Note: This story contains spoilers from “DTF St. Louis” Episode 3.
Alright, “DTF St. Louis” fans. It’s time to talk about Carol (Linda Cardellini).
The seductress and part-time little league umpire takes center stage in “DTF St. Louis” Episode 3, “The Go Getter,” which further unpacks the nature of her affair with Clark Forrest (Jason Bateman), the best friend of her husband Floyd (David Harbour). Along the way, viewers not only learn more about Clark’s specific sexual fantasies, which Carol helped him fulfill, but also the financial help that she manipulated him into offering both her and, unbeknownst to him, Floyd.
The episode gives Cardellini the chance to play every possible iteration of her character, whether it be the financially desperate mom, disillusioned wife or even the kind of noir femme fatale moviegoers once associated with actresses like Barbara Stanwyck and Ava Gardner. While speaking with TheWrap, “DTF St. Louis” creator Steven Conrad called that femme fatale archetype a “really good analog” for Carol or, at least, the way she is perceived by others in the HBO series.
“This is the way Jason’s character is apprehending her, with this sexual potency. Meanwhile, she’s inhabiting a home life where she has phased into being overly familiar to her husband,” Conrad said. “Linda is performing plausible versions of each of [those shades] of her character — the overly familiar housewife and the very sexually dynamic lady next door.”
One of the mysteries “The Go Getter” leaves “DTF St. Louis” viewers to grapple with themselves is the motivation behind Carol’s seduction of Clark. Did she seduce him because she was attracted to him, or because she saw an opportunity? Did she see in him a way to potentially alleviate some of her and Floyd’s soul-killing financial stress?
“I think potentially it’s both things at once,” Cardellini offered. “I think sometimes you can be attracted to the opportunity someone presents, whether it’s about yourself or it’s about somebody else. [Clark] gives me an opportunity to be somebody that I don’t think I can be at home anymore.”
The actress knows that viewers will likely be thinking the worst of Carol at the end of “DTF St. Louis” Episode 3. That is partly by design, and it is an impulse that Cardellini believes the HBO series invites in order to interrogate. “It’s really easy when you see a female character like Carol to ascribe to her these manipulative attributes and think, ‘Oh, there’s our bad guy,’” Cardellini told TheWrap. “I think there’s a real examination as the show goes on of, like, ‘Did you get her right? Or were you not really seeing the whole person?’”
“So much of this will start to be more clear in the coming episodes about what she’s doing, how she’s doing it and who knew what she was doing,” Cardellini added. “I just think it’s really beautiful how she doesn’t have any shame about any of it. I found that refreshing.”
New episodes of “DTF St. Louis” premiere Sunday nights on HBO and HBO Max.
