Get ready to head back to Fargo. FX’s critically acclaimed drama is officially a go for season four, and this time legendary actor/comedian Chris Rock is leading the charge.
FX announced the season four pickup and casting early Friday morning at the 2018 Summer Television Critics Association press tour along with some plot and character details for the highly-anticipated return.
According to FX head of TV John Landgraf who appeared before the press corps to describe the new chapter in the anthology series, season four is set in 1950 at the end of two great American migrations — that of Southern Europeans from countries like Italy, who came to the US at the turn of the last century and settled in northern cities like New York and Chicago and African Americans who left the south in great numbers to escape Jim Crow and moved to those same cities — and is centered around a collision of outsiders all fought for a piece of the American dream. In Kansas City, Missouri, two criminal syndicates have struck an uneasy peace: one Italian, one African American. Together they control an alternate economy — that of exploitation, graft and drugs. To cement their peace, the heads of both families have traded their eldest sons.
Chris Rock plays the head of one family, a man who — in order to prosper — has surrendered his oldest boy to his enemy, and who must in turn raise his son’s enemy as his own. It’s an uneasy peace, but profitable. And then the head of the Kansas City mafia goes into the hospital for routine surgery and dies and everything changes. It’s a story of immigration and assimilation, and the things we do for money. And because this is Fargo, it’s also a story of basically decent people who are probably in over their heads. Things are going to get complicated.
In a statement, Rock said, “I’m a fan of Fargo and I can’t wait to work with Noah.” Because, yes, Hawley will again take point on the series.
As to whether Rock will take on an accent for the lead role as has been tradition with Fargo so far, Landgraf noted with a laugh that “Noah would have to answer that” as he works with Rock to craft the character’s look and sound. But when it came to casting Rock, Landgraf revealed it was actually an easy get. “Noah really wanted to work with Chris,” he said. “He sat down, had lunch with him, told about what the next cycle of Fargo would be and he got excited and wanted to join right away.”
And moving Fargo to Kansas City may not be as random as it sounds. “You discover in the third cycle of Fargo a book called Tales of True Crime in the Midwest,” Landgraf revealed. “Of course these are tall tales written through the prism of true crime. This is based on each of the chapters in that book. We think of crime as being in Las Vegas or New York but in fact Kansas City was the central power of organized crime in this country. The tentacles of these organizations of Kansas City stretch all throughout the Midwest and now [Hawley] is going more to the source.”
Are you excited for year four of Fargo? Let us know in the comments!
Featured Image: BET
