CHRISTMAS REALLY DOES come early at times: I am already into the fifth season and the third season respectively of two of the best recent series I can think of: Fargo and Slow Horses.  Fargo has gone retro and evoked the original film. At first, the Minnesota-speak was a little heavy, though as with some seasonings, you have to err in the direction of a tad too much rather than too little.  In the second episode on FX, I got a glimpse of Jon Hamm’s character and enjoyed the transformation he underwent: Fargo characters are always very nuanced and must be 99.9% original with respect to non-Cohen Brothers characters.  I might mention that Jennifer Jason Leigh creates a compelling new character in this. I reviewed Slow Horses last year on MMM.

Slow Horses stars Gary Oldman in a role that could only miss awards if the character himself is too offensive. With apologies for a mini-spoiler in advance, the character is a bit of a Scarlet Pimpernel type: he “cleans up his act” when no one is looking. This one allows for heavy UK accents and unless you are used to them, SH could excusably be watched with captions. With the first two episodes, Season Three promises to be all that the earlier ones offered.  The theme song has lyrics and vocals by Mick Jagger–sweetly edgy stuff that you shouldn’t skip past.

FARGO, Season Five, gets back to basics. One hint that this story is the offspring of an early Cohen Brothers creation is the reminder that you don’t really know people until you see how they behave during a capital crime. According to the initial screen disclaimer, “these things actually happened:  out of respect for the living, the names were changed yet out of respect for the dead, the details are left exactly the way they occurred.”

Always strong casting, characters, and never predictable.  Oh Yaah. I mean, You Betcha There.

WRH