FX’s Fargo has quickly become one of (if not the) best drama on television. The dark comedy, designed with inspiration from the film, recently finaled to an eager audience who was active on social TV (according to our analytics partner Canvs). Two of the shows stars are very active on social media (Twitter in particular). Before the finale we spoke with Colin Hanks (who plays Gus Grimly) and Allison Tolman (who plays Molly Solverson) two of the shows stars. Here’s what they had to say about social TV and insights from Canvs on the episode.
According to Canvs, during the finale, “Colin Hanks (@ColinHanks), who played Gus, was mentioned in 1,441 Tweets, accounting for 19.8% of total reactions” and “Alison Tolman (@Alison_Tolman), who played Molly, was mentioned in 851 Tweets during the broadcast, accounting for 11.7% of total reactions.” Canvs added that, “by contrast, there were only 109 reactions mentioning Colin Hanks in the first episode.” Here’s what Hanks and Tolman told Lost Remote about the reaction to the show they’ve seen personally on social media.
Allison Tolman: Overwhelmingly, it’s been a positive for the most part. There’s always some complainers and there’s always some just trolls. That just happens, but as far as like actual human beings who are actually watching the show and giving us actual feedback, I think that it’s been overwhelmingly positive, and it has a really great really loyal fan base.
Colin Hanks: Yes, it’s been pretty surreal to see how many people have really liked the show and have been vocal about it. Ironically, I remember I joined Twitter because I was on a TV show that wasn’t sort of—it was okay received, but it was a way to sort of get the word out that the show was on and sort of as a little bit of a pick-me-up as well to hear that people actually really did love the show and really dig it, and normally, I’m used to people Tweeting me about movies from ten years ago or something like that. So, it’s nice to sort of know that come Tuesday night, we sort of get this instant feedback from actual fans that watch the show from all over the world. It’s really cool.
Allison Tolman: We get it again on Sundays when they show it in the UK.
Colin Hanks: Exactly. I’m very, very cognizant of the fact that the UK gets it on Sunday. I try to make sure everybody keeps the spoilers down for that week for the people in the UK, but no, look, not to sound like a broken record or an echo chamber, but that’s really the sort of amazing thing about social media these days is that you can have that sort of instant word of mouth, so to speak, that used to take longer for it to sort of crawl out, but now, it’s pretty immediate, sometimes even as the show is going on, which is pretty great, and the fact that it has been so positive is just—it’s really nice.
More insights from Canvs followed by an infographic:
- There was a sizable pool of tweets that expressed both “worst” and “best” emotions, comprising 5% of total reactions. Most of these tweets expressed that Fargo was a great show and that they were sad that this was the last episode.
- Keegan Key Jordan Peele, of Key & Peele fame, were also among the top-mentioned actors. More than 60% of Tweets about each actor expressed love or enjoyment, indicating that viewers approved of their crossover into drama.
