Fargo is gearing up to premiere its second season. The show will feature ties to the first season, but will also feature new actors and a whole new time period. Recently, showrunner and creator Noah Hawley spoke out to explain why the FX drama decided to throw all of the former concepts out and start over for Season 2. Apparently, Joel and Ethan Coen—the creators of the original Fargo movie—were behind the inspiration. Here’s what Hawley had to say:
Joel and Ethan never made the same movie twice.
It’s a short, simple and efficient reasoning, if I’ve ever heard one. The Coen brothers aren’t really big on sequels, choosing to hop from project to project and delve into a wide variety of characters. So, that’s what Hawley used for inspiration when he was coming up with the premise for Fargo Season 2. Although the sophomore season of the FX drama will follow one character from the first season as a much younger man and while it is admittedly a prequel story, the ensemble cast, the story arc and even the tone of the new series is expected to be different than the FX series’ first round at bat.
Interestingly, a second season of Fargo wasn’t always planned to be so different. Variety notes that when they spoke with Hawley, they learned that Season 1 stars Colin Hanks and Allison Tolman were both given contracts that featured options for a second season. Instead, Hawley sat down and came up with a pitch that turned Tolman’s Molly Solverson into a pre-teen and Patrick Wilson’s Lou Solverson into a young father and a police officer. The main plot will surround young Lou (Patrick Wilson) and his partner Hank (Ted Danson)’s investigation into a shooting at a Sioux Falls diner. Solverson will also be dealing with the emotionality of returning home after being in Vietnam. You can check out the first trailer for the series, below.
From the way Hawley has spoken before, if the creative team and network can get on the same page about future seasons, they will also be in more of an anthology format with some threads that could connect the seasons, similar to Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story.
For now, Season 2 of Fargo will have to suffice. After a long wait, Fargo is expected to return to FX’s schedule on Monday, October 12 at 10 p.m. ET. If you’d like to see when the rest of your fall favorites are returning, check out our fall TV premiere schedule.
