The fourth season of FX’s hit crime drama series Fargo just added some major, if unexpected, talent to its lineup. It was announced today that actor and comedian Chris Rock will play a crime boss in the upcoming season, which is slated to begin production in 2019.
The fourth season of Fargo will chart an era of great change in America history. The season will be set in the 1950s, when people from Southern Europe were migrating to the United States from countries like Italy and settling in New York and Chicago. At the same time, African-Americans were fleeing to these same cities to escape unjust Jim Crow laws.
In the melting pot of Kansas City, Missouri, two crime syndicates that sprung from these separate demographics will clash over control of an innately elicit economy. To broker peace, an unusual truce is made — the head of either syndicate trades their eldest son to be raised by the other. Rock will play the head of the African-American crime syndicate, who is suddenly thrust into uncertain territory when the head of the Italian syndicate unexpectedly dies.
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Based on the 1996 crime film by Joel and Ethan Coen, this is not the first time Noah Hawley’s Fargo television series has dipped into period crime drama. While both Season 1 and Season 3 of the series were set largely in the modern era, Season 2 revisited elements of Season 1 from the perspective of 1979.
The anthology series has recruited several big-name actors into its fold over the course of its run. Fargo Season 1 starred Billy Bob Thronton as the unstoppable and unscrupulous assassin Lorne Malvo, who made life a living hell for the equally unscrupulous salesman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman).
Season 2 arguably brought even more star power with Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons, who played a husband and wife team whose attempts to cover up a murder results in a bloody, protracted gang war and maybe an alien visitation. Ted Danson cameoed in the season.
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Season 3 of Fargo saw Ewan McGregor play two brothers, one a deadbeat parole officer and another a successful business man, alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead. The “trio” attempt to navigate a questionable criminal reality orchestrated by David Thewlis’ V. M. Varga while an embattled small-town police chief, Gloria Burgle (Carrier Coon), is in hot pursuit.
Helmed by Noah Hawley, Fargo Season 3 will star Chris Rock and is set to start production in 2019.