YMMV / Fargo: Season Four

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Some fans theorize that Clayton Winckle stole Loy's credit card idea, while others think a third party developed it independently while Loy suffered delays due to his race. There's also some debate about whether Winckle criticizes the concept of a credit card due of ethical issues about charging unfair interest rates, racism against Loy, or just because he isn't smart enough to appreciate the potential profits.
  • Does Josto treat Rabbi well out of simple pragmatism, because he feels closer to him due to (possibly correctly) suspecting that Rabbi was another victim of his former molester Owney, because he respects the sacrifices Rabbi had made, because his hatred of Owney makes him feel indebted to the man who helped kill him, or some combination of the four.
  • Is Leon a Small Name, Big Ego punk who only turns on Loy as the result of some harsh Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal, or is he an Obfuscating Stupidity figure who was always planning on betraying Loy?
  • Did Zelmare and Swanee get together because they recognized kindred spirits in each other who already embraced the outlaw lifestyle, or did one introduce the other to her Trigger-Happy Satisfied Street Rat mindset after they got together?
• Anti-Climax Boss: None of the finale's major casualties get to put up any real kind of fight before dying. Leon is strangled from behind, Josto and Oraetta are executed, and Loy is stabbed to death after thinking that everything is over. In the previous episode, after being The Heavy for the season, Gaetano shot himself by accident. Of course, the Gray-and-Gray Morality of the season means that neither crime family is set up to score a triumphant victory over the other.
• Awesome Music:
  • The pilot features a medley of Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which plays during Ethelrida's narration of the history of organized crime in Kansas City and evolves stylistically to fit each historical period being presented.
  • Art Blakey's "Moanin'" live performance at a nightclub at the beginning of "The Birthplace of Civilization".
  • Julius La Rosa's "Pass it On" at the end of "Lay Away" with Oraetta returning to the usual serial killing with a smile on her face, a good piece of Black Comedy and very reminiscent of the ending of first season sixth episode.
  • Episode 8 gives us "Train Station", a perfectly-tense number that plays during Zelmare and Swanee's showdown with the cops in the train station.
  • The spectacular opening scene of tenth episode, "Happy" with Willie Dixon & Koko Taylor's "Insane Asylum"
  • The opening scene of the last episode "Storia Americana" with Johnny Cash's "What is Man" on memoriam of the deceased characters.
• Bizarro Episode: Episode 9 aka "East/West", which follows the journey of Satchel Cannon and Rabbi Milligan; as if to emphasize its standalone nature, the majority of the episode is filmed in black and white. Satchel and Rabbi stay at the Barton Arms' hotel and meet a whole array of strange characters, including a pair of elderly sisters and a mysterious bandaged man who is implied to be Rabbi's deceased father, and then Rabbi is carried away by a tornado that appeared out of nowhere. Satchel decides to leave the hotel and return to his father in Kansas City, and none of these bizarre occurrences are ever brought up again in subsequent episodes.
• Complete Monster: Owney "Yiddles" Milligan was the boss of the Milligan Concern, which ruled Kansas City before the Italian Fadda family came along, who gained his seat of power by massacring his own predecessors, the Moskowitz Syndicate. Owney twice passed along his son Rabbi as a hostage to rival gangs in an exchange of firstborn sons and forced his young boy to personally pull the trigger on the youngest child of the Moskowitz don. Owney was even a pedophile whose abuse helped to warp the current head of the Faddas, Josto, who still claims "the Devil was an Irishman". Owney's abuse curses Rabbi to the life of a killer long after Owney dies, a life which Rabbi lives and dies in despite his attempt to escape with the boy who would grow up to be Mike Milligan.
• Critical Dissonance: While this season as a whole was the least well-received season yet, critics were much more favorable, whereas audiences were mixed. Rotten Tomatoes holds that 81% of critics looked upon this season favorably. The audience score, on the other hand, dips down to a "rotten" 55%.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Wicked Cultured consigliere Doctor Senator is rated as far more likable and intelligent than most of the main characters. Unfortunately, he dies less than halfway through the season.
  • Swanee, the Native-American-Chinese beloved half of a Lover and Beloved Stupid Crooks Outlaw Couple prone to Beware the Silly Ones moments may not be in the opening credits, unlike her partner Zelmare, but is probably a bit more more popular than Zelmare and a lot more popular than several other main characters.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The very same night that "East/West" and its tornado out of nowhere aired, New York City was experiencing a freak confluence of weather conditions that would make a tornado possible, though luckily one didn't actually form.
• He's Just Hiding: Not everyone is willing to write off Rabbi and, to a lesser extent,Calamita and Omie (who had just been shot and possibly killed but may have just been wounded, after they get sucked into a tornado funnel.
• I Knew It!: From the get-go, fans were predicting that Satchel Cannon would grow up to become Mike Milligan. The season finale confirms it in the very last scene.
• Jerkass Woobie: Odis Weff is a corrupt cop on the payroll of the Faddas and eventual murderer in his own right, but the poor guy is always being eaten alive by compulsive aanxiety and nervous tics, came home from war to see his wife had been raped and murdered, and is stepped on by absolutely everyone he meets—the Faddas, the Cannons, even his own partner on the force. He's not a criminal out of malice or greed but desperation and a lack of better options, which ultimately pushes him to murder. His victims are hardly worthy of sympathy; one was his jerkass partner whose incompetence provokes a massacre, and the other is one of the two women who actually committed said massacre.
