The Lowdown Recap: Tales of Woe

by

In the latest episode of The Lowdown, the story continues directly from where we left off last week. Characters appear and disappear within Lee’s narrative, no longer needing to follow a specific storyline. This freedom (at least for now) is effective, as Lee Raybon’s hectic life shows no signs of slowing down. His troubles keep piling up and colliding, creating a growing sense of chaotic momentum.

This sense of freedom also reflects Lee’s unique and compelling personality: he shapes his own destiny, lives life at his own speed, and doesn’t bother with schedules. He’s a store owner who doesn’t make sales, and a writer who avoids a desk. In “Dinosaur Memories,” Lee is kidnapped-in a strange but believable way-for the second time in just three episodes. He isn’t rich, a spy, or an important witness in a legal case, so why does it feel so natural that he’d be abducted twice so quickly? The show is really a deep look at a character, disguised as a murder mystery.

The series only falters when it focuses on the murder mystery aspect. The characters – the Washbergs, Blackie and Berta, and Allen the ginger skinhead – currently make the questions of ‘who, why, and how’ seem like an afterthought. They feel like reasons to watch Lee fall apart, instead of driving his breakdown. Isn’t Lee the type who’s always pursuing something or creating chaos, talking his way into situations or finding a way out? He’s constantly on the verge of falling apart, fearing what he might discover about himself if he ever reaches the bottom of things.

It’s Lee’s weekend again, so Frances is once more participating in a marathon. They begin by looking at their new apartment in a less desirable part of town, which unfortunately includes their teenage daughter having to listen to someone flirt with her dad. It’s Vicky, the same erratic Realtor who handled Dale’s estate sale. While making not-so-subtle advances and describing the apartment, she reveals that Ray never retrieved those first edition Jim Thompson books that Lee had asked him to purchase from Dale’s belongings.

Whatever Lee intended to do is now in the past, though I doubt he ever really *plans* anything. He tends to bounce around – from his apartment (which he calls a “quadraplex”) to the antiques mall, where he questions Ray about the books that have disappeared. Ray admits that Catalina Estragon, a witch from Keystone Lake who deals in antiques, got to the books first, and he doesn’t think she’ll give them up – she’s a ruthless sorceress with some disturbing habits, like drinking men’s blood. However, Ray complains about *everyone* in Tulsa so constantly that it’s difficult to believe anything he says.

However, Lee appears to get along with him. Perhaps because Lee also dislikes silence, he realizes that someone speaking doesn’t automatically mean you have to pay attention. Some individuals seem to have a daily limit on how much they need to talk, regardless of the situation. Otherwise, why would Lee share so much information with someone as untrustworthy as Ray? Ray doesn’t need to know that the key to finding Dale’s killer-if he was actually killed-lies within the contents of the Thompson books. He also doesn’t need to know that Akron Frank and Donald Washberg are connected in some way.

Lee manages to get Ray and Frances into his van for the trip to Catalina’s houseboat, where she lives with her husband, who illegally hunts animals. Once they arrive, Lee gives out instructions. Frances is told to wait at the restaurant by the marina, and Ray is assigned to keep an eye on her. At the same time, Lee takes a jacket belonging to a federal agent at the bar – one from the U.S. Department of the Interior – and confidently goes onto Catalina’s boat, the Disturbing the Peace.

He intends to pretend to be a Fish & Wildlife officer, questioning Catalina’s husband about illegal hunting… but then what? Would he steal a box of rare books and escape? Things don’t go that far. Instead of finding books, Lee uncovers a scheme involving fake caviar. Before he can find Catalina, someone attacks him with a shovel. The Lowdown is packed with so much constant action that it’s surprising the show still manages to be humorous. When the fisherman-turned-soldato who catches Lee snooping eventually brings him to the leader, Marlon, he boasts, “Got him with his dick in the cookie jar.”

Marlon is a dangerous criminal. His hands and face are covered in blood, and he immediately recognizes that Lee isn’t an undercover operative-the man is wearing fake jeans. After unexpectedly discovering a group of criminals-they’re selling paddlefish eggs while claiming it’s expensive beluga caviar-he now poses a threat to them. A missing federal agent would draw unwanted scrutiny to their operation on the lake, but a missing man from Saturday Night Fever? Will anyone even realize he’s disappeared?

Thankfully, Marlon decides to give Lee an opportunity to show he’s trustworthy. He says, “Tell me your tale of woe,” immediately after making Lee eat raw paddlefish eggs directly from the fish’s ovaries – which is quite disgusting. This prompts Lee to finally share the story he’s been building up to throughout the entire episode. It all started when Ray, during one of his rapid-fire speeches, accidentally revealed to Frances that her father used to be in prison. At that moment, Lee downplayed the shocking news by exaggerating the truth. He explained to Franny that while her dad *was* an ex-con, so were many admirable figures – Nelson Mandela, Oscar Wilde, and Merle Haggard.

