‘The Lowdown’ Season 2 Takes One of TV's Best Crime Shows and Makes It Even Better | Review
Tania Hussain is an Executive Editor at Collider responsible for creative, editorial, and managerial duties. In addition to leading content ideation and development, she works to generate innovative and compelling ideas for feature articles and reviews with her editorial team across Features, Lists, Reviews, and Interviews. She also serves as the primary editor overseeing Collider’s Signature Series profiles, spotlighting some of the most influential voices in film and television. Tania has helped cover and ideate content for major events for Collider, including the Toronto International Film Festival. She has also conducted more than 100 interviews since her start in the business more than 15 years ago. Some favorites include Joel McHale, Charlie Cox, Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, Kate Winslet, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Richter, Jordan Schlansky, Jamie Dornan, Yeardley Smith, Rafe Spall, Esther Smith, and a reasonable toss-up between Cookie Monster and Kermit the Frog. She has covered set visits, in-person junkets, and red carpets for several films and TV shows, including most recently, The Sheep Detectives, Masterchef, and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
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During Season 1 of The Lowdown, Ethan Hawke’s intrepid reporter and “truthstorian,” Lee Raybon, spends most of his time getting beaten up, laughed at, or evading gunfire while digging into the death of wealthy local Dale Washberg (Tim Blake Nelson). So when Season 2 opens with Lee named Citizen Journalist of the Year at an intimate awards ceremony for that very story, it kind of feels like he’s finally won. Naturally, he makes a mess of it in the best way he knows how.
Hawke plays the entire evening with that same nervous, slightly unhinged energy that made his character so much fun to watch in the first place. He’s clearly proud of himself despite some discomfort, but still doesn’t know how to let something good just stay good. That makes Season 2’s premiere, “The Rupidoop,” a pretty good starting point for where creator and showrunner Sterlin Harjo’s show is now. While Season 1 blended a Coen Bros.-type humor and charm with strange mysteries, the series' “Chapter 2: Full of Cups” feels like Harjo and his writers have completely settled into what makes this world work.
With the first six of eight episodes made available for review, The Lowdown Season 2 is positively spectacular. Sharper, funnier, and more purposeful, the mystery tightens in every episode without ever feeling overwhelming. The best part is that Lee’s particular brand of chaos still leaves room for some weird people and small moments that make The Lowdown feel completely unlike anything else on TV right now.
What Is ‘The Lowdown’ Season 2 About?
The Lowdown Season 2 picks up with Lee finally getting some recognition for his investigative reporting, but any sense of normalcy disappears when he meets the mysterious Ginger (Betty Gilpin). The public defender might initially look like a femme fatale, but she admits she needs help after one of her clients goes missing. It doesn’t help that she’s being stalked by two men, which prompts Lee to suit up as Ginger's knight in shining armor (while also hoping she'll be his girlfriend because he's absolutely smitten with her). As he starts digging out of genuine concern, the resulting investigation pulls him toward another story involving corruption, powerful people, and those who would rather that he mind his own business.
Things have also changed at the Heartland Press, with Marty (Keith David) now serving as managing editor and trying, with very mixed results, to get Lee to actually work on the stories he’s been assigned. At home, Lee’s daughter Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is getting older and wants more time with her dad, while Lee’s ex Samantha (Kaniehtiio Horn) is now married to Johnny (Rafael Casal), a dentist who winds up getting pulled into Lee’s life more than either of them probably expected.
The biggest revelation this season comes from Lee’s estranged father, Lee Raybon Sr., played by the legendary Tommy Lee Jones. When "Frog" suddenly shows up in Tulsa after nearly 20 years away, it creates an immediate tension between father and son, but also between Lee and Francis, since he'd spent years claiming her grandfather had died.
