Fargo - Season 3

After a two-year break, we finally got the continuation of this successful series, which is among my favorites. I have to praise the casting choices. I don’t know why, but there’s never a misstep when it comes to that. All the actors delivered performances that left me in awe. I was initially quite skeptical about Ewan McGregor's dual role, but after a few episodes, I was proven wrong. Mary Elizabeth Winstead seemed unlikeable to me at first, but after teaming up with the protagonist from the first season, Wrench, I started rooting for her. Without David Thewlis, I can’t imagine this season now, as his philosophical speeches and general demeanor were simply flawless. Perhaps the third season struggles a bit to maintain the quality across all ten episodes, as some episodes were weaker than others. The music, as always, was chilling, the perfect Fargo style. I expected the final episode to be gloomier, as is typical for this series. I certainly didn’t expect a mini shootout between the cop and Winstead, which ended fatally for both. I debated for a while whether the third season deserved a full five stars, but after careful consideration, I’m lowering it by one star. It was definitely a success, but it lags slightly behind the first two. Even so, I’m excited to see if we’ll get a fourth addition to the family, and I give it 86%. (26/06/2017)

I can't help but find the series to be on a downward trend for me. The first series is still great, the second one is good, but the third one didn't entertain me as much, even though there are some good acting performances in it. But the story just didn't grab me, and I found it rather distressing. There are some good moments, but as a whole, I didn't like it as much. (06/11/2017)

Season 3 brought excellent characters played by David Thewlis, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Goran Bogdan as well as a well-developed story, but the finale was a little underwhelming. The final episodes of both previous seasons left a much deeper impression on me. Then again, I appreciate the return of Mr. Wrench. I consider Season 3 to be the weakest one, it seemed to be based too much on the first season, sometimes to the point of copying it. But despite all my reservations, I did like it and had fun. (06/09/2017)

Great, as expected. In some of the motives, it’s more predictable than the first two seasons, but it grabbed me again (symbolically, I didn't have much hair left at 23) and by the middle I was so excited for the ending that I could watch it in one go naked in a shared cell in a Turkish prison. The character work is flawless (fresh characters again, though it follows the tried-and-true pattern of the previous seasons and the original film, so we get a feisty female cop, an underdog loser, a good guy, the wrong place at the wrong time, and a cold-blooded nutter), the fates of the players are mercilessly intertwined and then there’s the occasional bizarre black humour and fantastical philosophy or symbolic scenes that beautifully underline the fatefulness and subversiveness of the narrative. The direction is excellent in every episode and cleverly times the communicativeness, so that even the expected twists come unexpectedly, or at least spiced up with a non-violent comedic interlude or the aforementioned subversive absurdity (the scene in the bowling alley is a bash and tunes the viewer into exactly the position where the series wants them to be). Some of the scenes are so superbly staged and voiced that they outshine most big budget film productions (the scene where they hand over the money in the warehouse, when I didn't even want to breathe, speaks for all), and finally, of course, there are the actors. McGregor is first and foremost entertaining and manages to make the two brothers sufficiently different and interesting, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a delightful bitch, I didn't mind Carrie Coon at all and Sea Whigham was fun every time he showed up, but the biggest superlatives go to David Thewlis, I've liked him for a long time, but here he just steals the show with a villain whom I rate as one of the best in TV history; the character himself is brilliantly written, but Thewlis's disgustingly distinctive attitude and perfect voice intonation makes him perhaps an even bigger demon than the delicious Thornton was in the first season – this is simply masterful acting that will knock you down. The last scene and its punchline is absolutely fantastic and reflects exactly why I love so much the poetics of Fargo. I want more… (21/09/2018)

"The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?" +++ Quite a crazy thought (spoken by the mouth of the biggest slimeball of the third season, V. M. Varga, played by the wonderfully loathsome David Thewlis), which is not entirely out of place. Once again, I was engrossed in a suspenseful story laced with typical black humor, this time with a great contribution from Ewan McGregor, whose double role of the feuding brothers fit him like a glove. (13/03/2021)