Kirsten Dunst is one of the first cast members for the next season of Fargo, the surprise hit for FX last season. Dunst will be joined by Jesse Plemons, who wowed audiences in Breaking Bad as the shockingly amoral Todd.
While Dunst and Plemons are certainly recognizable names, it is the concept behind this season of Fargo that is delicious. The season is set in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Luverne, Minnesota in 1979. It serves as a prequel to the first season. That storyline starred Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton in roles that took both outside the realm most people think of them in.
The first season of Fargo was also a breakout success for actress Allison Tolman as Molly Solverson, a local police detective. Tolman had done a few small roles before Fargo, but was working for a temp agency when she got the call to do the series. Since then she has done The Mindy Project and has two feature films in the works.
Tolman’s character of Milly Solverson also had a father, Lou Solverson, played by veteran actor Keith Carradine. Within the first season, Lou Solverson was an older ex-cop who now owned a diner. In one scene with Billy Bob Thornton, Lou Solverson refers to a horrific 1979 case he worked when he was a cop.
“Now, I saw something that year I ain’t ever seen, before or since. I’d call it animal. Except animals only kill for food. This was— Sioux Falls. Ever been?”
A younger Lou Solverson is a central character in the upcoming Fargo season. He will be a cop, recently returned from Vietnam, and his daughter Molly is now only a baby. The rumor is that this horrific case Lou referred to will be central to the new season.
“He thought he left the war behind, but he came back and here it is, it’s domestic,” showrunner Noah Hawley told Entertainment Weekly. “We will meet Molly’s mother, who was not a character in season one … and we’ll learn what happened to her. There were a lot of clues left in the first season and we’ll do our best to hit those.”
The character of young Lou Solverson is not yet cast.
Dunst will star as Peggy Blomquist, “a small town beautician with big city dreams who is trying to figure out who she really is and what she really wants as she struggles with traditional societal expectations. She shares her home with her husband Ed, a butcher’s assistant, who wants to be supportive of his wife’s self-discovery, even if he doesn’t quite understand it.”
Plemons will play Ed, Peggy’s husband.
The first Fargo season won an Emmy for outstanding miniseries.