Ethan Hawke Has Never Been Better in ‘The Lowdown’ Season 2
Hawke has always been that guy, cool and suave in just about everything he does, and easily one of our best actors. As The Lowdown's Lee Raybon, however, he’s doing something that feels completely different. There’s nothing polished about this character (just wait until Episode 4), but Hawke becomes a smorgasbord of emotions: twitchy, tired, awkward, loud, and somehow still super charming. He also throws his whole body into this performance, whether Lee is stumbling through a bad situation or talking too fast out of panic. It’s one of those roles where you lose sight of Hawke and start to only see his character.
It’s also why Gilpin is a great match for him. The two play their characters' neuroses without ever outdoing the other, offering a yin and yang that makes their dynamic so exciting. Gilpin’s funny in a very different way, which helps her scenes with Hawke feel fresh through a platonic lens, while Ginger and Lee share a lot of His Girl Friday-style banter that makes you think there’s more to them together. Gilpin’s expressions are also incredible, specifically in how she pushes back, gets annoyed or scared, or just reacts in disbelief that Lee is the person helping her. But there is real fear and hurt in her performance too, and Gilpin moves between those beats as one of TV’s best-written women.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Coen Brothers Movie Would You Thrive In? Lebowski · O Brother · Fargo · No Country
Nobody writes people like the Coen brothers. The decent ones. The talkers. The ones who stopped trying years ago. And the ones who can already see how bad this is going to get. Four films, four completely different ways of handling trouble. Eight questions decide which one you would actually walk out of.
🎳Lebowski(1998)
🎸O Brother(2000)
❄️Fargo(1996)
🪙No Country(2007)
01
A bag of money lands in your lap. What happens next? Every Coen film starts roughly here. It never goes smoothly.
02
Somebody is being completely unreasonable with you. How does it go? Coen dialogue is mostly people failing to understand each other.
03
What is your actual relationship with work? Everyone in these films is either working far too hard or not at all.
04
Long drive, bad weather, nobody else on the road. How are you? There is always a drive in these films. It is never a good drive.
05
You are offered a shortcut that is not quite legal. This is the moment where the Coens find out who you really are.
06
The plan has fallen apart completely. What is your move? In a Coen film the plan always falls apart. That is the genre.
07
Which of these sounds most like something you would say? Nobody writes a line quite like the Coens. Which one is yours?
08
How does your film end? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your movie.
The Verdict Is In Your Coen Film Is…
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 be there.
The Big Lebowski
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 home here.
- The Dude is the only person in the film with no ambition, and the only one who comes out the other side undamaged. That is not an accident.
- You do not chase things. You let situations arrive and you deal with them at your own pace, which is a genuine skill however lazy it looks.
- This is a full crime plot happening around a man who mostly wants his rug back, and that is exactly the energy you would bring to it.
- Everything goes wrong. You abide. The film ends.
O Brother
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 once.
- Everett never has a plan that survives contact with reality. He has something better, which is the ability to keep talking until a new one turns up.
- You are the optimist in the group, the one who makes a ridiculous idea sound reasonable at two in the morning.
- This is the warmest film the Coens have made. It is a chase, a comedy and a musical at once, and nobody in it is quite beyond saving.
- You would end up famous entirely by accident, and act like you planned it all along.
Fargo
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.
- Marge Gunderson solves the whole case by being polite, thorough and unhurried while everybody around her panics. That is the entire argument of the film.
- You do the boring parts of the job, which is precisely why you would notice the thing everyone else walked straight past.
- Fargo is about ordinary greed causing enormous damage, and about one person who simply refuses to be corrupted by any of it.
- You would go home at the end of it, have dinner, and sleep perfectly well.
No Country
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 for.
- No Country is the Coens at their coldest: a film where being smart, fast and careful might still not be anywhere near enough.
- You plan for the worst, you keep your own counsel, and some part of you is already working out the exit.
- Llewelyn Moss is competent, prepared and resourceful, and the film is honest about whether any of that is ever sufficient.
- You would see it coming. Whether that helps is the one question the film refuses to answer.
