The Lowdown Shines Over a City on the Hill

It is with absolute giddy admiration and excitement to present a review of one of the most satisfying dramatic comedy series ever created in the Lowdown, currently on Hulu. One of Ethan Hawks’ most important works touching upon his western sentiments as a Texan himself in Tulsa. The story checks all the most intriguing boxes like corruption, racism, predatory capitalism, classism, redemption, friendship, loneliness, parenting, literature, gender equality, cultural appropriation, empathy, charity, and political vigor but most of all it tackles personal substance and how it’s effected by society. Hawke brings his usual gritty muckraking intellectual Greenwich Village hippy to a small town making a mountain out of careless corruption as so beautifully shot in the final scene; his failing bookstore in the shadows of a growing city in the backdrop. Tulsa, as the series touched on, was once a booming black city, a triumph of post-civil war reconstruction until mass murderous race riots filled the streets with blood and despair. Hawke’s character as if an afterthought is there to pick up the pieces in a modern era bent on forgetting its roots and respect for Native Americans. Hawke’s, Lee Raybon, is a comical Don Quixote of journalists touting a new brand of “truthstorian"-ism he holds on to and cherishes as his own identity, one the new world of alternate realities should instill. His acting as always entrenched in nervous thrill and bravery is surpassed in one scene by the teenager, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, who plays his daughter, Francis. “Don't patronize me by saying I’m not old enough to know you are good" a hero for the people as Lee wrestles with his indulgent dangerous passions wanting desperately to be a good example for his daughter but perhaps from a far not so close that she would see his warts and constant pot smoking I’d add. Perhaps the only flaw in the writing was neglecting to point out how he deals with stress as a reporter that lays it all on the line for the Lowdown nature of ultimate justice and equity. The acting overall aims for the heavy heart. A bevy of great performances like a final tearful swansong by a regretful, Jeanne Tripplehorn, the poetically stringent acts by Keith David, and Peter Dinklage, all relating to a masterful reconciliatory grace from the echoes of Tim Blake Nelson. Where are the Lee Raybons’ today? How soon we forget the massive corruption and insider trading that’s setting up a massive economic crash, turning cities on hills into tear gassed trenches for powershifting whims. The cruelty of public policy lost in headline news pushing talking points that entertain. The tattered notions of justice crumbling and decaying without repetition. The action-packed thrilling Lowdown climaxes with the importance of sensitivity as the strongest proponent of democracy. Bravo, Sterlin Harjo, whose timeless heart graced us with this series and others like Reservation Dogs, always striving to help us understand our reality, which can never change despite the greed and corruption that enslaves us all.