Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Catholic Authenticity

Home
About
Books
Contact
Archives
Categories
- Beauty
- Current Events
- Faith
- Family
- Fiction
- Humour
- Identity
- Philosophy
- Sexuality
- Virtues
- Charity
- Chastity
- Humility
- Justice
- Poverty
- Wombats

Home
Catholic
20 Reasons Why You Need to Drop Everything and Watch Season 3 of Fargo

20 Reasons Why You Need to Drop Everything and Watch Season 3 of Fargo

Last updated on: June 29, 2017 at 4:54 pm by Melinda Selmys

20 Reasons Why You Need to Drop Everything and Watch Season 3 of Fargo 2017-06-29T16:54:20-04:00 Melinda Selmys

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I promised a review of Fargo series 3. I’ll start with the two-word version: Watch It.

The last episode aired this week, so if you haven’t already discovered this show you can now enjoyably sit and binge-watch the whole thing. My only caution would be, whenever you start you should be prepared to lose the next ten hours. The cliffhangers are brutal. And they are not cheap, contrived or melodramatic.

In my opinion, it’s the best thing to come out of television this year. Possibly the best thing to have come out of television in a very long time. I’ll admit that I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I do I’m pretty selective – especially when it comes to drama. Generally, if a show has rave reviews and a lot of my friends are recommending it I’ll give it an episode, maybe two. Nine times out of ten, that’s as much as I’ll watch. I’m more forgiving with sci-fi, horror, fantasy and cozy British mysteries…but Fargo is none of those. To give you an idea of my baseline, Breaking Bad, which is in roughly the same genre as Fargo, only held my attention for about six episodes.

I watched, and tremendously enjoyed, season one of Fargo earlier this year. I only watched one episode of season two. But season three blew me away. Basically, it’s everything that I hoped the new Twin Peaks would be, but it’s definitely not a Twin Peaks knock-off.

It’s virtues include:

1. There are no bad episodes. I’m not even sure that there are any bad scenes.

2. The acting is consistently good, and frequently fantastic.

3. There are no cardboard cut-out one dimensional characters in the main cast. The widow Goldfarb is as close as it gets, and even her plot has an interesting twist to it.

4. The plotting is jaw-droppingly good. And drum-tight. It twists and turns constantly. It’s almost never predictable. And (this is borderline miraculous) character motivations are consistent and believable throughout. They don’t break character for the sake of plot contrivances.

5. The main villain is even better than the villain who stole the show in the first series.

6. He doesn’t steal the show, because a lot of the other characters are just as good.

7. The cinematography is over-the-top gorgeous.

8. The composition is stunning. Original formal ideas abound, and they are executed flawlessly.

9. It’s feminist without being misandrist and without tying feminism to sexual liberation. And without making women out to be victims. And without being preachy or beating you over the head with it.

10. Female-female bromance scene that is emotionally impactful and NOT CHEESY!!! (btw we need a word for the female equivalent of bromance. Someone should get on that.)

11. Ray Wise plays God.

12. Oh yeah. There’s supernatural, religious, philosophical and moral content. That’s not cheesy. Or preachy. And doesn’t suck.

13. The music.

14. The casting.

15. The directing.

16. The dialogue.

17. Female characters that look like human beings, not fashion models, are shown to have sex lives and to be desirable to men. This is not portrayed as a) surprising or b) the central concern of their existence.

18. Experimental and innovative features that are actually interesting, and that are subservient to the storytelling and don’t across as pretentious.

19. Lacks lame plot-lines that don’t contribute to the story and that you don’t care about. Occasionally there are things that seem kind of random early on in the story. They become important by the end.

20. The ending. A lot of reviewers believe this is the show’s one fault, but I can’t explain why they’re wrong without spoilers. It’s not what you expect and it’s not what you think you want. But it is exactly right, and brilliant.

Image: promotional photo for Fargo (Season 3)
Stay in touch! Like Catholic Authenticity on Facebook:

Catholic Authenticity

Previous Post

June 22, 2017

Why Chastity?

Next Post

June 27, 2017 Still Not an Atheist

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Abuse Beauty Charity Chastity Current Events Faith Family Feminism Fiction Humility Humour Identity Justice Perseverence Philosophy Poverty Sexuality trauma Uncategorized Virtues Wombats

Select a Month February 2020 November 2019 October 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz