‘DTF St. Louis’ Boss Explains How – and Why – He Pulled Off That Cringe Rap Scene

DTF St. Louis mines the poignant, awkward reality of new adult relationships in all their complexity, exploring the tragic fallout of the budding friendship between suburban dads Clark (Jason Bateman) and Floyd (David Harbour) as the former begins an affair with the latter’s wife, Carol (Linda Cardellini). But for a moment midway through the limited series, creator Steven Conrad — Emmy-nominated for writing, directing and executive producing all seven episodes — brings viewers into the realm of euphoric fantasy. At the high point of Clark and Floyd’s bromance — which is to say, before the fall — the men break into a perfectly, cringily endearing rehearsed rap. “We had to feel the clearest height of what having a new friend can feel like for somebody,” Conrad says. “I wanted a big feeling of what this has come to mean for the two of them.”

While the rap sequence crystallizes the friendship between Clark and Floyd, it also sneakily works as a kind of time jump: “How do you show that time has passed in a way the audience will feel like it’s not routine?” Conrad says. “Then it dawned on me: What if they had this established rap song that obviously they had been working on for a while? They’re not just making this up in the moment. It indicates that they’re way into it, that they’re kind of lost in their own little world. It conveys the idea that they’re spending a lot of time together, apart from the rest of the world.” 

“On the page, this seems very ordinary,” Conrad says. “In the execution, it became very stylized.” Indeed, the realist aesthetic of DTF St. Louis takes a hard turn toward a fourth-wall-breaking music video in this stretch, taking the viewer out of the previously set reality, while also — hopefully — allowing for a fuller embrace of the characters. “My job as the showrunner is to make sure that this doesn’t break the spell with the audience … that it feels right and doesn’t feel desperate,” Conrad says. “What we do is we try to arrange our episodes in a bandwidth of tone. Each episode, the audience gets a little bit of a wider possibility for what the show can say and do.” 

How did Conrad decide on the men’s hip-hop alter egos? Weather Boy was easy enough for Clark, who is in fact a weather forecaster; for Floyd, Pure Joy rested deeper in the series’ lore: “We have a deleted scene showing Pure Joy was the name that Floyd changed his DTF profile to; he mentions having to change it because it’s ambiguous,” Conrad reveals. “And then Weather Boy just rhymed with that.” As for their group name: “Why do they call themselves the Thunder Boys?” Conrad says. “I have no idea!”

This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.