Getty ImagesWill Fargo season two be worth the wait?
You betcha! At least, that's how we're feeling after chatting with executive producer Noah Hawley, who dropped a few juicy morsels on what to expect when the FX series returns this fall. As you may have heard, season two will travel back to 1979, where a young Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson, played in the first season by Keith Carradine) returns from the Vietnam War and begins to investigate the Kansas City mob.
Hawley, who just wrapped production on the second season, revealed that there will also be a few Easter Eggs for fans, tying this new season to other Coen Brothers movies—including the casting of Bruce Campbell (The Hudsucker Proxy) as Ronald Reagan, and Wayne Duvall, who played Homer Stokes in O Brother, Where Are Thou?
"We get Wayne Duvall in there later on," Hawley told us at the ATX Television Festival, "he's really great. We got Bruce, there are definitely moments where you think, ‘Oh, this actor would be great!' But it's too many. You start to feel like you're just starting to rely on the familiarity of those actors. But there are a few… It's always the line. Some of these characters and actors, I knew in the first year I just didn't want to work with all the usual suspects from Coen Brothers movies because it has to stand on its own two feet. But at the same time, if you can have these homages from time to time or use people that are tried and true Coen Brothers actors, it's really fun to get them in there."
Also part of season two: Ted Danson as Hank Larsson, Lou's father-in-law; Nick Offerman as Karl Weathers, a local lawyer; Jean Smart as Floyd Gerhardt, the matriarch of the Gerhardt crime family; Jeffrey Donovan as her eldest son, Kieran Culkin as her youngest son; and Kirsten Dunst as beautician Peggy Blomquist, married to her husband Ed (Jesse Plemons). Adam Arkin will play a mid-level manager in the mob.
In its first season, Fargo won Emmys for Outstanding Miniseries, Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Casting, and received 15 additional nominations. And the second-season cast seems just as much a labor of love for Hawley and his team.
"We had to come up with a Ronald Reagan this year," Hawley explains of the show's greatest challenge this year. "That was a puzzler for a long time and then it occurred to me to cast Bruce Campbell and he's phenomenal. What's fun for actors coming to work on Fargo is there are no small characters and it's my hope that there are no one-dimensional characters. And so, when I met with Nick Offermann and he had read the first two scripts and what he had seen was basically a guy who was local-color. He's a drunken lawyer who hangs out at the veterans' hall all the time, and I said, ‘No, that's how we meet you, but then you have a journey for your character.' He was happy to just be sort of local-color, but you know, Bob Odenkirk you met him and in the first couple of hours you just thought this guy is just comic foil, but then he turns out to be the moral center of the show. I think that's what allows us to get actors of this caliber, even if the role isn't huge on a page-count level, there's a real journey to it."
Hawley's also still toying with ideas for season three—but is fairly certain of one thing: None of the previous series regular will probably come back as series regulars. "I think it would be a new cast," he tells us. "We jump around in time a little bit and I don't think we would be going deep period, but I can't say for sure yet. I like the idea that if there a natural place for a crossover, that's always fun to play with. But it's going to stand on its own. I love the idea that you can watch it all in chronological order, you can start with year two, you can then watch the movie and then you can watch the first season, the idea that it's modular in some way is really interesting to me."
As for the rest of season three, nothing is hammered down yet. "I think about it," Hawley explains. "I try not to force it and last year it came as a natural part of the storytelling. Things have started to occur to me and I think it's always nice if there is some connection between the years, whether it's an important connection or an insularly connection. It's nice if that connection can be laid in. I'm starting to think about a few things, but there's been no official conversations about it yet."
Hawley is also convinced that the audience will be floored by one particular actor in season two: "Jeffrey Donovan is really a revelation in this year. I always saw him as a character actor and a great character actor, but what he's doing this time is so different and specific and powerful that I think he's really going to surprise people."
Fargo returns this fall on FX and we're counting the days 'til we can count the bodies again.