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30 Nov

Fargo Season 4 Episode 11 Review: Storia Americana

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This FARGO review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 11 Despite a sprawling cast, greater narrative ambition, and a big, broad American Dream theme, Fargo Season 4 never quite lived up to its potential. Loy Cannon’s war against the Italian Fadda crime family was meant to highlight how the criminal underworld is just as racist and exploitative as the 1950s classrooms that biracial teenager Ethelrida Smutny inhabits. They both strive for assimilation, which feels like the real American dream, but their efforts are ultimately pointless. It’s a story that’s sadly relevant, yet Fargo never got as pointed with this message…
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30 Nov

Fargo Season 4 Finale Post-Credits Scene Explained

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This Fargo article contains spoilers for the season 4 finale. Fargo season 4’s finale, “Storia Americana,” wraps up an uneven season of FX’s crime series about as effectively as one could have hoped. The hour is thematically consistent, if a little short (which may have had something to do with the final two episodes’ abbreviated COVID-19 production schedule). In true Fargo fashion, the season ends with plenty of our main characters dead. Josto Fadda (Jason Schwartzman) is killed for not properly realizing the power of his own family (and for a simple misunderstanding with killer nurse Oraetta Mayflower), while Loy…
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23 Nov

Fargo Season 4 Episode 10 Review: Happy

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This FARGO review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 10 Fargo did itself a disservice with last week’s episode. By successfully presenting a small-scale, mostly self-contained story, it’s made this season’s sprawl and lack of focus more obvious. “Happy” is the penultimate episode of the season which means the season’s many threads need to start coalescing or ending, but unfortunately this doesn’t happen particularly gracefully. The timing on many of the episode’s plot points, like the introduction of the titular character Happy and Ethelrida’s reintroduction into the main story, feel like they are occurring far too late to make a…
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16 Nov

Fargo Season 4 Episode 9 Review: East/West

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This FARGO review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 9 If last week’s Fargo featured a climactic shootout at a train station that felt strongly influenced by The Untouchables, “East/West” looks back even further in film history for inspiration. In a not-so-subtle homage to the Wizard of Oz, Fargo goes black and white and prominently features a small dog and a Kansas tornado, but here the fortune teller that Dorothy finds while running away is replaced with a vague billboard, which takes on a deeper and more ominous meaning by episode end. By far the most stylish episode in the…
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09 Nov

How Fargo Season 4 Pays Homage to the Union Station Massacre

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This has a major spoiler so don’t read until you’ve seen Fargo season 4 episode 8 “The Nadir.” Fargo’s season 4, episode 8, “The Nadir,” contains an allegorical reference to a true crime occurrence. It appears Loy Cannon (Chris Rock) dropped dime on the two lady criminals he felt responsible for, Zelmare Roulette (Karen Aldridge) and Swanee Capps (Kelsey Asbille). He thought he was turning two tickets to Philadelphia into a one-way ride to Palookaville. They turned it into a grand exit. The conclusion of this sequence points to a conspiracy. Put these together and you have the Union Station…
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09 Nov

Fargo Season 4 Episode 8 Review: The Nadir

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This FARGO review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 8 Chatter is an essential part of Fargo’s appeal. The long speeches, filled with five-point words and specificity that good actors can make really make a meal of, has always been an essential part of the show’s DNA. However, this season’s monologues have started to fizzle, bogged down by repetitive themes and obvious allegories. Fargo’s talkativeness has somehow become a weak point in season 4, so much so that I’ve been longing for some big action set-pieces to shake things up. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose. Fargo actually…
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02 Nov

Fargo Season 4 Episode 7 Review: Lay Away

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This Fargo review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 7 Loy Cannon refuses to be pulled down into the dirt, no matter how badly his enemies want to see him there. Though Rabbi Milligan saved Loy’s son last week, the act of compassion has been used as ammo against the Cannon leader. Already suffering from the loss of Doctor Senator, Loy is trying to remain composed, thoughtful, and strong — just like his late friend would advise — while Josto uses the abounding chaos on his side of the war as an opportunity to attempt some 3D chess. As the…
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26 Oct

Fargo Season 4 Episode 6 Review: Camp Elegance

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This Fargo review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 6 The death of Doctor Senator has resulted in all-out war on Fargo. Despite the internal strife on the Fadda side of the conflict, it’s clear there is alignment on the fact that Loy Cannon and his men are the enemy. That enemy finally starts showing his teeth in “Camp Elegance,” but Loy’s show of aggression comes with a significant risk; his boy Satchel is still in Fadda care and obviously at risk to be the target of retaliation. Thankfully, a former boy soldier in the ranks keeps this war from…
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19 Oct

Fargo Season 4 Episode 5 Review: The Birthplace of Civilization

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This Fargo review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 5 A war has officially broken out on Fargo, and Loy Cannon cannot get any respect. Whether from his enemies, those that are in his debt, the police, or his own wife, Loy is catching grief, lip, guff — pick your favorite from Swanee’s dictionary — from all angles. Last week’s episode found the Faddas attempting to get their house in order, but “The Birthplace of Civilization” finds the Cannon house falling apart. The episode’s concluding gut-punch, the death of Doctor Senator, will likely push Loy to the brink and inspire…
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12 Oct

