‘The Lowdown’ Episode 1 Recap: “Pilot”

Speaking as an Achiever, I’d like to get this out of the way: The Lowdown does little to hide the influence of the The Big Lebowski, at least from where I’m sitting. Why should it? The Coen Brothers and Jeff Bridges’s stoner cinema icon debuted over a quarter century ago and has become one of the most quotable and quoted movies of all time. The Dude, Walter, Donnie, Maude, the Jesus, the titular Lebowski himself: All these characters are as indelible as, like, Dracula, or Dorothy Gale, or the Terminator. They’re the parlance of our time. It’s foolish not to speak in it.

Fortunately for all us sinners, Dude-ese is a dialect in which Sterin Harjo, creator of the universally acclaimed down-and-out-on-Native-land dramedy Reservation Dogs, is fuckin’ fluent, man. His latest show can be summed up in a single word: Lebowski-core.

I’ll say right up front that The Lowdown is the kind of quirky, fry-it-up-on-the-griddle sun-baked private-investigator crime story that, while I’ve got nothing against it, doesn’t usually rev my engine. But you’d have to be actively allergic to hard-boiled, good-natured, Western/Southwestern neo-noir fun not to enjoy this thing. Based on its pilot episode, The Lowdown is The Big Lebowski if real criminals were involved, instead of just a bunch of weirdos and doofuses scrambling for cash between bowling games, porn shoots, and visits from Knox Harrington (the video artist).

Ethan Hawke stars in the Jeff Bridges role as Lee Raybon, a goateed, disheveled man of a certain age who lives and works, when he can, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Currently “sober” (he rejects a whiskey but asks for a pilsner instead) and dripping with genuine charm (he doffs his hat to a stranger out of respect, who nods in return, then pauses because she realizes she’s never actually seen anyone do that before) Lee’s an investigative journalist. Actually, as he likes to put it in obnoxiously twee fashion, Lee’s a “truthstorian.” His technique is simple: He wanders, he looks, he listens, he digs, he finds the truth about the town’s twisted history of racial exploitation and abuse, and he writes about it for one of Tulsa’s several competing alternative newspapers.

All I can say here is that if Tulsa has a thriving enough journalism scene to support multiple alt-weeklies, I’m moving to Tulsa. So what if one of those alt-weeklies is mostly a T&A mag with some crime news mixed in by its editor, Cyrus, who’s played by Killer Mike? If they’re out there exposing skinheads, buy me two copies, one for the archives and one for the, uh, just buy me two copies, okay?

Anyway, Killer Mike is just one of countless familiar faces who pepper the proceedings, making it seem like there’s some delightful actor just around every corner. There’s Tim Blake Nelson as Dale Washberg, the eccentric, closeted, black-clad black sheep of his hugely rich and influential family, whose death, an apparent suicide, kicks the whole thing off. There’s his widow, Betty Jo (Jeanne Tripplehorn), who rehearses lines like “He was a good man, thank you for your concern” in her mirror before the wake to make her grief sound more convincing.

There’s his brother, Donald Washberg (Kyle MacLachlan, whose late-career run as various stripes of All-American evildoers, even on Twin Peaks: The Return, has been a blast). Donald, whose name I think it’s safe to assume was deliberately chosen, is an extreme right-wing politician whose aw-shucks demeanor masks dark plans for Oklahoma, as Republicans with aw-shucks demeanors usually have. Washberg’s primary obsessions are keeping the state open for business for the beef and oil industries, two outmoded, GOP-friendly businesses responsible for boiling the planet. And hey by the way, he seems awfully close with Betty Jo.

Over on the side of the angels, we have Christopher Guest repertory player Michael Hitchcock as Ray, a gay antiques salesman who’s one of Lee’s chief intel sources thanks to the gossipy antique grapevine. (Love it!) Lee, too, is an antiquarian: He runs a rare book shop that rarely turns a profit unless he makes a big sale. One a month usually is enough, but he’s on a dry streak right now.

This leads complaints from Lee’s sole employee, the sardonic cashier, Deirdre (Siena East). In this episode she gets a tattoo of a vulva on her arm — Lee has an “ironic” Confederate flag tattoo, why can’t she have an ironic tattoo of a pussy — with what little money Lee pays her. After he gets roughed up by skinheads for exposing their role in a synagogue arson, she also recruits her goofball ex-con brother (Cody Lightning), who somehow managed to become a member of a Native American prison gang behind bars despite being a Patton Oswalt character, to work security. Needless to say, this does not go well.

Lee’s also aided by his shop’s next-door neighbor, foul-mouthed tax attorney Dan Kane (writer-director Macon Blair). Dan has a vault where Lee stashes his most red hot finds and seems to kind of like the guy, although he’ll call anyone who rubs him the wrong way a “piece of shit” several dozen times, Lee included. There’s also Sally (Rachel Crowl), the brassy broad who works the counter at Lee’s late-night diner/bar of choice, Sweet Emily’s. It’s there that Lee first encounters the show’s most mysterious figure, a garrulous but inscrutable man named Marty (the great Keith David) who, we eventually learn, has been following Lee for reasons unknown.

