Seeking truth, but finding trouble

Ethan Hawke stars as an amateur reporter in over his head in FX's 'The Lowdown.'

- ROBERT LLOYD TELEVISION CRITIC

SHANE BROWN FX ETHAN HAWKE as eccentric citizen journalist Lee Raybon in "The Lowdown."

"The Lowdown," Sterlin Harjo's new series, after co-creating the brilliant "Reservation Dogs" with Taika Waititi, is a genre exercise — a noir-nodding murder mystery — much as Donald Glover followed "Atlanta," that show's aesthetic cousin, with a spy series, "Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

On the face of it, this might seem a step backward. Though genre dominates television production almost to the point of saturation, it may, of course, be done poorly or well, may be obvious or subtle, stale or fresh. The elements may be familiar, but there are only six different pieces in chess, and the combinations are infinite; "The Lowdown," which premieres Tuesday on FX, wins the game.

We are once again in Oklahoma, off the rez and in the city. Ethan Hawke plays Lee Raybon, introduced on camera by a vape pen and a duct-taped boot. A usedbook dealer and self-styled "truthstorian," whose "true nature" is described by a friend as "narcissistic cowboy with a penchant for seeming like the good guy," Lee's character was inspired by Tulsa citizen journalist Lee Roy Chapman, whose article "The Nightmare of Dreamland: Tate Brady and the Battle for Greenwood," which exposed the racist past of a celebrated citizen, is represented here by Lee's similar piece on the history of the locally powerful Washberg family. Of his investigative avocation, he says, "I read stuff, I research stuff, I drive around and I find stuff, then I write about stuff.

Some people care, some people don't. I'm chronically unemployed, always broke.