Noah Hawley's series is made under licence from the Coens' film, who are credited as executive producers, and it opens with the same on-screen claim that what follows is a true story told at the survivors' request. It is not, in either case. It is an anthology rather than a continuation: new characters each season, the same Upper Midwest, the same collision between a decent and underestimated police officer and a violence that arrives from outside and is stupider than it is frightening. The first season also ties itself to the film directly, through the buried ransom money.