FX's 5-Part Crime Drama Set A Gold Standard For A-Listers In TV Shows
True Detective is often credited with bringing A-list talent to the small screen. After Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey (at the height of the McConaissance) paired up to solve a grisly murder mystery on the airwaves of HBO, other movie stars soon followed them into television. Since then, Nicolas Cage has starred in Spider-Noir, Winona Ryder has starred in Stranger Things, Harrison Ford has starred in 1923 and Shrinking, and Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Meryl Streep have all starred in Big Little Lies. True Detective opened the floodgates and gave us star-studded streaming hits like The Morning Show and Yellowstone.
But True Detective wasn’t the only anthology show that debuted in 2014 and brought stars from the big screen to the small screen. Three months after HBO premiered True Detective, FX premiered Fargo, based on the classic Coen brothers crime caper of the same name. When it was first announced, a TV adaptation of Fargo seemed woefully misguided. The Coens have a very specific voice that it would be a fool’s errand to try and replicate, and Fargo is pretty much a perfect movie, so any remake or reboot is bound to be inferior.
But Noah Hawley was surprisingly successful in recapturing that singular black-comic tone, and instead of trying to remake the original movie, he told a brand-new homespun murder story in the same vein as the film. It was a surprising success, and Fargo has since run for another four seasons, with the door left open for a sixth (although Hawley has since become occupied with a different movie-based FX show, Alien: Earth).
Hawley’s writing is just the tip of the iceberg; the true strength of Fargo is in its seasonal ensembles. Each season, Fargo introduces a different cast of characters, and it’s always jam-packed with A-listers.
Through Five Seasons, Fargo's Anthology Cast Is Incredibly Impressive
The first season of Fargo starred Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton, who has since returned to television to star in Landman, and Martin Freeman, who got his start on TV as Tim in The Office, but had, by this point, become more internationally recognizable as Bilbo Baggins from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy (which was between its second and third installments at the time). Season 1 also featured Colin Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Allison Tolman, and Glenn Howerton, and the casts only got more stacked from there.
Season 2 brought in Kirsten Dunst, Patrick Wilson, Ted Danson, Jesse Plemons, and the incomparable Jean Smart as a mob boss. Season 3 cast Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan McGregor, in dual roles as two very different twin brothers, and cast Carrie Coon, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and David Thewlis in supporting roles. Season 4 had Chris Rock, Jessie Buckley, Jason Schwartzman, and Ben Whishaw (a two-fold British icon known as both Q and Paddington Bear). Season 5 had Juno Temple, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joe Keery, Lamorne Morris, and even the criminally underrated Dave Foley as a hired goon.
Will Fargo Return For Season 6?
It’s been over two-and-a-half years since we saw the last new episodes of Fargo, so even by streaming standards, we’re about due for another season. Season 5 premiered three years after season 4, which premiered three years after season 3, which was a year-and-a-half after season 2, which was a year-and-a-half after season 1.
Both Hawley and FX have expressed an interest in doing a sixth season of Fargo, but season 6 hasn’t been officially greenlit, because they’ve been focusing on Alien: Earth. Alien: Earth has been renewed for another season, and it’s set to begin filming before the end of the year, so we’ll see Alien: Earth season 2 before we see Fargo season 6. After that, Hawley might jump straight into Alien: Earth season 3, or he might take a little break from the xenos and go back to the blood-soaked Midwest.