Tulsa’s self-appointed truthstorian is back. Season two of FX’s “The Lowdown” premieres Wednesday, October 14 at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on FX and Hulu, and it’s headed to Disney+ for international viewers. The second season runs eight episodes, with a new one dropping each Wednesday after the premiere.
Ethan Hawke returns as Lee Raybon, a citizen journalist whose need to get to the truth keeps getting him into trouble. Hawke also executive produces. Sterlin Harjo, the creator behind “Reservation Dogs,” wrote and directed the series and executive produces alongside Hawke, Garrett Basch, Ryan Hawke, Duffy Boudreau and Scott Teems. The new season adds Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones and four-time Emmy nominee Betty Gilpin to the cast.
Season one was a critical hit. It won an AFI Award for TV Program of the Year, appeared on more than 30 critics’ Top 10 lists, and sits at 98% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Much of that comes down to what the series was about underneath the plot. Lee was inspired by Leroy Chapman, the late journalist and friend of Harjo’s, whose work helped bring long-suppressed Tulsa histories to light, including the public reckoning around the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. So when Lee goes after the city’s secrets, he’s following a path a real journalist walked first.
On the surface, season one was contemporary noir set in Tulsa. Lee’s obsession with truth, which had him chasing corruption, pulled him through buried histories and contested land. In his search, he ended up uncovering the living fallout of colonial violence, and how it still touches Native and non-Indigenous communities alike.
In the season 2 renewal announcement, I wrote that, “It was a story that unflinchingly confronted the necessity of landback in the pursuit of truth and justice. That level of layered storytelling is what makes the renewal of The Lowdown so exciting, because the question that will linger in all our minds is “what happens next?”
And now we’re getting our first glimpses of what’s in store for season two.
Season two picks up with Lee doing something unusual for him. Winning. His story about Dale Washberg’s life and death earns him a local citizen journalist award. Lee, who isn’t built for good news, deals with it by drinking, and his showing at the ceremony goes about as well as you’d expect. His unfiltered speech catches the ear of Ginger (Gilpin), a sharp-tongued public defender with her own way of getting to the truth.
Ginger isn’t charmed by Lee, but she does take his help on a case. One of her clients has vanished from tBetty Gilpin and Ethan Hawke in ‘The Lowdown’ season two. FX
he state penitentiary, which raises an obvious question. How does a man go missing from prison? The answer, as Lee sees it, involves power, corruption, and bad behavior among the city’s wealthy, all of his favorite things. It’s a natural fit for The Heartland Press, though Lee isn’t thrilled that Marty (Keith David) is now the managing editor.
Lee stumbles through the investigation next to Ginger and eventually asks for help from Johnny (Rafael Casal), a jujitsu-trained dentist with a good heart. It’s especially awkward, since Johnny is the new husband of Lee’s ex, Samantha (Kaniehtiio Horn), and helps raise Lee’s teenage daughter, Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). Francis would like more time with her dad. Lee adores her, but the case keeps pulling him away, and neither of them is happy about it.
Home gets messier when Lee’s estranged father, a grifter also named Lee Raybon (Jones), shows up in Tulsa without warning. The timing couldn’t be worse. Lee has always told Francis that her grandfather was dead.
Season two of “The Lowdown” arrives October 14 on FX and Hulu. Excitement is mounting because we all know when everything is going right, it’s only a matter of time before it all goes wrong. With Tulsa not short on hidden rot for Lee to dig into, something tells me we’re in for a hell of a good time.
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