Premiering at TIFF 2025, The Lowdown is a story brimming with neo-noir charm. It delivers a gripping narrative while remaining unique and fresh enough to be a must-watch for anyone who loves crime, the genre, or simply wants to see Ethan Hawke stretch his acting muscles in new and neurotic ways. Led by Hawke, who finds fresh ground in a bruised yet driven role, this sharp new drama blends comedy, noir, and Oklahoma local colour into something brisk and lived-in, never overwrought or melodramatic.
The show centres on Hawke’s Lee Raybon, a citizen journalist who enjoys the experience of reporting and pushing the boundaries of what that means in the modern world. By day, he runs a second-hand bookstore in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His evenings — and, frankly, his life — are dominated by an endless pursuit of the truth, at least as he sees it, stopping at nothing, even his own safety, to expose the many wrongs he perceives around him.
He isn’t the kind of journalist who simply writes up town council notes or cautiously toes the line. Lee is more inclined to crash through doors, trade blows with white supremacists, and pick fights with the wealthy and powerful whenever he catches a whiff of something rotten — and this does cost him at times.
Lee’s home life is a chaotic patchwork, as might be expected in this kind of story. His wife has left him, and his relationship with his teenage daughter, Francis, rests on faintly shaky ground. He can barely pay the bills, scraping by with a mix of book sales, odd jobs and the occasional ill-gotten dollar. Some of the best moments in the early season explore how he manages to con his way into money, only to have it stripped away just as quickly.
Despite, or perhaps because of, these pressures, he throws himself into work that stomps over boundaries others might only tiptoe around. The series doesn’t shy away from showing the cost: Lee gets roughed up and knocked down often, yet always bounces back with a bruised smile and a new scheme.
The story feels straight out of a 1950s noir film, only with a modern twist. Lee is compelled to uncover the truth behind a prominent local death, one with tendrils reaching into city politics, lost fortunes and simmering racial tensions. The investigation quickly snowballs into something much larger, hinting at deep conspiracies and ugly histories the city would rather forget.
Along the way, Lee stumbles into corners of Tulsa rarely seen on television: the caviar-farming underworld, small-town rap video shoots, and chatty antique dealers all make appearances. These threads tangle together with side plots and asides that give the world its scruffy sense of reality. It’s a wild ride, yet it all flows naturally, with even the most outlandish elements connecting in ways that make perfect sense.
“Supporting performances add depth and variety, keeping The Lowdown feeling rich and full of life in every scene.”
Thankfully, The Lowdown is not all doom and gloom. There’s a gritty sense of humour embedded in almost every scene, with the writing quick to undercut its darker moments. Lee’s interactions with the colourful ensemble — including private detective Marty, his bookstore employee Deidra, and a procession of petty criminals — showcase the show’s knack for warmth and absurdity. At times, episodes veer toward shaggy-dog stories, more interested in capturing a slice of life than advancing the main narrative. This approach, echoing the likes of The Big Lebowski and Terriers, gives the series room to breathe while keeping a strong focus on the characters and the wild ride they find themselves on.
Lee, for all his flaws, is never a simple hero or one who is easy for the audience to root for. He borrows cash from crooks, smuggles evidence around town in his battered van, and operates within a moral grey zone that feels both credible and dangerous. While he irritates almost everyone he meets, Hawke’s performance reveals something raw and vulnerable. Lee is compelling in a way that makes it difficult to look away, even as he makes increasingly questionable decisions.
Supporting performances add depth and variety, keeping The Lowdown feeling rich and full of life in every scene. Keith David’s Marty, a world-weary private detective, clashes and collaborates with Lee in ways that reveal the shifting allegiances of a city defined by its secrets. Meanwhile, the family ties driving Lee — mainly through his daughter Francis — add both stakes and humanity amid the chaos.
The visual palette is appropriately lived-in; the world of The Lowdown is cluttered, muddy and buzzing with activity. The camera work favours a street-level perspective, pulling viewers into alleys and back rooms. The music, nodding to mid-century detective fare with a generous dose of Oklahoma flavour, grounds the action and keeps the tone lively and engaging. Some of the series’ scenes are breathtaking, even in their simplicity and unremarkable settings. The team behind the show captures a slice of this world that, even at its most modest, draws the viewer’s attention in striking ways.
There is little to complain about here. The full team, from cast to crew, brings its best, and the results are on full display throughout the series. If anything might rub viewers the wrong way, it lies in the pacing. The show sometimes meanders, following a random subplot or oddball character for longer than expected, leaving the central mystery just out of focus. Yet, given the sheer texture of this fictional Tulsa, it’s hard to begrudge these departures; each digression adds another layer to the tapestry of a city bursting with stories, many of which are fighting to be told.
With only five of eight planned episodes previewed in advance, the full scope of The Lowdown remains slightly out of reach, but what’s already here is enough to inspire excitement for what’s to come. The Lowdown is energetic, deeply funny and marked by a clear, often brutal understanding of people and place. FX’s latest drama doesn’t polish away the grit; instead, it celebrates the messy, unpredictable heart of a city, and the people who refuse to let its secrets stay buried.
