FX’s Fargo has filled out the cast for its fourth season, with Jack Huston, Jason Schwartzman and Ben Whishaw taking on leading roles alongside previously announced star Chris Rock.
The ensemble for season four also includes Jessie Buckley, Salvatore Esposito, musician Andrew Bird, Jeremie Harris, Gaetano Bruno, Anji White, Francesco Acquaroli and E’myri Crutchfield. Amber Midthunder, who has worked with Fargo creator Noah Hawley in Legion, will have a recurring role.
Season four takes place in Kansas City in 1950, at the end of two great migrations — that of southern Europeans to the United States and of African Americans moving away from the Jim Crow South. In Kansas City, two crime syndicates — one Italian and one African American — have struck an uneasy peace, and to cement that, the two families have exchanged their youngest sons. (The “youngest” part is a small change from earlier versions of the story, which had the two families swapping first-born sons.)
Rock will play the head of one of the families who is raising his enemy’s son as his own. It’s going OK, until the head of the Kansas City mafia goes into the hospital for surgery and dies. “It’s a story of immigration and assimilation, and the things we do for money,” reads FX’s description of the season. “And as always, a story of basically decent people who are probably in over their heads. You know, Fargo.”
FX hasn’t released any details beyond character names, one of which stands out: Whishaw (Q in the James Bond movies) is playing Rabbi Milligan. Season two of the show, set in the 1970s, featured Kansas City mob enforcer Mike Milligan (Bokeem Woodbine), which suggests a connection between the two.
Season four is scheduled to begin production in the fall in Chicago and air on FX in 2020.
