‘Fargo’ Casts Patrick Wilson and Ted Danson for Mob-Focused Season
Patrick Wilson, Ted Danson and Jean Smart have been tapped to star in the second season of Fargo, which will premiere next fall, Variety reports. The trio join previously announced cast members, Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons, who play Peggy and Ed Blomquist.
Wilson will portray Lou Solverson, a Minnesota State Patrolmen and Navy veteran recently back from Vietnam (Season Two of Fargo is set in 1979; Keith Carradine played the older, retired Solverson in Season One). Danson will play Hank Larsson, a World War II vet, the Sheriff of Rock County, Minnesota and Lou’s father-in-law. Smart will round out the cast as Floyd Gerhardt, the matriarch of the Gerhardt crime family, who take control after her husband’s death.
Season Two of Fargo will also feature a number of guest stars including Nick Offerman, Brad Garrett, Kieran Culkin, Bokeem Woodbine, Jeffrey Donovan and Angus Sampson.
Set in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Luverne, Minnesota, Season Two of Fargo will center around a small-town married couple — ostensibly the one played by Dunst and Plemons — who find themselves caught between two warring mob families. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley spoke about what fans can expect from the second installment of the breakout adaptation of Joel and Ethan Coen’s beloved 1996 film.
“The scope of the storytelling this season is a lot bigger — thematically, on a character level, and story-wise,” Hawley said. “It has more of an epic feel to it. That’s exciting. Within that expansion, we’re still holding onto that Fargo tone. My feeling was that Joel and Ethan never repeat themselves, so the show would be false if we just tried to do the same thing again. We should take their example.”
The first season of Fargo recently scored five Golden Globe nominations, including Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, and acting nods for its four stars Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Colin Hanks and Allison Tolman.