Fargo Season 4 Episode 4 Review: The Pretend War

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This Fargo review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 4 Up until this point, Fargo has been moving at a breakneck pace. It was inevitable that a slower episode would come, and “The Pretend War” feels less like a war, and more like a slow preamble to one. That’s the danger of dumping so much plot into early episodes; whenever you take a mid-season breath, it will feel more noticeable. Much of the episode deals with the fallout from the two separate, unsanctioned attacks on the Cannon family. Loy’s men up the ante considerably by stealing a vehicle full of…
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05 Oct

Fargo Season 4: The Gang War Between The Chicago Outfit and The Policy Kings

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The following contains spoilers for Fargo season 4. The FX series Fargo begins every episode of every season with a disclaimer that the stories are true but the names are changed. This gives the show a lot of leeway in picking its stories and how to present them. Fargo season 4 is set in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1950. Two mobs in one small city make a truce, which appears to be traditional in that part of town. It’s been done for at least two generations. Loy Cannon, played by Chris Rock, boss of an African American crime family, trades…
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05 Oct

Fargo Season 4 Episode 3 Review: Raddopiarlo

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This Fargo review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 3 If Fargo’s two-episode premiere felt something like a change of pace for the series — a new setting, traditional gang conflict backdrop, and a somewhat more serious tone — “Raddopiarlo” feels like a classic Fargo installment. Between the introduction of smooth-talking U.S. Marshall Dick “Deafy” Wickware, the abundance of showy monologues, and a hilariously botched heist, this jam-packed episode managed to turn up the heat in the budding war between the Faddas and the Cannons while throwing in some interesting wrinkles. Not everything is working quite as it should, but…
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28 Sep

Fargo Season 4 Episode 1 Review: Welcome to the Alternate Economy

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This Fargo review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 1 It’s been a long wait for Fargo’s fourth season. Noah Hawley’s improbably good Coen Brothers adaptation arrived on the scene as an idiosyncratic, darkly funny crime story, but in its third season, its Midwest charm and stylish execution couldn’t quite hide the fact that the story was lacking and the schtick was wearing thin. Hawley decided to go back to the drawing board for Season 4, then was forced to delay his return to the anthology series a bit longer due to coronavirus shutting down production. Thankfully, the FX series…
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28 Sep

Fargo Season 4: A History of Kansas City Gangsters

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The following contains spoilers for Fargo season 4 episode 1. Loosely inspired by Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 film, the FX series Fargo also gets loose inspiration from real events, cryptic though they may be. They say the names are changed out of respect for the living, but everything is told as it happened out of respect for the dead. Season 4 is set in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1950. Chris Rock plays Loy Cannon, the boss of an African American crime family. He’s got an eye to the future, because “Italians, they’re the past.” The season opener gives a…
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28 Sep

Fargo Season 4 Episode 2 Review: The Land of Taking and Killing

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This Fargo review contains spoilers. Fargo Season 4 Episode 2 They say chaos is a ladder, but too many people may be trying to climb the rungs in “The Land of Taking and Killing.” Donatello Fadda’s death is a tragedy for Justo and his family, but it’s also an opening, not only for Loy Cannon and his men, but for family black sheep Gaetano, Justo’s brother. Like a tiger plucked from the wild and dropped into Kansas City, Gaetano is sniffing out weakness, looking to strike and stake his claim. His arrival could cause the distraction that Loy needs, or…
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16 Sep

Fargo Season 4 Review (Spoiler-Free)

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This Fargo review contains no spoilers. Time has become an odd thing to track throughout the coronavirus pandemic, but it still seems hard to believe that it’s been over three years since the last season of Noah Hawley’s Fargo wrapped on FX. Fargo season 3 was often ponderous, existential, and meandering. It also routinely gave off a vibe that Hawley was growing tired of the Midwest, Coen-worshipping box that he had placed himself in. Perhaps time away from the anthology series allowed Hawley to return with a bit more energy, but also a narrower focus. Instead of a twisty-turny story…
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10 Aug

Fargo Season 4 Release Date Revealed by FX After Delay

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It may have taken a while after a COVID-caused production shutdown, but Fargo‘s intriguing, Chris Rock-fronted fourth season has finally procured a premiere, with FX having officially set a September release date. Fargo Season 4 will premiere on FX on Sunday, September 27 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, on which the first two episodes will air. Subsequent episodes will premiere on the same Sunday timeslot individually on a weekly basis. Streamers will be interested to know that each new episode will hit Hulu the day after their FX premieres. The release date announcement occurs after the Chicago production of Fargo was…
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DVD Guide reviews current dvd releases of movies and TV shows. The reviews of these dvd releases are my thoughts and understandings of the movie, dvd releases or TV show and not be taken as fact.

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