Fargo Fans Finally Get The News They've Been Waiting For
Well holy Hannah, Fargo's got some good news for us, don'tcha know. The celebrated FX series was put on what was described at the time as an "indefinite" hold back in March when media productions worldwide began to shut down over COVID-19 concerns, but that fate is now solidified at last. Production is set to resume and finally wrap its two unfinished episodes sometime in the latter half of August. Even better, we have a new premiere date: September 27th, 2020. That's a Sunday, and subsequent episodes will air on Sundays on FX, followed by next-day streaming availability on the FX expansion for Hulu.
You may or may not recall from the Before Times that the new season of Fargo was meant to begin airing in April, mostly for the benefit of qualifying for the 2020 Emmy slate. That ultimately couldn't happen because of the unfinished episodes; Emmys rules require all episodes to be available for public viewing by May 31st, even if the series premieres before the cutoff date. And so we have sat, waiting and wondering, but no more. The other good news is that despite the filming interruption, post-production on Fargo has continued and may, in fact, play out all the better for the series in the long run.
Doing the best you can in a holding pattern
Each season of Fargo has been a critical winner, but this upcoming slate promises to deliver something special indeed, focusing this time on warring criminal organizations in Kansas City and boasting a particularly wide gamut of a star-studded cast that runs from Chris Rock to Jason Schwartzman to Timothy Olyphant. After the show shut down production, showrunner Noah Hawley sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for its "How I'm Living Now" series, which discusses the major changes COVID-19 has foisted upon their lives and careers.
One silver lining in the mess caused by the shutdown for Hawley is a massive increase in breathing room to edit the footage he has — since Fargo was trying to make the Emmys deadline, he had previously been rather overwhelmed with trying to edit the episodes in a narrow window. "Our post was also hit by a potential exposure, so our editors are at home now," he explained at the time. "A couple of them were able to get editing systems in their homes. But because our release date got pushed, we're not rushing. I get a bit of breathing room where I can actually engage with it more creatively and less in a desperate panic to get it done in time."
You gotta take your victories where you can in this year's production environment, and Hawley certainly has one. Even better, this means that the end product will be the best it possibly can be, now that its artisans have more time to think their work through.