Sterlin Harjo aims High, there is no shortage with “The Lowdown” by FX | TV / Streaming

Elvis Costello said one day: “You are 20 years old to write your first album, and about six months to write your second.” The writer and director Sterlin Harjo “Reservation Dogs” broadcast his last episode almost precisely three years ago; He came out in the lead, rightly greeted as one of the best and most important television shows in American history. His second series, “The Lowdown”, gives the impression that it was in the work of his whole life. Logly based on the late Lee Roy Chapman, journalist in Oklahoma (and friend and colleague from Harjo) whose work has reshaped the story of Tulsa, “The Lowdown” by FX proves that in addition to being a master storyteller, Harjo is just as competent in a better series of news from Dynamite.

Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) is a lot. A father, the owner of Hoot Owl Books, an ex-husband, and a self-written “real-story”, he made his business to get started and write about the actions of the most powerful men in Tulsa. This regularly attracts him into hot water, and his capection manners do not keep his nose in the right kip or his unlawed eye for a long time. The rest of his time has spent sharing his daughter’s guard, Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), with his ex-wife, Samantha (Kaniehtiio Cor). Is Lee a good father? No. Does he like Francis? Yes. Does he often put it in danger and, without taking into account the need to provide a stable and comfortable childhood, to treat it more like a co-conspirator? Also yes.

When the death of Dale Washberg (the always reliable Tim Blake Nelson), the younger son of a rich family of Oklahoma, is considered a suicide, Lee does not buy it. His justification includes the fact that the brother of Dale Donald (Kyle Maclachlan), who is currently presenting himself to the post of governor of the State, combines conveniently in mourning in public with campaign, and seems to enjoy a close relationship with the wife of Dale Betty Jo (Jeanne Tripplehorn, doing an exceptional work). Settling to prove that Donald has links with the neonazi scene of Tulsa is much more complicated than the negotiated Lee, while he is kicked her ass, his daughter threatened and, strangely, the mouth filled with Paddlefish caviar. And it’s only half.

Redolent with literary and philosophical references, “The Lowdown” is a noisy stylistic marriage between the filmography of the Coen brothers and the “inherent vice” of PT Anderson. Each book – whether in someone’s hand, referenced by a character or visible in the photo – is a deliberate choice. (As a former employee of the 10 -year bookstore, I had the impression that Sterlin Harjo had made this show just for me; several characters take the time to hit the literary taste of others and the methods of organization of pill books, a rancid subject for anyone who sold books. I am roughly dead when someone deplores, “Pinter with Harry Potter?”)

The design of production is stellar – I can feel the vapes of Lee, the black coffee that everyone goes down to the Sweet Emily’s Diner. The interiors, however, can be sinister, and this achievement is built over time. Lee’s decor, certainly, has classic conspiracy tropes, including notes, press clippings, drawings and photos, linked to the scribbled text in the Red Sharpie. But the houses of the rich capitalists who plunder Tulsa for their own advantage are their own crime scenes: stolen paintings, brochures, dead animals, all suspended with casualness on the walls. How much difference can a man do when the rich and the powerful are comfortable to leave their crimes in the open air?

The design of the costumes of Alyssa Blair Cawthorn is spectacular: you can practically feel the textures of mixed impressions and subtle glitter on the sets of an ancient dealership; The rich and subtle denims and the heavy turquoise jewelry for Betty Joe are exactly correct, while Samantha is dressed in Athlerison more appropriate for a occupied single mother. Lee’s uninterrupted stride is a funny counterpoint to a long line of western shirts tumbled and tightdown, and it is generally a matter of time before its t-shirts saved and its “Saturday evening fever pants” are splashed with blood.

But it is not only the spot-on costumes of Cawthorn or Brandon Tonner-Connolly and the design of the lived production of Andy Eklund which attracts the viewer. The director of casting Angelique Midthunder assembles a real row of murderer of supporting actors, including the way in which bankruptcy was the way in which Keith David. There is also Tracy Letts, Scott Shepherd (“El Camino”), Josh Fadem (“Breaking Bad”, “Better Call Saul”), Tina Parker (Ditto, Les Deux), Dale Dickey (“Vice-Directors”); Abbie Cobbs steals each scene in which she is with the delivery of diabolical dialogue; Michael Hitchcock; Robert Peters and Tommy G. Hendrick bring a strange mixture and gaining sincere noise to the procedure, and for fear that I forget, the incomparable Peter Dinklage.

Although Horn, who helped “booking dogs” to carry out television transcendence as Deer Lady, has no important role, she finds a magnificent rhythm with Hawke, because Lee and Samantha silently recognize the sorrow of their broken link, even if the first is determined to turn to the future. At the same time, the latter tends to his injuries with tequila and karaoke.

As for Hawke, he leaves no non -returned stone, no illegal cylinder. The slowdown with which Chapman has unearthed Tulsa’s past is something Hawke seems to have channeled with a zero problem; The serious and obstinate mania of its performance is still another home run in its long and impressive career. Lee does not know where he is heading. It is obvious hilarious that his personal philosophies are a waste (for example, he sports a “ironic” confederate tattoo). However, Hawke balances this with Melancholy, a subtle anxiety – in particular tangible in scenes with Armstrong, who holds more than hers as a teenage girl – it is at the heart of all that Lee does.

Adding to the richness of the text is the fact that Tripplehorn, Lets and Nelson are all native Oklahomans. And no one has fun but Maclachlan, who has chosen this stage of his career to play charms whose Scumbaggery is just hidden below the surface. It is not only that the center of the assembly assembled this casting. It is that everyone in this cast received the correct Part, and that each performer has had time and space to shine.

“The Lowdown” is unique in that, although its production values ​​and its writings are tied with a great film, its structure, which includes ruptures of acts, combined with the dynamism of its performances, helps the series feel more like a novel rather than a television program. This is the first time that the “Mad Men” that an advertising break made me feel that I finished a chapter of a novel, and I was looking forward to turning the page to start the next.

And like “Mad Men”, “The Lowdown” does not bother to state everything for the spectator. Some jokes and references are that the characters pass between them and for us to analyze later, and that is precisely why they feel real, and why we feel lucky to know them.

For all his humor – I have not been from the belly like that for a series for some time; Practically each line of dialogue is a comic jewel – “The Lowdown” never sacrifices his darkness, and he does not reserve laughter to win great dramatic messages. It takes the time to question the big and small ideas, as if your race should play a role in the shit that you are ready to shovel for rich white men. Whether it is a white man who cares is pathetic or noble or, worse, a condemned combination of the two; And if the only poetry that is worth reading is the genre climbed on the walls of the bathroom. Whatever you think of poetry, on September 23, “The Lowdown” is perhaps the only television program that deserves to be watched.

Five episodes projected for examination. The episodes will be published every week on Hulu.