Throughout its past four seasons, Fargo has been a huge critical success for FX. The television continuation of the 1996 Academy-Award-winning Coen Brothers film has garnered multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards, telling a series of loosely connected dark-comedy crime sagas in bleak Midwestern settings. Its most recent season featured Chris Rock as a 1950s Kansas City crime boss, which finally bowed in 2020 after a long COVID-related production delay.

However, ever since Fargo concluded its fourth season, there have been questions as to whether the show will return for a fifth season. Well, thanks to some updates from the show's creator, Noah Hawley, it's clear there is interest for another season of Fargo, just not as quickly as fans might want.

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Typically, the chances of a show returning for an additional season depend on its ratings. While Fargo has had much critical acclaim, the ratings of the fourth season were lower than its predecessors. The average audience viewership of Fargo has steadily decreased from its blockbuster first season, with Season 4 seeing an over 50% decrease in the 18-49 demographic from Season 3. That being said, FX's model is slightly unique due to its unique infusion of basic cable and streaming practices. So, Fargo's cable ratings are not entirely the best indicator of whether or not the network would renew it.

Regardless of ratings, Hawley has expressed a desire in continuing the show. While he has stated that he is yet to write the fifth installment, he made it clear that he would "get to it in the next year." There is no return date set, but Hawley also revealed that the time setting of the new season would be "set somewhere in the recent past." The time in which each season of Fargo takes place has varied due to its anthological format, ranging from the mid-to-late 2000s to the 1950s.

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Fargo's format also allows each season to function more like a miniseries than a season of a continuous program, telling a complete, standalone story with a new cast and few connections to other seasons. Furthermore, the show usually competes in the miniseries categories come awards season, so "Season 5" of Fargo is nothing like a typical fifth season of another network or basic cable show -- each season is its own beast. Because of this, more time can be taken between seasons, especially since there is not a cast that is bound by contracts for additional seasons.

Given the show's format and the vagueness of Hawley's comments, Season 5 of Fargo remains a mystery. Hawley has expressed caution about "overstay[ing his] welcome" when it comes to continuing the series, but viewers are most assuredly thankful that there is another compelling yarn waiting to be spun on the horizon.

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