FX’s The Lowdown: Tulsa Noir Elevates a Community-Driven Crime Drama

FX’s The Lowdown arrives as a bold entrant in television crime drama, centering Lee Raybon, a self-styled anti-corruption crusader who probes a powerful Tulsa family after a deadly shooting. Promoted as a Tulsa noir, the series is a joint creation from Sterlin Harjo, the Indigenous filmmaker behind Reservation Dogs, and Ethan Hawke, who stars as the dogged investigator. Hawke’s Lee is a blend of shambolic wit, relentless curiosity and a social conscience that edge-looms toward recklessness, a combination the show uses to probe how truth-telling intersects with loyalty and risk.

Raybon’s world is both intimate and hazardous. He houses a rare-book shop that doubles as a home and lives above a record store and a 24-hour diner, a setting that grounds the noir mood with a dust-caked, midtown Tulsa texture. The catalyst is the death of Dale Washberg, the disfavored scion of a locally influential clan, whose demise authorities quickly label a self-inflicted gunshot. Lee publicly attacked the Washbergs in a scathing exposé, but privately he suspects foul play rooted in family power, property grabs and old family secrets. As Lee circles the truth, he pushes beyond the line between legitimate journalism and vigilante inquiry, a tension that drives much of the series’ energy.

Lee’s investigation unfolds through a series of bold, sometimes reckless gambits. He pores over data and documents, goes undercover with white supremacist groups, and digs into a company buying up North Tulsa’s working-class neighborhoods. The hunt becomes physical, with Lee enduring beatings and tight squeezes that emphasize the show’s gritty, kinetic pulse. The violence is stylized rather than gratuitous, a stylistic choice that aligns with Hawke’s previous work in which personal stakes are inseparable from a broader moral argument. His on-screen endurance—car trunk detentions and literal neck-busting pressure—reads like a performance that leans into both heroism and self-destruction, a duality that The Lowdown uses to ask how far a person can press a cause before it consumes them.

Harjo’s influence sharpens the program’s heart: a community-first perspective that questions whether the pursuit of truth should trump the safety of loved ones. As Lee’s teenage daughter Francis becomes a fixture in his investigations, the show invites viewers to consider the costs of reform when a family’s name and its future are at stake. Lee’s past relationships—an ex who endures the strain of his crusade and a complicated bond with Francis—ground the series in emotional realism that keeps the thriller’s momentum from becoming mere procedural suspense.

The Lowdown is as much a character study as it is a crime saga. Hawke, who has built a career playing intense, morally ambiguous figures—from the environmental-tinged pastor in First Reformed to the abolitionist John Brown in The Good Lord Bird—found a new venue for his dark charisma in Lee. The performance is raw, physically expressive and, at times, almost masochistic in its devotion to a cause. He is complemented by a robust ensemble: Kaniehtiio Horn (Rez Dogs’ Deer Lady) as a steadying figure in Lee’s life, and Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Francis, a sharp, perceptive voice who anchors the drama’s ethical questions. Guest appearances also add texture; Peter Dinklage brings a luminous, Emmy-worthy presence in a supporting arc that serves as a cautionary counterpoint to Lee’s idealism, while Kyle MacLachlan portrays Donald Washberg, a gubernatorial candidate whose scheming highlights the political dimensions of Tulsa’s power structures.

Harjo has described The Lowdown as his love letter to Tulsa, a city that has long shaped his storytelling. The show’s milieu—a block with a rare-book shop, a neon-lit diner, and a record store that feels like a communal hearth—anchors its exploration of a multi-ethnic, multigenerational neighborhood. The setting, like Rez Dogs before it, is not merely backdrop but a living character that shapes the narrative’s pace and philosophy. The series also nods to Harjo’s journalistic roots and his collaborations with This Land Press, weaving documentary vérité into a fiction that remains stylishly pulpy and emotionally precise.

The Lowdown’s tonal blend—humor, philosophy and principled outrage—mirrors Harjo and co-creator Taika Waititi’s stated aim: to capture the storytelling cadence of elders passing along myths and memories, while interrogating the modern social order that rewards greed and punishes communal solidarity. The result is a show that feels both conceptually ambitious and palpably grounded in Tulsa’s real, lived texture. It’s a continuation of Harjo’s broader project: to reflect Indigenous perspectives within contemporary genres without sacrificing the intimate, human stakes that define his best work.

The series’ first five episodes, screened for review, establish a brisk rhythm that is at once chaotic and controlled. The storytelling moves with the speed of a detective’s mind, switching seamlessly between Lee’s fieldwork, Francis’s observational acuity and the community’s broader concerns about property, policing and power. The noir elements are intentionally heightened—rain-soaked streets, narrow escapes, ritualized confrontations—yet the show keeps its emotional core front and center: can a man who believes he owes his neighbors something live up to that debt without destroying the life he loves?

Time’s review framed The Lowdown as one of the year’s best crime dramas, noting its kinetic energy, its Indigenous voice, and its fearless blending of genres. The assessment underscores how the show uses Tulsa not merely as a setting, but as a character whose realities shape the ethical questions at the story’s heart. The Lowdown also benefits from Hawke’s fearless, unvarnished performance and Harjo’s patient, community-centered storytelling approach, which together give the series a distinctive voice within a crowded field.

As the eight-episode run progresses, the clash between Lee’s unyielding pursuit of truth and the tangible risks to his family will likely sharpen. The Lowdown is not simply a procedural about who killed a powerful family scion; it is a meditation on accountability, the responsibilities that come with privilege, and the precarious balance between reform and personal safety. Harolded by a community’s memory and a landscape that refuses to sanitize its discomfort, the show asks whether justice can survive when the system fights back. The answer, like the city it depicts, may be messy, luminous and unafraid to defy easy conclusions.

The Lowdown is a kinetic, thoughtful addition to a growing slate of Native-led stories on television. Its collaboration between Harjo, an Indigenous filmmaker, and Hawke, a globe-trotting actor known for his fearless, boundary-pushing performances, signals a promising model for genre storytelling that respects authenticity while embracing popular entertainment. If the premiere is any indicator, Tulsa noir is not a mere stylistic itch but a vehicle for exploring what it means to serve a community in a world where power often seems to be defined by wealth and influence. The Lowdown promises more revelations, more moral complexity, and plenty of the unmistakable Tulsa atmosphere that characterizes Harjo’s most intimate projects. The eight-episode arc will continue to unfold its larger questions about truth, loyalty and the costs of principled action, inviting viewers to stay tuned for how Lee Raybon navigates the line between salvation and self-destruction in pursuit of justice.