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Season 1 of FX's "Fargo" was a surprise. A really great surprise.

The 10-part series perfectly captured the spirit of the 1996 film without mimicking it. Set in 2006, it was the engaging black comedy/drama about a violent criminal (Billy Bob Thornton), a henpecked insurance salesman (Martin Freeman) and a pair of police officers (Colin Hanks and Allison Tolman) who eventually cracked the case.

"Fargo" won Emmys, Golden Globes and a Peabody Award, but, apparently, much of the Season 2 cast didn't watch it. At least not until they had themselves been cast in Season 2.

"My kids told me I was an idiot" for not watching Season 1, said Ted Danson, who stars as the local sheriff. But he didn't until it became "a possibility that I was going to be able to be in this, and then I devoured it in two days" and "fell in love with what I saw."

"I binge watched it in a day," said Kirsten Dunst, who stars as a small-town beautician. "And I was just so blown away by the acting and the writing and the way it looked."

That's almost exactly what Jeffrey Donovan ("Burn Notice), who stars a local gangster Dodd Gerhardt, said. That his wife recommended he watch Season 1, "And I finally sat down and watched it and, like everyone, was blown away."

Like Season 2 of another 2014 miniseries, HBO's "True Detective," Season 2 of "Fargo" is a completely different story with a completely different cast playing completely different characters.

Unlike "True Detective," there is no sophomore slump in Season 2 of "Fargo." Through the four episodes provided to critics, at least, Season 2 is every bit as good as Season 1. And that's saying a lot.

The two seasons of "Fargo" are set in small towns in the same vicinity. They're set 17 years apart. And none of them, including the film, is set in Fargo … with the exception of a couple of brief scenes.

"It is a complete reinvention," said writer/executive producer/director Noah Hawley. "It is a completely new story."

There are similarities, of course. The movie and the two miniseries are all violent. They all possess a dark sense of humor. They're all populated by peculiar — even bizarre — characters.

Despite the announcement at the beginning of Season 2 episodes that "this is a true story," it's not. It's the same announcement that preceded the film and Season 1, and neither of those were true, either.

But Hawley, a fan of the Coen brothers' film, saw a formula he could turn into two very different yet somehow similar miniseries.

"It's evocative of a kind of story — a true crime story that isn't true, where truth is stranger than fiction," said Hawley, "And then there were some things in analyzing the movie that I thought — well, this has to be the way you tell the story. You meet the criminals before the crime is committed, right? It's not a whodunit. There's no mystery. And you don't meet law enforcement until the crime has been committed."

The story is populated by "a character who is basically a very purely good person"; another who is a "monstrosity"; and "in the middle, there are characters who could go one way or the other."

Season 2 takes place in 1979 in Luverne, Minn., where a local state trooper and Vietnam War vet, Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson), investigates the murders of three people at the Waffle Hut, with help from his father-in-law, Sheriff Hank Larsson (Danson). The crime is tied to the local crime family, the Gerhardts, whose matriarch, Floyd (Jean Smart, "24"), is fending off a challenge by the crime syndicate in Kansas — a challenge spearheaded by front man Joe Bulo (Brad Garrett, "Everybody Loves Raymond").

And in the middle are Ed Blumquist (Jesse Plemons, "Breaking Bad"), a butcher's assistant, and his wife, Peggy (Dunst).

"We're setting up this dynamic where there are a lot of bad people sort of on a collision course," Hawley said. "And the idea is, you know, who will emerge? And will Ed and Peggy survive? And can Patrick Wilson's character and Ted Danson's character save them?"

The cast also includes Nick Offerman ("Parks and Recreation"), Cristin Milioti ("How I Met Your Mother"), Bokeem Woodbine, Jeffrey Donovan ("Burn Notice"), Angus Sampson and Kieran Culkin.

The word quirky might have been invented to describe "Fargo." Season 2 opens with a black-and-white sequence set behind the scenes of a fake 1951 Ronald Reagan movie titled "Massacre at Sioux Falls" — and the real Reagan (Bruce Campbell) shows up later in the season.

And, without giving away too much, there is a UFO in Season 2. That doesn't mean it's from outer space, necessarily, but it is an unidentified flying object.

"That was a weather balloon," Hawley joked.

(Non-spoiler alert — it's not.)

It's an equally odd, equally engaging "Fargo" story. It's a crime drama, but it's a very different viewing experience from a weekly whodunit. As Danson, who just moved to "CSI: Cyber" after four seasons on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," can tell you.

"It's the luxury of not having to solve a crime in 45 minutes," he said. "You get 10 hours to develop these characters and the plot."

"In the end, I think it evokes the same feelings that you have both at the end of the movie and, hopefully, at the end of our first year," Hawley said. "But otherwise, it tells a story in a very different way. It is a much bigger story, kind of an American epic." —

On TV

Season 2 of "Fargo" premieres Tuesday at 11 p.m. on FX.