5 Topics 'Fargo' Season 2 Will Tackle

One of the absolute best shows on television right now is the FX drama Fargo, an adaptation of the beloved Coen brothers film of the same name. Season 1 was a black comedy crime drama that centered around the residents of the quiet Midwestern town Bemidji. There the status quo was quickly overturned as the calmly malicious Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) arrived, spreading chaos and launching Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) on his downward decent into evil and a life of crime. Fargo Season 2 will be a new chapter in the anthology, telling a new story and focused on new characters, with only small connections to the previous season.

The next chapter will still involve a crime investigation, but takes place in 1979 Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which fans will remember as the dark time and place Lou Solverson (Molly's father) referenced during Season 1. The action and themes within Season 2 are explored more fully in an excellent Vanity Fair article that talks about the new set of moral dilemmas that this season will embody. The entire piece is well-worth a read, and I have collected the five topics that Fargo Season 2 will cover, to prepare you for another amazing set of 10 episodes.

1. Life Post War

Showrunner Noah Hawley (who also helmed Season 1) expands the scope this year, looking into life for soldiers as they struggle to adjust to life after returning from the Vietnam war. Said Hawley:

It's literally the idea that soldiers are asked to do things in wartime that would be considered immoral in peacetime. So, they come back and they can’t shake the feeling that they’re bad people. Because if you shoot a 15-year-old boy in peacetime, you go to jail. If you do it in wartime, you get away with it. When you do that in a just war that you believe in, that makes moral sense, you can rationalize it. When you do it in an unjust war like Vietnam, then you’re a little bit at sea.

2. The American Identity

Hawley selected this tumultuous time period because it was exactly that, tumultuous. This was a time (not unlike today) where numerous different groups, from women to American Indians, were all fighting to be heard. "A lot of it had to do with my desire to try to dramatize the American identity in that moment at a time where the positive revolutionary 60s would turn into this violent radical 70s," Hawley revealed.

3. Black Lives Matter

Bokeem Woodbine, who plays the gangster Mike Milligan, talks about the new season saying,

I dealt with similar things growing up in terms of my own personal interactions with law enforcement ... It was a powerful feeling making those scenes with those great actors given the circumstances of what was going on in the world right at that time we were filming.

4. Love & Loss

Two of the leading women on the show, Floyd Gerhardt (Jean Smart) and Peggy Blomquist (Kirsten Dunst), both lost loved ones in the Korean and Vietnam war, retrospectively. Here, Smart discusses this loss: "There’s not too much you can do to a woman after she’s lost a child, I think ... There’s not too much more that can daunt her or scare her after that."

5. Complex Women

Finally, this will be a season filled with layered, interesting women. Something that is sadly not all that common in movies or on television yet. Cristin Milioti reflected on the women of Fargo saying, "Like the sweet girl next door who is just a little misunderstood. I don’t know any woman like that. The women I know and I love are all deeply flawed individuals who are trying their best. I see that on Fargo."

Well, OK then. Thank gosh the wait is finally over for Season 2.

Images: Chris Large (3), Mathias Clamer (3)/FX