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Themes

Much of Fargo's thematic center examines the cultural and social upheaval in the United States during the 1970s. Hawley called the decade "the lowest moment in American history since the Depression" because of significant events such as the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. The series depicts Luverne as a city in crisis, crippled with crime and violence. Men such as Lou "brought this war home with them". Social movements of the era come into play—in particular, feminism. The series concentrates on a portrait of women whose desire for independence is seen as a threat to the patriarchy. Often, these aspirations come at their expense, as women have "sacrificed, strategized, even killed" to support incompetent men. Jacob Mikanowski of Los Angeles Review of Books said Fargo's characters provide a voice for a spectrum of issues relevant to that era, but ultimately, these are trumped by the family unit and "the gentle, yet confident Midwestern social ethos".

In June 2016, Noah Hawley explained the occurrence of UFOs in the show's second season. Talking to Beau Willimon about his new book, Before the Fall, at the ATX Festival in Texas, Hawley said, “Well, it was part of the moment,” Hawley continued. “Post-Vietnam, it was that both the political paranoia and the conspiracy theories went all the way to the top — with Watergate; that sense that people were feeling paranoid on some level. If you look at the internet research device, there was a state trooper/UFO incident in Minnesota in the ’70s, which I thought was interesting,” Hawley added. “And then also Joel and Ethan [Coen] had included some of those visuals in ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There.’ There was definitely a UFO runner in there.”