Fargo season 3 takes the anthology series into its strangest territory, with Ewan McGregor playing twin brothers trapped on opposite sides of a dangerous criminal scheme.
Two Ewan McGregors, one escalating crime story
FX’s Fargo is an anthology series inspired by the Coen brothers’ 1996 film. Each season returns to similar themes and Minnesota settings, where ordinary people become entangled with organised crime. The first two seasons stayed relatively close to the film’s darkly comic thriller formula, but season 3 pushes further into the bizarre.
That shift begins with the Stussy brothers. Emmit Stussy is a prosperous family man celebrated as the “Parking Lot King of Minnesota”, while his estranged twin, Ray, works as a parole officer and feels bitter about his brother’s success.
Ray believes Emmit manipulated their inheritance after their father died. Emmit took a valuable stamp collection while persuading Ray to accept their father’s more eye-catching, but less valuable, Corvette. Years later, that resentment helps set the season’s central conflict in motion.
Desperate to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend Nikki Swango, Ray blackmails one of his parolees into stealing Emmit’s most valuable stamp. Nikki, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is also one of Ray’s parolees and encourages many of his most reckless decisions.
McGregor’s double performance drives the season
McGregor makes the twin premise far more entertaining than a standard mistaken-identity plot. Emmit and Ray look, sound and behave so differently that it is easy to forget they are played by the same actor. McGregor commits fully to the thick Minnesota accent, giving each brother a distinct physical and vocal presence.
The funniest example arrives when Ray attempts to impersonate Emmit. His disguise includes a conspicuously poor wig, turning a tense situation into one of the season’s most memorable pieces of dark comedy.
A particularly unsettling villain
David Thewlis gives the season another major point of difference as V. M. Varga. Varga arrives at Emmit’s business to collect money borrowed from a shadowy company, but his involvement soon becomes much more threatening. With dirty grey-brown teeth and an unnerving manner, he gradually hollows out Emmit’s company from the inside.
His disturbing monologues about civilisation’s decline add a bleak, almost surreal dimension to the crime story. Russell Harvard also returns as Mr. Wrench, the deaf assassin first introduced in season 1. He is one of the few characters to appear across multiple seasons.
Twists, deaths and very dark humour
Season 3 delivers the series’ familiar reversals, unexpected deaths and sudden changes of fortune, but its humour is especially grim. The tone still connects to the Coen brothers’ Fargo, while occasionally reaching towards the broader, more cynical absurdity of their 2008 film Burn After Reading.
It is not the show’s strongest season overall: season 2 remains the high point, while season 1 is the closest match for the original film. Season 3 is, however, the weirdest. That is saying something for a series whose second season includes a UFO.
Why it works for a weekend binge
The season’s appeal comes from the way its unusual ideas reinforce one another. The twin-brother setup creates comedy and tension, Varga brings genuine menace, and the plot keeps changing direction without abandoning the series’ wintry crime-story identity.
For viewers who enjoy stories that reward attention, season 3 has the same stop-and-start tension as a challenging arcade game: every decision creates another problem, and the next turn is rarely obvious. Browse the RETROCADE Arcade Blog for more entertainment and gaming features, or explore the arcade videos collection for more screen-based inspiration.
If this kind of focused weekend session sounds familiar, a compact bartop arcade can deliver a similar pick-up-and-play experience, while the arcade machine buying guide explains what to consider before choosing a cabinet.
All seasons of Fargo are available on Hulu.
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