When the show starts, Lee is investigating an investment firm named Akron, run by Frank Martin and his associate Allen Murphy (played by actor-playwright Tracy Letts and The Young Pope’s Scott Shepherd respectively). Lee is trying to shake them down for a church pamphlet signed by Martin Luther King, Jr., which he feels belongs in the community from which it came, not in the hands of a bunch of rich white folks who got it god knows how.

With his ear to the ground and his attention paid to people guys like Frank and Allen tend to miss — like the hostess he slips a couple hundred bucks to in order to retrieve a rare painting from the walls of their supper club — Lee, a real charmer, knows how to work every angle. Flirting with that hostess is a key character trait, too: Lee likes younger women, as his ex-wife Samantha (Kaniehtiio Horn) can attest. But they still get along, and they both love their daughter Francis (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew standout Ryan Kiera Armstrong).

Even when Francis realizes their dad/daughter day is just an excuse for him to spy on the Washbergs, she joins in rather than get sulky about it. That’s a sign of a well-loved child whose father makes an effort to include her in his work — although given the nature of that work, maybe that’s not such a good idea.

Unfortunately for Lee, Blackie (Eric Edelstein) and Berta (Johnny Pemberton), the two goofball skinheads he exposed (they’ve since grown their hair out), are persistent little buggers. First they break into his house and beat the shit out of him for it, threatening his ex and daughter too. Next they abduct him — and here’s where things get really interesting. They lock him in their trunk and take him directly to Akron honcho Allen, who drives off with them to hash out the situation. He does this by shooting them both to death and dumping their bodies into the river.

Poor Lee is locked in the trunk this whole time, able to hear but not really able to see through the trunk’s peephole. Allen, oblivious to his presence, drives away. So does a pair of little kids who pass by on bikes and ignore his pleas for help. (“What if you’re a murderer?” “I’m not a murderer! I’ve been murdered!!!”)

But Lee gets lucky in the end. Walter, who we now see has been driving the mysterious maroon Kia that’s been following Lee around, shows up and rescues him, but Lee is too afraid to stick around and find out what his guy’s deal is. Moreover, he discovers a huge wad of cash in the car, a payoff to the skinheads for some crime or other. He immediately tells Samantha he’s now got the money to buy a house, so Francis’s visits don’t have to be so cramped and unpleasant in the attic above his bookshop that he uses as an apartment.

At the same time, he’s learned that Dale Washberg left a series of clues to his murder hidden in his collection of vintage crime paperbacks. It’s almost as if he expected Lee, specifically, to be the one to investigate his death. Lee feels it too: By the end of the episode, Dale’s nonexistent ghost is practically Lee’s partner.

Unless you actually look at the guy, who has the appearance of roadkill, everything’s coming up Lee by the end of the episode!

Creator-writer-director Harjo’s primary inspiration in creating The Lowdown was Tulsa writer Lee Roy Chapman, whose name, career, interests, and even his day job — he too ran a rare books store — were all ported over wholesale for Lee Raybon. I think it’s safe to assume his love for the region and its people is an inspiration too, as you can feel the filmmaker’s fondness for these characters, the streets they drive, and the buildings they inhabit in nearly every frame. 

And again, The Big Lebowski’s influence, intentional or not, can’t be overstated. Lee is basically the Dude if he made a career of leaping off of couches and using that old pencil trick to see what Jackie Treehorn wrote on that note. A wise, mysterious older stranger sits down next to him at a bar. A car of unknown origin follows him around. He is beset by rich white assholes and beautiful, eccentric women. He gets mixed up in a sprawling case with a huge cast of colorful characters and humorously recreates classic crime narratives in pursuit of the truth. You get it.

Most importantly, like the Dude used to be back when he (and six other guys) wrote the Port Huron Statement and occupied ROTC buildings, Lee is, according to both Cyrus and Marty, that saddest of specimens: “a white man who cares.” Even though he dresses like a dirtbag and talks like he’s doing a bit and is perpetually broke, Lee still has tremendous power and privilege as a straight cis white guy. Because he cares, he’s using these powers for good. As a result, he nearly winds up murdered in a car trunk like Billy Batts. 

Caring, in other words, isn’t easy, even if you live life on the easy setting thanks to your background. It’s hard and dangerous. The Lowdown simply suggests that caring also can make you one of the coolest, most interesting people anyone’s ever met — a living legend without really trying to be one — while still solving actual problems. Maybe it’s not really that easy in real life, but if it results in a show as much fun as this one? Let’s hear ’em out.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.