The Lowdown Review: Ethan Hawke's Noir Has More Than Just (Potential) Murder on Its Mind

The Lowdown doesn't give you time to adjust. The latest series from Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo begins on a suicide — or, well, a presumed suicide. The show's opening sequence finds Dale Washberg (Tim Blake Nelson) in the final moments of his life, signing a letter that he hides inside a book before putting on a cowboy hat and shooting himself in the head. How much of this actually happened is the question that establishes the foundation for the Oklahoma-set noir. The particulars of Dale's death are immediately of interest to Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke), a journalist whose recent exposé on the wealthy Washberg family's history of corruption earned him national recognition as well as an unpopular reputation among the Tulsa elite. All of this is thrown at the audience at a steady, self-assured clip: Within the first minute of the first episode, Dale is dead. Within the first three minutes, Lee has already begun to develop suspicions about his demise. The Lowdown asks the viewer to meet it where it's at, promising details later.

The series and its protagonist move at a similar pace. Lee drives around Tulsa in his big white van, bouncing from place to place and person to person in his relentless pursuit of answers. He's quicker to refer to himself as a "truthstorian" than as a journalist. He owns a rare book store (which he also lives above), but his business is second to his real passion. "I read stuff, I research stuff, I drive around, and I find stuff," he explains. "Then, I write about stuff. Some people care; some people don't. I'm chronically unemployed, always broke, but let's just say that I am obsessed with the truth."

In this case, his obsession with the truth leads him right back to the Washbergs. With Dale gone, his secretive family is left to pick up the pieces, from his glad-handing gubernatorial candidate brother, Donald (Kyle MacLachlan), to his brassy widow, Betty Jo (Jeanne Tripplehorn), who aren't thrilled to have Lee poking around in their business. There's something rotten in the city of Tulsa, and Lee believes himself to be the only person who can get to the bottom of it. The mystery begins to take shape as he snoops, discovering that Dale has left a breadcrumb trail for someone to dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding his death, in the form of letters tucked neatly away into Jim Thompson crime novels. As Lee begins to pore over Dale's writings, the series deploys a spectral version of the deceased, to great effect. Nelson appears on screen to narrate Dale's letters in his trademark timbre, sometimes speaking directly into the camera and sometimes to Lee himself.

9.5

The Lowdown

at FX

Like

• Harjo's distinctive touch is all over it
• Excellent characters played by excellent actors
• Great jokes

Dislike

• There is simply nothing to dislike

Those moments give The Lowdown that specific Harjo-branded otherworldliness that made Reservation Dogs such a unique watch. It's one of the many pieces of DNA that the two series share: The Lowdown is primarily a mystery, but it still goes out of its way to make time for some good hangs. While Lee is hustling around town on his wild goose chase for answers, he has frequent run-ins with the cast of quirky characters who give The Lowdown's Tulsa its color. Lee is the show's point of view, but he never feels alone in the world. There's his eternally patient ex, Samantha (Kaniehtiio Horn), and his plucky teen daughter, Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), whom Lee is terrified of putting in danger but not terrified enough to stop what he's doing. There's his sardonic employee, Deidra (Siena East), and her clueless cousin Waylon (Cody Lightning), and gossipy antique dealer Ray (Michael Hitchcock). An eyepatch-wearing Killer Mike plays the editor of a local rag, and an episode-stealing Peter Dinklage shows up midway through the season as a friend from Lee's past. There's a Simpsons-esque quality to its vibrant ensemble, making the universe of this series feel entirely alive.

Crucially, The Lowdown also lets the obstinate and big-mouthed Lee be annoying. The self-righteousness of a well-intentioned white guy is key to making this show work, and Hawke tears into the role, shirking his usual coolness to play Lee as a relatively good-hearted madman who is permanently stuck teetering on the edge of total destruction. Hawke has played this type of guy before, and Lee feels like a more current version of his take on John Brown in 2020's criminally underseen limited series The Good Lord Bird. He's a nuisance to many, not just the Washbergs, his outspokenness catching the attention of a band of neo-Nazis who don't hesitate to dish out regular beatings. (Based on how many times Lee gets his sh-- rocked in the first five episodes alone, it seems safe to say that Harjo also knows that there's just something so funny about a crackpot detective stumbling around with a black eye.) There's also the matter of the mysterious Marty, played by the great Keith David, who keeps showing up in Lee's life under the guise of discussing literature but seems unusually interested in the Washberg investigation. "F---in' white men that care," Marty laments. "Saddest of the bunch."

At its heart, The Lowdown is a story that wants the viewer to care about the truth as much as its main character does. It's fearless and gonzo, easily one of the best new shows of the year, and it's made even better for the time it arrives in, with trust in the media rapidly sinking and respect for writers at an all-time low. By putting a determined, if eccentric, journalist at its center, The Lowdown feels like an old-school story with a very modern spirit.

Premieres: The first two episodes premiere Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 9/8c on FX and stream next day on Hulu, followed by new episodes weekly
Who's in it: Ethan Hawke, Keith David, Kyle MacLachlan, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Tim Blake Nelson, Kaniehtiio Horn
Who's behind it: Sterlin Harjo
For fans of: Old-school detective stories
How many episodes we watched: 5 of 8