The Lowdown Recap: Above the Law

The Lowdown
A Dog With Two Tails
Season 2 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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It’s taken half a season, but — finally and with flair — a villain worthy of The Lowdown emerges from the cesspit of Woodrell. It’s not that Vela Thorne isn’t sinister enough in her own right. The ruthless county SHEriff has professional-grade acetone running through her veins. But The Lowdown is about plumbing the depths of Oklahoma’s political corruption. Everyone knows that TV cops are bad guys, but how far up the chain — and how low down into Oklahoma’s very foundations — does the graft go?

Jed Sallsman, Woodrell County’s oily judge, is the brains behind its prisoner diversion scheme, which exchanges prison sentences for work opportunities at a meat-processing plant. Based on the size of Jed’s cattle ranch — conspicuously vast for a man on a government salary — the judge is likely also the scheme’s principal beneficiary. But Jed’s not content to quietly enjoy the spoils of an exploitative labor arrangement. He wants to campaign on it. He has a sanitised promo video made to showcase Fresh Start Fine Foods, where Sheriff Thorne’s husband, Bob T (Clifton Collins Jr.), serves as factory foreman. 

What’s more is that Jed — played by Deadwood star John Hawkes, always welcome — screens the film for Lee and Governor Donald Washberg even after Nathan Spence’s death, which we now know happened on site at Fresh Start. Jed’s not afraid of the law. “I am the law,” he tells Lee. Judge Sallsman’s so convinced of his own invulnerability, backed up by sky-high approval ratings, that he suggests the tone-deaf line would make a fine title for the hagiographic, rags-to-riches political profile he wants Lee Raybon, award-winning journalist, to write.

It’s staggering how much life Lee fits into 24 hours. He wakes up in county lockup, spends the day with Oklahoma’s preening elite, and still manages to make it home in time for his daughter’s birthday party. What could I accomplish if I never slept or bathed or ate proper meals? Surely Daymond could have facilitated Lee’s release from custody given he’s facing zero charges, so why does Lee call in a showy favor from Governor Washberg  (the “Big D” tattooed inside his cowboy boot at the end of last episode)? Perhaps the point is to intimidate Vela and her henchman, but the move puts our Tulsa truthstorian in new and uncomfortable territory. Lee thrills to stick it to the man, but here he is fighting police corruption with personal favors. Lee and Donnie are sitting in a local diner fine-tuning the contours of their friendship of convenience when Judge Jed walks in. 

There’s some history between Jed and Donnie, who starts saying goodbye to the judge before they’ve finished their hellos. But Jed’s here to give the out-of-towners a warm Woodrell welcome. Asked if he’s from Tulsa, Lee answers that he’s from Heartland, U.S.A. — from the land of chili dogs and Tastee-Freez. The forgotten places between the map dots that John Mellencamp writes songs about. There’s a persistent emphasis this season on Lee’s origins. Where does a man like this — tenacious, fiery, unapologetically crass — come from? If you ask Lee directly, he’ll tell you he comes from nowhere. He made himself, though; I think the more accurate answer is yes, sir, Tulsa. 

Aware that Lee is planning a story about Woodrell, Jed invites the men on a whistle-stop tour, which Lee accepts over Donnie’s protests. Weirdly, though, all the stops are at Tallgrass, Jed’s ranch. This is a tour of the man who stands before us. First, they visit the big house, where Jed shows off his collection of taxidermied dead animals, the horns of said animals, and an original Dances with Wolves one-sheet. He’s got a pool and a grand piano and a loft brimming with cowboy-era Americana — antique rifles and Native American artifacts (of dubious provenance, we can be sure). Jed’s even collected the gavel of Judge Isaac Parker, who once presided over this frontier and earned the nickname “hanging judge” for the 160 men he sentenced to death.

“We should bring back the noose, to be honest,” Jed says, too honestly. The future is the past. The past is eternal. These men aren’t politicians. They’re kids playing cowboys — judges and sheriffs acting out their boyhood games of winning the West. Except, of course, the West has been won. Native American land is U.S. land. Native American culture is held hostage behind glass curios in the private collections of wealthy men who think they own whatever land they land on. At Jed’s insistence, the three men ride out on horseback to survey the expansive ranch that theft and expulsion made.

