Prepare for all the Minnesota nice and elemental evil you can handle: "Fargo" is back for Season 5. The crime-comedy anthology series returns Tuesday, Nov. 21 on FX and next-day on Hulu with a stacked cast that includes Juno Temple ("Ted Lasso"), Jon Hamm ("Mad Men") and living legend Jennifer Jason Leigh ("The Hateful Eight"). It's been three years since "Fargo" creator Noah Hawley whipped up a new installment, so we've compiled a "Fargo" season ranking to mark the occasion.
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Inspired by the Coen Brothers' 1996 classic, "Fargo" 's 2014 debut won both the Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for Best Miniseries and hasn't left the stable of rare and wonderful TV shows since. The series is consistently great, thanks to Hawley's rich, fable-like plots that are just as steeped in world philosophy as they are in the classic beats of crime drama. Nothing looks or sounds quite like "Fargo."
Our "Fargo" season ranking includes synopses and brief summations of the standout moments and themes of each installment. It's worth noting that even the show's least-adored seasons are great, thanks to another "Fargo" mainstay: Brilliant lead performances from big-screen stars. Season 1 featured Billy Bob Thornton in what we think is his career-best performance. Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons mastered the Midwestern desperation that William H. Macy defined in the original film. Additional seasons have seen Ewan McGregor play a pair of equally pathetic brothers and Chris Rock shine in a rare dramatic role.
Whether you're preparing for a rewatch or looking for a quick refresher on the blistering cold series, check out our "Fargo" season ranking below.
#4. 'Fargo' Season 4
Elizabeth Morris/FX
Starring: Chris Rock, Jason Schwartzman, Jessie Buckley, Glynn Turman
Synopsis: In 1950 Kansas City, two long-warring crime syndicates jockey to control an alternate economy of exploitation, graft and drugs while fighting for a piece of the American dream. As tensions rise, the crime heads trade their youngest sons in an attempt to strike an uneasy peace. Loy Cannon (Chris Rock) leads the Black mob, made up of migrants fleeing Jim Crow. The Italian syndicate, headed by young new don Josto Fadda (Jason Schwartzman), grows increasingly vengeful.
Why It's #4: Season 4 is "Fargo" 's biggest (11 episodes), boldest (dealing with race-based mob violence) season to date. It's masterful at times, like in the Emmy-nominated flashback episode "East/West," shot in black-and-white. But too often it's weighed down by sluggish pacing and wrote mob drama beats.
Chris Rock and Jason Schwartzman are great, but you can't help but feel that their comedic chops are drowned out by deathly serious subject matter. But even the least-great season of "Fargo" is still a guaranteed great watch.
#3. 'Fargo' Season 3
Chris Large/FX
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Carrie Coon, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, David Thewlis
Synopsis: Set in 2010, the third installment of "Fargo" centers on Emmit Stussy, aka the Parking Lot King of Minnesota, and his loser younger brother Ray Stussy, a parole officer. (Hilariously, both brothers are played by Ewan McGregor). Their sibling rivalry reaches deadly heights when the mysterious corporate shark V.M. Varga (David Thewlis) steps in. Chief of Police Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon) is caught in the crossfire in a surprisingly personal way.
Why It's #3: This season has its detractors, but the action zips along expertly and the cast is dynamite. Ewan McGregor's Golden Globe-winning performance as the polar opposite Stussy brothers is remarkable. McGregor's wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the MVP of the season: She's completely dropped-in as Ray's parolee girlfriend Nikki Swango, a brilliant criminal with a love for competitive bridge (again, hilarious).
Beneath the hijinx, there's a deeply unnerving story about how the American Dream is so easily devoured. David Thewlis ranks as the second-best unstoppable force in "Fargo," behind only Billy Bob Thornton. That's saying a lot.
#2. 'Fargo' Season 2
Chris Large/FX
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Ted Danson, Bokeem Woodbine, Jean Smart
Synopsis: While all "Fargo" installments are connected in some way, Season 2 is the most true-blue prequel. It tells the story of a young Lou Solverson's (Patrick Wilson) otherworldly experience as a State Trooper during the 1979 Sioux Falls incident, mythologized in Season 1. When the son of the Gerhardt crime family in Fargo goes missing from a bloody massacre at a Waffle Hut, it sparks a deadly misunderstanding with the ever-expanding Kansas City mob. Beautician Peggy Blumquist and her soft-spoken husband Ed (played by real-life couple Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons) find themselves at the center of the intrigue, and their bumbling is like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Why It's #2: Today, some call Season 2 the best installment of "Fargo." But when it aired in 2015, many argued that its unexpected turn to the supernatural saps it of all stakes. We vehemently disagree with that latter suggestion, but we're not prepared to rank this above Season 1.
Still, Patrick Wilson and Ted Danson are infinitely watchable as the decent "Fargo" detectives confronting idiocy and evil. Zahn McClarnon ("Dark Winds"), Nick Offerman ("The Last of Us") and Kieran Culkin ("Succession") prove that even the supporting cast of "Fargo" is regularly more compelling than the main casts of lesser shows. And the big climax truly swings for the fences, leaving the viewer with a singular mixture of dread and hope... for, like, all mankind. This one's a trip.
#1. 'Fargo' Season 1
FX
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Allison Tolman, Colin Hanks, Bob Odenkirk
Synopsis: After a chance meeting with the devilishly manipulative hitman Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton), small-town insurance salesman and perennial failure Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) is gradually transformed into something more capable, more cunning... Or was Lester always that way? As the bodies pile up, bright young detective Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) and her hopeless deputy friend Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks) come face-to-face with evil.
Why It's #1: Three words: Billy. Bob. Thornton. The Oscar winner delivers a career-best performance as Lorne Malvo, the most compelling Big Bad in all of "Fargo." ("Lester, have you been a bad boy?" remains one of the most chilling lines in TV history.) The role landed him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Miniseries, and he had a lot to do with the show winning for Best Miniseries at both the Globes and the Emmys in its inaugural season.
Season 1 is the tightest morality play of all "Fargo" installments and the closest to the Coen Brothers' original film. It has a cat-and-mouse form that just moves. It interrogates the nature of evil, in the form of greed and temptation, through religious allegory and the lens of the 2008 financial crash. It's a near-perfect season of TV.
