, oh Jon Hamm. Did you lose a bet? As Roy Tillman, the North Dakota sheriff with a murder hobby, you've truly plumbed the depths of your career. Watching you chase a woman you barely remember across state lines is about as thrilling as watching paint dry in a Minnesota winter.
But the main character here is violence. It's relentless, nonsensical, and disturbingly frequent, especially against women, which only adds to the series' list of unforgivable sins. It’s like watching a Darwin Awards ceremony, but less intelligent.
Dragging on endlessly like every other series obsessed with its own cleverness, Fargo's fifth season is like a bad keto diet—too much meat, too much blood, and absolutely nauseating.
And then there's that "based on a true story" tag at the start of each episode, and I am tired of asking why. The creators are either trying to comment on the falsehoods permeating our society, or they are just baiting the gullible who get a kick out of mindless brutality.
The script tries so hard to be Shakespearean but all dialogue ends up sounding like the cringe-worthy babble of a preschool playdate. I found myself wishing they’d just start killing each other faster to reduce the number of talking heads spewing nonsense.
What baffles me the most, though, is the audience's fascination with this torture fest. Why do people relish watching others suffer? Is it to reassure themselves that their own lives aren't so dismal, or is there a darker draw to violence and pain that escapes my understanding?
Suggestions for the creative team: please try a strict regimen of sacred cacao and MDMA, something to cleanse your palate from the tasteless and juvenile mess you’ve made. Perhaps then you’ll see the world for what it really is—a place desperately in need of stories that don’t normalize the cartoonish violence you seem to revel in.
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