Neo-noir Americana gets a decidedly 21st-century update in The Lowdown, showrunner Sterlin Harjo’s latest series released at the end of 2025 and now streaming on Hulu / Disney+. Like the best of the classic noirs, the anxieties of our time might be bubbling away under the surface, but this is first and foremost a rip-roaring yarn full of lovable rogues.
In Tulsa, local bookshop owner and “truthstorian” Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) noses out local interest stories, publishing a damning exposé of the Washberg family’s generations of shady land deals in a literary magazine. When Dale Washberg (Tim Blake Nelson) is found dead in an apparent suicide soon after the story breaks, the blowback swiftly arrives at Lee’s door. Dale was an odd man out among his rich, flashy, right-wing family, even when compared to his wife Betty Jo (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and his brother Donald (Kyle Maclachlan) is in the midst of a gubernatorial run. Despite threats from shady figures with more than a little bit of white nationalist paraphernalia, among them ex-con and construction contractor Allen Murphy (Scott Shepherd), not to mention the sudden interest of private investigator Marty Brunner (Keith David), Lee doubles down on the chase – balancing amateur sleuthing, a small business, and an ex-wife (Kaniehtiio Horn) and adolescent daughter (Ryan Kiera Armstrong).
Hawke’s Lee Raybon shares many similarities with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, also released last year; both are a pot-smoking leftist single dads raging against the machinations of those in power, fond of wandering around in a houserobe, and endearingly out of his depth at times – sometimes to great dramatic stakes, as their activities keep bringing them up against very real and amorally dangerous antagonists. Most importantly, however, neither Lee nor Bob are never able to be kept down for long.
Lee is dogged in defending his exposé and insisting that there is more to Dale’s story than the official report. Occasionally wandering straight into traps and bad decisions through a combination of chutzpah and obliviousness never deters his mission for long. At the same time, he is charming, quick-witted, hot-tempered, loquacious, and irrepressible – seeming to keep his chaotic life in order and himself out of even deeper trouble by sheer force of will. A man of action and letters, righteousness and impulsiveness, Lee is a perfect showcase for Hawke’s generational talent, capturing the lovable contradictions of a guy who knows better but never lets that stop him doing the right thing.
The supporting cast is no less impressive. David’s Marty is an ideal foil to Lee, spinning his own self-confidence and way with words to skim above the chaos. Maclachlan, channeling the oily charm he brought to Desperate Housewives, is excellent as the would-be Republican governor with secrets of his own. Nelson’s voice and demeanour are always welcome presences in a quasi-Western, and Tripplehorn brings out the comedy and pathos in a character lesser scripts would turn into a caricature. Shepherd’s chilly, reserved performance immediately and effectively signals his shady intentions. Horn (who fans of Letterkenny will know and love) is somewhat under-used as ex-wife Samantha, as is the ever-charismatic Rafael Casal as Johnny, Samantha’s new partner, but they wryly illustrate an idea of normalcy Lee stubbornly refuses.
Two smaller players end up being the standouts: Peter Dinklage’s appearance in a mid-series arc as Lee’s former business partner gives the show its emotive highlight, letting its characters breathe and reflect before dashing headlong back into the crime caper. Lastly, Graham Greene’s final television appearance lends gravitas to the central mystery.
The Lowdown’s script is witty and free-flowing, capturing this cast of confident, even cocksure, characters in seeming spontaneity. Lee and many of his companions carve out their space in the world through their words and presentation, knowing that his self-belief is a way to carve out their space in the world stacked against them. At the same time, when violence arrives, it comes with gusto and little chance of reprieve. Even in lighter antics, the stakes are never forgotten.
Harjo, most famous for Reservation Dogs, has written several past films set in Tulsa, and in The Lowdown he creates a rich, vibrant, modern world with all its contradictions laid bare but never belaboured. Through his evocation, Tulsa is a city of haves and have-nots, of multiculturalism and separation, of progressive futures and stubborn insistence on past social orders. A show where the antagonists are overtly or aligned with white nationalists, whose central conflict ends up centred on land theft and indigenous displacement, could be quite heavy, and The Lowdown does not downplay these historic and continuing injustices in their portrayal or characters’ reaction to them. But, with an authentically diverse cast and energetic, pacy plot, the cathartic righting of wrongs feels possible and truthful. Perhaps there may be too neat a button at the end of the series, but after the mystery’s twists and turns, the result is richly satisfying.
The Lowdown will delight fans of procedurals, film noir, and Westerns, but even those put off by genre conventions will find something to latch onto in its richly drawn characters, modern themes, and ever-surprising changes of tone and tack. With a second series announced and some exciting new players lined up including Betty Gilpin and Tommy Lee Jones, there is no better time than now to catch up on Harjo and Hawke’s superb work.
The Lowdown Season 1 is now available to stream on Hulu.
Learn more about the show at the IMDB site for the title.
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