Forget ‘True Detective,’ FX’s 2-Part Crime Thriller Is the Perfect Replacement

Published Oct 26, 2026, 11:27 AM EDT

Anthony Crislip has always loved movies and television, and has been published in outlets such as SlashFilm and Ultimate Classic Rock. While working as a film programmer or judge at a film festival, he has striven to develop interest in underseen films. He is a particular fan of digging deep into forgotten corners of film history.

While the season-length crime mystery has been a fixture of American television going back at least to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, it hit its peak in the early 2010s. In shows like Mare of Easttown, the format became a vehicle for character actors to get a three-dimensional spotlight, similar to the genre’s North Star, Season 1 of True Detective. But the show that has most effectively created that creative atmosphere in the 2020s is FX’s The Lowdown, a black comedy thriller set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which follows an eccentric “truthstorian” named Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke), who digs into strange historical mysteries with the zeal of a detective and the righteous heart of a journalist.

The Lowdown is fundamentally a story of corruption, modern-day exploitation, and the dangers of exposing the truth. It’s as exciting to watch as it is rambling and funny, trading the dark blues and grays of its genre forebears for the golden warmth of its setting. Lee is an undeniably heroic figure who also screws up plenty, coming off as a deadbeat whose obsession with his righteous aims and undeniable intelligence often conflict with his shaggy-dog ways. As a journalist of local infamy, he immediately attracts the bad attention of a white supremacist gang — and the mysterious death of the wealthy Dale Washberg (Tim Blake Nelson) might also have something to do with it. Ultimately, The Lowdown is much bigger than Lee, and is all the better for it.

After creating the modern classic Reservation Dogs, Sterlin Harjo used The Lowdown to make something akin to the epic, morally compromised noir storytelling of films like Chinatown. Lee Raybon is a good face for the show, a detective straight out of Inherent Vice or The Long Goodbye, forced to navigate a conspiracy bigger than he could imagine. Characters like Marty (Keith David), Donald Washberg (Kyle MacLachlan, a canny throwback to another classic mystery show), and Lee’s ex-best friend Wendell (Peter Dinklage) all give the show some welcome texture.

The Washberg clan has its sights set on the governorship of Oklahoma, and Dale’s death is an inconvenience that could threaten to overthrow everything. Dale has hidden clues inside his collection of Jim Thompson novels (speaking of southwestern crime stories), but to navigate the full depths of the conspiracy, Lee must put himself at risk, emphasized when he’s kidnapped in the premiere by a neo-Nazi duo. Neither the rare bookselling business he operates by day nor the truth-telling he pens by night pays the bills — those things are done out of conviction. But in the tradition of the great noir films that inspired The Lowdown, money is the lifeblood of everything.

Four films, four completely different ways of handling money, trouble and other people. This is the one you would survive, why it suits you, and what it would cost you to

You have quietly arranged your life so that very little can get to you, and a surprising number of people find that infuriating. You would be completely at

You talk your way through life and it works far more often than it should. Give you a bad situation and an audience and you will find a way out of both at

You would survive Fargo because you are the only kind of person who does: patient, decent, and completely unimpressed by anybody trying to be clever.

You do not expect the world to be fair and you stopped being surprised about it a long time ago. That clear-eyed quality is exactly what this film asks

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