Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Lowdown” Episode 1.
Sterlin Harjo’s “The Lowdown” is here.
A new FX mystery series, “The Lowdown” is set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and stars Ethan Hawke as Lee Raybon, a so-called “truthtarian” — an investigative journalist-slash-unregistered-detective — who finds himself in the crosshairs after the subject of one of his pieces (Tim Blake Nelson) winds up dead. While the professionals rule it a suicide, Raybon think there’s something more sinister at play, which draws him deeper into Tulsa’s underworld — a nebulous space filled with white supremacists, drug dealers and corrupt politicians.
If you only know Harjo from his work on “Reservation Dogs,” the charming, subtly groundbreaking series (also streaming on Hulu), you’ll recognize the warm humor, inclusivity and unforgettable characters make a return in “The Lowdown.”
And there’s also the first scene of “The Lowdown,” which links the series in an even more concrete way. (Yes, we do realize that Hawke made a memorable cameo on “Reservation Dogs.”)
In the opening scene of the new series, Lee Raybon is walking to the used bookstore that he owns. He passes a young girl walking in the opposite direction, who looks up at him quizzically before giving him an approving nod. That young woman who walks by is Paulina Alexis, who played “Willie Jack” Sampson on “Reservation Dogs.”
Harjo told TheWrap that “The Lowdown” does take place in the same universe as “Reservation Dogs” (he joked that it was the “Sterlin-universe”) and that the moment wasn’t planned at all.
“I get a text in classic Paulina fashion that says, ‘I’m in town.’ I’m like, ‘You live in Canada. What are you doing in Tulsa?’ She said, ‘I just happened to come visit on a road trip,’ ” Harjo said. He told her to come to set “right now — we’re about to do the opening of the show.”
When Alexis arrived, Harjo said, “It became this idea of — just give him the handoff, we’ll give him a nod as you walk by. It worked out so beautifully. It was good fortune. It wasn’t planned.” Hawke jumped in: “It wasn’t planned at all.”
Somehow the fact that the moment wasn’t planned only adds to its power. Even if you haven’t seen Harjo’s earlier series, it still works. It says so much about Hawke’s character and about the general world of the show, where even a misfit can be acknowledged as something more, and serves as a terrific table-setter for what’s to come. Sure, things get pretty hairy, but in “The Lowdown,” if you’ve got a smile on your face, it might turn out alright.
“The Lowdown” airs Tuesdays on FX and streams the next day on Hulu.
