Fargo creator Noah Hawley previously suggested that “Year 3” might be the last Minnesota mayhem we get for years, and Wednesday’s finale cemented that. Find out how long Hawley plans to bench his beloved crime drama, and what other Fargo favorites very nearly popped up in Season 3.

You’re warned of full spoilers for Fargo Season 3 from here on out, including Wednesday finale “Somebody to Love,” but the ambiguous ending of Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon)’s final face-off with V.M. Varga (David Thewlis) was only half so uncertain as the series’ own future. Noah Hawley has Legion Season 2 and a bevy of film work taking precedence over any future Fargo, and the showrunner tells Deadline any fourth season is at least a few years away:

It took 15 months to get Season 2 off the ground, and 18 months to get Season 3 on the air. I have to turn my attention to the second season of Legion and a film potentially the winter after next. We’re looking at three years from now.

Hawley’s uncertainty over a fourth season topic likely precludes the return of many major characters, just as Season 3 only caught up with Mr. Wrench (Russell Harvard) from the first two seasons. The showrunner told UPROXX that he hesitates to think of the show as a “Fargo Universe” ripe for crossover, though he’d considered bringing Molly (Allison Tolman) or Gus (Colin Hanks) back:

I did feel like late in the season, if we could find a random and truthful way to bring in a character — I either have Molly or Gus or Mr. Wrench surviving, so it would have to be one of the three of them. I didn’t really want to bring another cop in, and bringing Gus back — I mean a random run-in with a postman is not necessarily that interesting, but it did feel, knowing where Nikki’s story was going as we sat her down on a prison bus and she happened to be next to a proven criminal who’s been arrested before, that could happen.

In the meantime, get an inside look at Season 3’s inter-connectivity in the featurette below, and stay tuned for more news on future Fargo. Was “Somebody to Love” otherwise a satisfying exit point for the franchise?

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