Fargo type TV Show network FX genre Drama

Crime

Anthology

Oh, you want new details on Fargo’s second season? You betcha, we got ’em!

During TCA’s winter press tour, FX CEO John Langraf revealed that Ronald Reagan will figure into the second season of the network’s hit anthology series.

The new chapter travels back to 1979, where a young Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson, played in the first season by Keith Carradine) returns from Vietnam and begins to investigate a local gang and a mob syndicate.

“It covers something that was referenced in the first installment by Lou Solverson, Molly Solverson’s [Allison Tolman] father,” Langraf said. “It’s a big sprawling, in some ways, more comedic [season], though at times, a very serious show. It’s set in the late ’70s against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for President of the United States. Reagan is a character in it.”

After the panel, Landgraf confided to EW that Fargo will actually be casting the role of Reagan, not using archival footage. “Reagan will be interacting with our characters,” he said, noting that the role has not yet been cast.

Joining Wilson in the second season: Ted Danson as Hank Larsson, Lou’s unflappable father-in-law; Nick Offerman as Karl Weathers, a local lawyer; Jean Smart as Floyd Gerhardt, the matriarch of the Gerhardt crime family; Jeffrey Donovan as her eldest son, Dodd Gerhardt; Angus Sampson as her inarticulate middle son, Bear Gerhardt; Kieran Culkin as her youngest son, Rye Gerhardt; and Kirsten Dunst as small town beautician Peggy Blomquist, and her husband Ed (Jesse Plemons), who attempts to be supportive of his wife’s self-discovery, even if he doesn’t quite understand it.

In that vein, Langrad noted that feminism will play a big role in the second season. “A lot of what it’s about is the cultural transformation that was going on at the time,” Landgraf said. “It’s about the sense that the war has come home. It’s also about feminism, so there are some really significant female characters. It’s a big, sprawling, incredibly ambitious [series]. Noah [Hawley] just channeled the Coen brothers and tells stories in a way that’s so fresh and so surprising.”

The second season of Fargo is slated to begin production on Monday, with the 10-episode anthology miniseries expected to premiere in the fall.