• Magnificent Bastard: Ebal Violante is a wise old criminal who served as the personal advisor and advocate to the Fadda family, whose conflict resolution abilities and sound strategical advice are often ignored or overlooked by the impulsive Fadda leadership. After weeks of watching the Faddas slowly self-destruct due to incompetent leadership, Ebal finally steps up and takes the reigns himself, manipulating rival crime lord Loy Cannon into an alliance that enables Ebal to betray, demonize and execute Josto Fadda, assuming control of the Fadda family for himself in one, swift motion. Promptly screwing Loy over and revealing he's taking half of the Cannon territory as well, Ebal puts Loy in his place as a mere fish in the vast ocean of crime Ebal and his partners in New York occupy, and ends the story completely on top of the Kansas City Mafia, paving the way for decades more professional crime and business to come.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Before season 4's release, Noah Hawley proclaimed that he considered it the best season of Fargo yet. Season 4 received a poorer reception than its predecessors from both critics (albeit not by much) and audiences.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Josto may have been trying to avoid starting a war at the beginning, and seems A Lighter Shade of Black compared to his treacherous, bloodthirsty brother, Gaetano. However, when he orders Antoon Dumini to drive Loy Cannon's youngest son Satchel out to the middle of nowhere and execute him in the hopes that Loy will execute Gaetano (who has been taken hostage) in retaliation, thereby removing the biggest threat to Josto's control over his outfit, he crosses the line swiftly and remorselessly. For added bastardry, the next episode reveals that Antoon was his brother-in-law. He got a member of his own family killed, made a widow of his own sister, and was prepared to risk the life of his innocent little brother Zero, just to bait Loy into killing Gaetano. In-universe, Josto being able to sink to Gaetano's level manages to earn him Gaetano's respect.
  • Rabbi's wicked father Owney Milligan is the first to cross it in the season when he makes his own son Rabbi murder the youngest child of the criminal Moskowitz family, an establishing shot that firmly sets the Darker and Edgier tone of this season from the first episode on. Josto wasn't kidding when he claimed "the Devil was an Irishman" (in reference to Owney having molested him for three straight years as the Milligan's hostage).
• Nausea Fuel: Swanee ends up being the one to eat a bunch of an ipecac-filled pie that Mayflower sent to the Smutneys, and we're teased that it'll kick in while she and Zelmare are crammed into a coffin together. That very luckily doesn't happen, but she still ends up horribly puking and farting in the middle of their robbery, including into the bag of money they just stole.
• Seasonal Rot: This season, while still regarded by critics as good, was criticized for its bizarre pace, tangential storylines, and feeling overall "uninspired." For example, the highest rated episodes on IMDb for this season only rise to the lowest rated scores for previous seasons.^note "The Nadir" and "Happy" garnered scores of 8.4 and 8.3, respectively. Compare that to "The Rooster Prince," the lowest-rated episode in season one, with a score of 8.6
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Detective Odis Weff is a World War II veteran who worked as a minesweeper (a job rarely given much attention in WWII fiction) who has OCD that makes him a Nervous Wreck even before he is forced into a reluctant partnership with a Good is Not Nice and Bunny-Ears Lawyer literal Cowboy Cop. With all of these traits, he had the potential to be a season protagonist, Anti-Hero, or more prominent supporting character in this season or another story later down the line. However, due to Hawley’s reluctance to glorify any of the era’s cops, Odis (while still a fan favorite) is relegated to a somewhat antagonistic role with limited screen time or plot relevance.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass Outlaw Couple and prison escapees Zelmare and Swanee, the first prominent lesbian couple in the franchise, are frequently described as characters who feel shoehorned into the plot at times and aren’t given enough room to develop as much as many characters but feel like they could have been utilized better in a season with a smaller number of characters and plotlines. Swanee could have also been a Contrasting Sequel Main Character (or rather supporting character) to the only previous major Native-American character, Hanzee (who starts off as a Noble Demon but gets a lot worse) if she’d gone from being more Trigger-Happy and chaotic than Hanzee to getting Character Development with Earn Your Happy Ending potential.
• The Woobie:
  • Satchel Cannon is an innocent young boy who has the misfortune of being the youngest son of rising gangster Loy Cannon. In keeping with the local customs, he has been offered up as a foster child-slash-hostage to the Fadda Family, who neglect him badly, only keeping him alive because Loy is fostering one of their children, Zero. For added angst, Satchell is well-aware that Zero is being treated well by Loy.
  • Patrick "Rabbi" Milligan was traded to the Moskowitz family when he was a child, and while he was treated well enough, he was forced by his biological family to betray his foster father and kill the Moskowitz heir himself. And then, when the Fadda Family came along, he was traded again, with the expectation that he would betray the Faddas when the time came around. Instead, he sided with the Faddas and helped wipe out his family... and was rewarded with the job caring for Satchel Cannon as part of the latest foster exchange, which is likely a thankless task because with Donatello dead and Josto and Gaetano competing for control of the family, the likelihood of a gang war has gone way up.