Lee explains to Marlon that he was on his way to Dairy Queen when a woman offered him drugs and then vanished. This left Lee unclothed in a stranger’s vehicle, alongside a three-legged dog and a man named Juan who was tied up in the back. The police arrived and arrested him, though for what exactly, he doesn’t know. He insists he wasn’t imprisoned for four days and a morning because of protesting injustice or his sexual orientation in 19th-century England. As he finishes recounting the story, Lee becomes emotional, fearing he disappointed Frances both on the day of his arrest and at this very moment – and he definitely is letting her down. Meanwhile, Frances’s babysitter is having his third or fourth double whiskey.

Marlon considers Lee trustworthy. The story is filled with such specific details that it’s hard to believe it isn’t true, and Marlon himself has experienced hardship. When Lee explains he was on the Disturbing the Peace searching for Catalina, not fighting poachers, it’s revealed that Marlon is actually her patient husband. He deeply loves Catalina but finds it difficult to express his feelings. So, Lee and Marlon make an agreement: Lee’s freedom in return for Marlon’s writing skills. Marlon writes a poem dedicated to Catalina, which also serves as Lee’s promise to Frances: “I would do everything that is within me to give you the life you deserve.”

Frances is a kind and considerate person. She patiently listens to Ray share his experience of coming out to his very religious mother when he was fifteen, genuinely understanding his feelings. However, she also takes after her father. Worried about his whereabouts, she quietly leaves the restaurant to search for him on Catalina’s boat. Similar to Lee, Frances is confident and resolute; when Catalina finds her investigating, Frances knows instinctively how to be truthful or deceptive as needed. As for Catalina, she doesn’t appear to be the bruja we expected. Rather than ejecting Frances from her boat, they enjoy a friendly conversation over maté.

Frances believes that despite leaving her to fend for herself during the day, Lee is a good father. However, Catalina only sees a young, innocent girl yearning for affection from a man who doesn’t deserve it – the man she’s forced to call Dad. When Catalina heads to the kitchen to refill her calabash, Frances seizes the opportunity, grabbing a box of Thompson paperbacks and making a dash for Ray at the restaurant. Catalina quickly catches up to them. The small size of the marina – consisting of just one restaurant, a large parking lot, and a handful of boats – makes it inevitable that she would. For reasons that remain unclear, Catalina reacts to the attempted theft by burning the books, which is the first hint that she might possess magical abilities. After all, fire is often associated with witchcraft.

Fortunately, resourceful Frances likely realized her plan wasn’t going to work. Either before she gave the books to Ray, or while Ray was gradually paying his bill at the bar, she quickly checked what was hidden inside them. This is actually the best possible result for Lee. He now possesses Dale’s letters, and anyone who ever suspects letters existed will believe they were destroyed by fire.

The rest of the characters in “Dinosaur Memories” don’t have much going on. Waylon and Henry spend their time at the bookstore hoping to become famous on YouTube. Marty, however, keeps running into trouble. First, Donald asks his friend Chubs to deal with his mistress, Betty Jo, and offers Marty the job of head of security for his campaign for governor in return. But Betty Jo tells Marty she won’t simply vanish for only $10,000. She warns that if the Washberg trust tries to evict her from Dale’s ranch using an old prenuptial agreement, they’re in for a fight.

Then we have Marty’s seemingly planned encounter with Allen at the coffee shop. This week reveals that, in addition to being racist and a murderer, Allen is also prejudiced against older people – he’s quite unpleasant. Initially, he pretends to commend Marty for handling the trouble Lee caused at Dale’s memorial, but his real intention is to intimidate him. Allen is aware that Marty has been following Lee, and since Lee tends to talk freely, Allen found out Lee told Don about being kidnapped by skinheads. Does Allen know Lee witnessed him kill Blackie and Berta? He almost certainly has some suspicion about it.

Right now, Lee is happily back with his daughter, and the two are quite the team. It’s almost like a funny, if somewhat silly, mystery-solving group is coming together to crack “The Case of the Black-Sheep Brother.” This group includes Lee, an amateur journalist who thinks he’s a big shot; his daughter, who acts like a detective and really looks up to her dad; and the spirit of Dale Washberg, who appears when someone reads the notes he hid inside his detective novels. Frances can see Dale as well.

I have faith in this unlikely team. I’m confident they’ll solve Dale’s murder. I can almost hear Don-or maybe Betty Jo?-complaining about it later in the season, right as the police are leading him away in handcuffs:And I would have gotten away with it,too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids.

Read More

2025-10-01 05:56