It seems that the FX drama series Fargo is always fighting an uphill battle. When it was first announced in 2014, audiences were largely sceptical – a television series telling a story in the style of the Coen Brothers, made by somebody else (Noah Hawley) somehow felt like it might sully the good name of the classic, award-winning 1996 film of the same name. But series creator Hawley proved himself with 10 episodes of phenomenal television – bolstered by the remarkable performances of Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton.
Season 2 was then met with a different kind of scepticism. Given that Hawley had now set the bar so high, surely the show would not be able to top the kind of quality displayed by the first season. The writer and his team shook things up by delivering what was essentially a prequel season – taking the action back to 1979, and centering the anthology tale on the younger version of the character played by Keith Carradine in season 1. Far from being a disappointment, Fargo’s second season garnered a fresh slew of awards nominations – including for series stars Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons.
Perhaps now then we’ve reached the point where we approach Fargo with more excitement than scepticism. Little is known about the plot of the third season so far, beyond the fact that it will be set in the year 2010, and will star Ewan McGregor as twins, along with Carrie Coon, David Thewlis, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. The recent release of a teaser trailer provides some further subtle clues, however – most notably that the show seems to be set around Christmas time, and at some point, a large inflatable Santa will meet an unfortunate end.
Revealing nothing of character or context, the snippet of footage is overlaid with the sounds of what could be a struggle – although any action is hidden by snow-covered buildings and a giant Santa. A sudden ‘bang’ is followed by the rapid deflation of said inflatable, accompanied by a noise that could be construed as air escaping from the damaged Santa, or air escaping from a damaged person. This being Noah Hawley’s Fargo, either one of those explanations would fit well and, with the season premiere date of April 19th fast approaching, we can look forward to finding out sooner rather than later.