All afternoon, Donnie has been understandably eager to leave, but after watching the Fresh Start promo, he starts to see the value in a photo-op with the wildly popular judge. They don’t even have guards at the meat factory, the judge boasts; that’s how docile the forced laborers are! When Lee mentions Nathan Spence was meant to attend the program, Jed barely flinches, expressing sympathy for the boy’s confused and grieving mother. 

Lee eventually leaves Woodrell with a rain check from Jed, who promises to give the reporter a tour of Fresh Start some other time. From Donnie, Lee gets warnings — stop asking questions and don’t call again — that he’ll never heed. You’d think the hard part of his day was behind him, but when Lee shows up to the bowling alley for Fran’s birthday party, he’s met by his dad, wearing a bowling shirt that’s been embroidered with “Grandpa.” Earlier in the episode, Francis swung by Sweet Emily’s, where Frog was once again holding court, telling Ray and Marty about how the antiquities trade really works in Oklahoma. Mining companies loot where they dig and quarry, then later, they establish sham excavation sites where the same artifacts can be re-discovered for the first time, washing them clean enough to be acquired legitimately by museums and universities. That explanation casts Frog as Robin Hood, stealing from the black market to return important relics back to the Caddo, assuming they were ever really important in the first place. One day, Frog says, someone will dig up this diner and sell his coffee mug as Christ’s chalice. You can’t beat the grifters, he seems to be saying. 

Lee sulks through the party, more focused on his deadbeat dad than the guest of honor. Luckily, his ex is kind enough to give him a pep talk before Lee ruins the afternoon for everyone. “You can’t take my peace,” he tells his father, who gets under Lee’s skin less than a minute later. Still, the party is a success. Grandpa brings Francis some flowers and an IOU; her dad gives her a first edition of Slow Days, Fast Company, which is a legit cool gift for a teenage girl. Deidra terrorizes a teenage boy who dares to hit on her, and no one cries, not even the birthday girl.

By the time we meet up with Ginger at work, it’s been more than a day since she and Lee split up. I suppose she’s already learned not to panic every time he disappears. Or maybe she’s been too preoccupied to notice. Though Jeff assures Vela that Nathan’s mom stonewalled Ginger, the truth is that Deborah invited Ginger in to talk. She told Ginger that Nathan had called home from Fresh Start, where he supposedly never was. Deborah suspects the “medical emergency” that took her son from her was karoshi. The inmates are being worked to death. Vela is covering for her husband. McMann is covering for his cousin. And everyone, seemingly, is covering up for Jed. 

When Lee finds out about Deb’s hunch, he suggests that he and Ginger head back to Woodrell to talk to her again. They leave right after Fran’s party, and still, they’re too late. As Lee pulls up, a fire truck leaves Deb’s house, sirens off. Her dead body is being loaded into an ambulance. Carbon monoxide poisoning, a neighbor says. Nathan Spence, Chili Franks, Deb Spence. Someone, or some collection of ones, is on a killing spree. They must be hiding something big to go after a mother in mourning, Lee posits, but Ginger is turned off by his appetite for the case. Where he sees the promise of a meatier story, she sees her own trail of destruction. 

She asks Lee to drop her off at home, then runs to the mini-mart for cigs. While she’s out, Ginger calls Pookie, who’s been inside long enough to learn that Ginger’s been acting on old intel. According to Pookie, Mekko was at Fresh Start, too. And word around Boontill is that he’s the one who killed Nathan. 

Ginger’s still stumbling over the revelation when McMann and Lonnie arrive to abduct her at gunpoint. Throughout “A Dog With Two Tails,” McMann’s been telling his partner-in-crime he has a master plan to clean up this mess. Part 1 was to dig up Chili’s body and bring it to the incinerator. Part 2, it seems, is to kidnap a public defender they know to be working closely with a bullheaded reporter. All in all, a cracking plan, and I see no reason at all for Vela or Jed to be worried. 

With three episodes to go, there’s a sense that things are coalescing just beyond the limits of our understanding. We still don’t know why Frog has come to town, for example, but after touring Jed’s personal museum at Tallgrass, we can begin to imagine that father and son’s stories will collide. The number of bodies piling up in Woodrell is clearly no coincidence, but in a place as menacing as Sterlin Harjo’s Oklahoma, can all this evil really fall at the feet of a mere county judge? Whatever else is true, “Where is Mekko?” no longer seems to be the season’s operative question. I’m more curious to learn where Mekko’s been and, more consequentially, who put him there.