Jones, who is returning to TV nearly four decades later, brings a completely different rhythm to The Lowdown Season 2. He enters with mystery, but plays Lee Sr. as a quieter addition, which works really well against Hawke. Some of Jones' best moments come from how calmly he delivers his lines while everyone around him is reacting, which creates a nice balance between the humor and drama. But there’s a striking weight in Lee and Hawke's scenes together that makes them absolutely magical. It’s hard to believe they never acted together before this, but the pair are masterclasses in shaping a family portrait that is strained but still full of care.
Meanwhile, Armstrong remains excellent with her on-screen dad in Hawke. Their scenes still feel easy and natural, and the young actress is especially good when Francis is angry with Lee because she never plays those moments too big. She also manages to hold her own with Jones, and their chemistry builds to a warmer dynamic between grandfather and granddaughter. Along the way, David's Marty continues to deliver some of the best dry reactions in the show, while Michael Hitchcock’s Ray remains great at finding humor in the smallest scenes. Martha Plimpton also joined the cast earlier this year, but saying much more about her badass role would spoil the fun of who she is (or the hell she brings).
‘The Lowdown’ Season 2 Is Funnier, Faster, and Much More Focused
One of the biggest changes from the show's debut last year is in the pacing. Among its greatest joys, The Lowdown still likes to wander and take us down a few cul-de-sacs at 100 miles per hour, but in Season 2, it really feels like the series knows where it’s going. Lee can spend a scene chasing down a lead, arguing with Ginger, or getting distracted by something completely ridiculous, and the story still moves underneath the very boots he loves to sniff. Never dumping all its information on the viewer at once, the mysteries that wrap The Lowdown build naturally across the season. With every scene crafted to make us care about these characters and their world, the writing ensures there is always another question just sitting behind the one Lee is trying to answer.
As a dark comedy that brilliantly plays to its strong, enchanting noir vibes like something out of Chinatown or The Set-Up, the comedy this time around is even better because Harjo and the writing team rarely stop to make the story the joke. Instead, most of the humor comes from how these people actually act around each other. Blending sharp wit with slapstick, Lee is especially funny when he is trying very hard to look like he has control of a situation that has already gotten away from him. Some of the show’s best sight gags also speak to the style of comedy that best suits The Lowdown, like when Lee is investigating a very serious case in a “DUMP HIM” T-shirt. In another scene, he tries to casually spin a basketball while Ginger is asking someone questions, only for it to bounce straight onto her head. Hawke’s quiet apology afterward is funnier than any big punchline could have been.
Season 2 also starts asking tougher questions about Lee’s obsession with the truth, which runs parallel to how we talk about journalism: who gets to tell the story, who gets hurt by it, and does being right mean the same thing as doing good? But that never becomes some sort of lecture. Instead, the show's writers work these larger ideas into everyday conversations, which makes the point land harder.
All of this gives Lee’s work more weight this season too, proving The Lowdown can be tense or strange in a moment, but then make you laugh seconds later without ruining its message. Harjo knows exactly what kind of show he’s making now, and across these six damn good episodes, there isn’t a single piece that feels out of place. The Lowdown was already great television when it debuted last year, but Season 2 puts it among the very best shows on TV right now.
The Lowdown Season 2 premieres October 14 on FX.
- Release Date
- September 23, 2025
- Network
- FX
- Showrunner
- Sterlin Harjo
- Directors
- Sterlin Harjo, Macon Blair, Danis Goulet
- Writers
- Duffy Boudreau, Scott Teems, Sneha Koorse, Sterlin Harjo, Lou Berney
-
Lee Raybon
-
Marty
- Creator(s)
- Sterlin Harjo
Pros & Cons
- Ethan Hawke gives one of his best performances yet, making Lee funnier, messier, and more human than ever.
- Season 2 is much tighter, with a mystery that keeps moving without losing the show?s strange sense of humor.
- Betty Gilpin and Tommy Lee Jones are fantastic additions to an already excellent ensemble.
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