|
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
29
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
|
Critic Reviews
Sep 23, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The Lowdown is, by necessity, a more limited undertaking [than Reservation Dogs] that nonetheless succeeds on its own terms. Like Rez Dogs, it’s kinetic. Both shows mix humor, philosophy, and principled outrage, riding the roller coaster of daily life in a world of stunning beauty and glaring injustice instead of conforming to any prepackaged TV format.
Read full review
Sep 4, 2025
Season 1 Review:
At its heart, The Lowdown is a story that wants the viewer to care about the truth as much as its main character does. It's fearless and gonzo, easily one of the best new shows of the year, and it's made even better for the time it arrives in, with trust in the media rapidly sinking and respect for writers at an all-time low. By putting a determined, if eccentric, journalist at its center, The Lowdown feels like an old-school story with a very modern spirit.
Read full review
Sep 17, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Though The Lowdown wears its influences on its sleeve—think Shane Black’s The Nice Guys, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, and pretty much any Coen brothers movie—it never comes off as derivative. That’s because it’s steeped in specificity, from the production design (you may want to pause scenes in the bookstore to read the spines of vintage paperbacks) to the world-building. Every character on the show feels realized, even if we only see them in glimpses.
Read full review
Screen RantSep 24, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The Lowdown might not be as profound or deeply touching as Reservation Dogs — that show captured the full spectrum of the human condition by weaving fleeting moments of joy into the most horrible tragedies imaginable — but it’s not trying to be. .... As a subversive comedy noir, The Lowdown’s primary focus is going for dark, twisted, “Should I be laughing at this?” laughs, and it gets plenty of them.
Read full review
Sep 23, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Harjo and Hawke, also an executive producer, completely nail the vibe “The Lowdown” is going for. .... The destination of “The Lowdown” isn’t half as fun as the journey. .... Only five of the eventual eight episodes were screened for critics, so I can’t say where “The Lowdown” goes. I can state for a fact, however, that it’s a pleasure to watch it get there at its own leisurely pace.
Read full review
Sep 22, 2025
Sep 4, 2025
Season 1 Review:
While Harjo has gone on record to say his influences for the show range from films like “The Long Goodbye” to shows like “Atlanta,” The Lowdown also exudes a particularly Lynchian vibe. Maybe it’s the presence of Kyle MacLachlan, or the number of coffees consumed at the diner, but this latest Harjo creation invokes “Twin Peaks” in the very best ways.
Read full review
Sep 23, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The Lowdown, I should note, does threaten to disappear into its own quirk at times. It moseys along at a deliberate pace, and the meandering narrative tends to wander around like Lee after one too many hits of his vape pen. But that’s OK: This show dances to its own beat. It’s not trying too hard to impress us, and that’s endearing, in a way. It’s worth checking out just to bask in Hawke’s greatness.
Read full review
Sep 24, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Hawke doesn’t overload their delicate dances or any of his other scene partnerships with an insistence on pulling the spotlight, true to his character’s unspoken self-regard as a guide who happens to investigate his curiosities. It’s that balance of charisma and humility that makes me eager to see how “The Lowdown” resolves, and keep my fingers crossed that these eight episodes are merely the first of many cases for his public investigator to crack like the spine of a well-loved book.
Read full review
Sep 23, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The Lowdown is also quite the showcase for Harjo’s creative vision. His world-building is lush enough to smooth over however you may feel about Lee’s rough edges, and his gift for seamlessly weaving together his expansive cultural appetites gives the show a kind of referential heft that feels inviting as opposed to alienating.
Read full review
Sep 23, 2025
Season 1 Review:
“The Lowdown” is a more conventional outing than “Reservation Dogs,” which was energized by its formal unpredictability. Lee’s adventures hew closer to a sun-drenched “Fargo,” adhering to the beats of a traditional crime drama—albeit a stylish one—with professional hit men and hard-won clues.
Read full review
ColliderSep 23, 2025
Sep 4, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The Lowdown very much feels like a good crime novel. The hardboiled works of Jim Thompson are a recurring plot point, but Harjo and company are operating more like they’re in Elmore Leonard or Donald E. Westlake country, mixing self-aware humor(*) with genuine intrigue and menace, along with a scuzzy atmosphere and a rich, detailed sense of place.
Read full review
Sep 4, 2025
Season 1 Review:
A shaggy dog mystery-comedy in the vein of Terriers and Lodge 49 — which is to say “very much my jam” and “very much destined for niche viewership” — Harjo’s follow-up to one of television’s great half-hours of the decade/century/ever is still finding its way, based on the five episodes sent to critics. And “its way” is an endearingly meandering way, one in which the murder mystery at its center is only meant to be loosely compelling.
Read full review
Sep 4, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Rather than trying to pad out its mystery, The Lowdown works toward one of television’s most worthwhile pursuits: establishing a setting and cast of characters that the viewer looks forward to spending time with. Like a good pulp paperback, the series draws you in with the confidence of its vision and the sense that wherever the plot may lead, it’ll certainly be a good time.
Read full review
Current TV Shows
By MetascoreBy User Score