In 2011, citizen journalist Lee Roy Chapman wrote a scathing exposé in This Land Press about Tulsa founder W. Tate Brady’s ties to the Ku Klux Klan and his participation in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The story made waves across Tulsa and beyond. It even prompted their city council to change the name of their arts district — then named after Brady. Chapman himself was a self-taught historian, a seeker of deep buried truths, including those which harmed Black and Indigenous communities. He was also a friend of Native filmmaker Sterlin Harjo.
Now, 10 years after his death, Chapman serves as the inspiration for Harjo’s latest show, FX’s “The Lowdown.” The eight-episode noir series follows Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke), a self-proclaimed “truthstorian” whose energy invokes the likes of Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski. While a term like “truthstorian” might raise some eyebrows in the era of AI deepfakes and social media disinformation, don’t get it twisted. Sure, Lee is messy. He drives around in a white van full of dirty laundry and Willy Nelson cassette tapes strewn in the back, the words “You’re doing it wrong” (a Chapmanism) scrawled on the rear doors. Lee even refers to himself as “chronically unemployed, always broke.” But it doesn’t take long to realize he truly is out to get the real story, even if his methods are a little unconventional.
The show opens with the apparent suicide of one Dale Washberg (Tim Blake Nelson). While we don’t actually see Dale pull the trigger, everything we see beforehand suggests he did it. He’s writing a letter, a gun lying on his desk. Then, a gun shot. Moments later, we find out Lee has recently published his own scathing article in the Heartland Press, exposing the corrupt past of the Washberg family, suggesting this is why Dale did it. But Lee isn’t fully convinced, and sets out to do some digging.
With the digging, though, comes the accrual of enemies. For one, there’s Dale’s brother, Donald Washberg (Kyle MacLachlan). Don is running for Lieutenant Governor and knows a hit piece like that can ruin his chances at winning the election. For another, there’s Frank Martin (Tracy Letts), owner of Akron Construction. Lee draws his ire after he sets up a meeting under false pretenses, then turns it into an inquisition about Akron’s interest in buying up North Tulsa properties (a historically Black neighborhood). Then there’s the two skinheads that break into Lee’s apartment and beat him up for writing a piece that outed them for setting fire to a synagogue. And that’s just in the first few minutes.
But Lee also has a number of people in his corner, whether he wants them there or not. The deadpan Deidra (Siena East) helps Lee keep his shop, Hoot Owl Books, in operation. Elijah (Zachary Booth) and Cyrus (Michael Render) are his editors at two different publications and help Ray get his stories out to the world, at least until there’s too much blowback. Ray (Michael Hitchcock), the antiques dealer, always has the tea when Lee needs it. Sally (Rachel Crowl) keeps him going on a steady stream of coffee at Sweet Emily’s diner. Even the “silver throated” Marty (Keith David) appears to have some of Lee’s best interest at heart, despite having been hired to keep an eye on him.
There’s a lot to take in within the first couple of episodes of “The Lowdown.” It’s a significant deviation for Harjo from the slow-paced, introspective feel of “Reservation Dogs,” but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Quite the opposite. The viewer is compelled to strap in for the ride early on. You want to know more about the eccentric Lee. You want to follow his escapades, see where he takes us. And when Lee takes us to an estate sale held by Dale’s widow, Betty Jo (Jeanne Tripplehorn), he finally finds something worth chasing: the letter Dale wrote just before he died. It’s hidden inside a Jim Thompson book, perhaps a nod from Harjo to the crime writers who came before him (Thompson himself wrote dozens of hardboiled crime novels).
While Lee the citizen journalist seems to finally be onto something big, we also see another side of Lee: the struggling single father who keeps parentifying his teenage daughter, Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). In nearly every scene where he’s about to pick up his daughter from his ex, Samantha (“Rez Dogs” alum Kaniehtiio Horn), he’s either broke, got a black eye, or he’s wearing makeup to cover up new evidence of a beatdown. And when he finally does have Francis with him for a few days, he ends up taking her along to suss out new leads. In one scene, he even leaves her at a diner with a whiskey-drunk Ray while he goes to try and recover more evidence around Dale’s potential murder. Worse still is the fact that Francis is excited to be his sidekick rather than his daughter (Armstrong does a fantastic job at selling this).
We were given the first five episodes to review, and each episode only brought on more questions, more big reveals and took us even further down the rabbit hole. Harjo, along with director Macon Blair and writer Olivia Purnell, hit a home run with the final scene of Episode 5, bringing up the kind of tension shows like “Breaking Bad” (“Ozymandias”) and “Game of Thrones” (“The Winds of Winter”) perfected. Impressive, to say the least.
While Harjo has gone on record to say his influences for the show range from films like “The Long Goodbye” to shows like “Atlanta,” “The Lowdown” also exudes a particularly Lynchian vibe. Maybe it’s the presence of Kyle MacLachlan, or the number of coffees consumed at the diner, but this latest Harjo creation invokes “Twin Peaks” in the very best ways. Between the mysterious death of a main character kicking things off, the oddball townspeople, the jazz-ridden incidental music, and the eerie sensation that the owls (or anyone or anything else) are not what they seem, “The Lowdown” offers a faster-paced, modern take on this beloved 90s David Lynch show. Except that with so much of the source material being real, it grabs hold even more. By the end, you’ll no doubt be researching more about Lee Roy Chapman’s life, which was perhaps a big reason for Harjo making the show to begin with. Harjo himself worked with Chapman on content for the Center for Public Secrets, which was founded by Chapman.
As for those coming to “The Lowdown” hoping for more of that magical realism we found in “Reservation Dogs,” while it’s definitely not as present, you won’t be disappointed. Harjo even manages to throw in some nods to his previous show throughout. Keep your eyes peeled during the first few shots of the pilot, or you’ll miss seeing our tomyboyish fave Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) walking past Lee, as though to indicate the passing off of one story to the next. And lest we forget, Lee’s ex Samantha is also a Rez Dogs alum — she played the stunningly terrifying Deer Lady from the final season. More importantly, despite not having a majority Native cast this time, Harjo still manages to keep Indigenous identity present.
Overall, though, Harjo will likely be winning over a whole new slew of fans with this one.
“The Lowdown” premieres Tuesday, Sept. 23 on FX.
