In real life, Ethan Hawke doesn’t go around getting his butt kicked.
asserted
butt → go → life
But viewers of “The Lowdown” have watched his character, Lee Raybon, take repeated punches in the name of uncovering the truth.
asserted
character → watch → truth
Now back for a second season on FX, Hawke is once again getting his (literal) kicks playing Raybon, the used bookseller and “truth-storian” at the center of the show, a noir drama with comedic elements set in the secret backrooms of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
asserted
Hawke → get → Tulsa
In a chat with The Post, Hawke compared making the show with creator Sterlin Harjo to “jumping off a cliff together.”
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Hawke → compare → cliff
When he signed on, there was just one episode with a full script.
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he → sign → script
“It was a bet about what themes we wanted to talk about, and the tone of the show, and what we both wanted Lee to be like.”
asserted
Lee → want → what
The five-time Oscar nominee — who became famous for 1990s hits like “Dead Poets Society” and “Reality Bites,” but kept returning to indie theater and smaller, stranger projects — told The Post that after working with Harjo on his critically acclaimed TV show, “Reservation Dogs,” he was hooked on a future collaboration.
asserted
he → become → collaboration
“We kind of auditioned each other,” he explained.
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he → audition → other
“Afterwards, we felt really strongly that we needed to work together again.”
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we → feel → ?
That “need” became Season 1 of “The Lowdown,” where Hawke spun Lee Raybon into a fascinating, but bumbling hero with a nose for corruption — and a motormouth that often worked overtime to undo the trouble he’d talked himself into.
asserted
he → become → himself
The main plot had Lee poking into the supposed suicide of a gubernatorial candidate’s brother and uncovering the murky real estate dealings of some shifty businessmen.
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Lee → have → businessmen
He pulled at threads and found both stories were woven together with plenty of danger attached.
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stories → pull → danger
Reviews of “The Lowdown” were overwhelmingly great — the show currently boasts a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes — and Harjo and Hawke brainstormed Season 2 while on the initial show’s press tour.
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Harjo → boast → tour
“Ethan and I talked about how accomplishing something and then getting recognition changes your life and can actually send people into a tailspin,” Harjo said, noting that he drew on his own feelings after “Reservation Dogs” became a critical darling.
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Dogs → talk → feelings
Early in the season premiere, Lee gives an embarrassing, drunken, drug-fueled acceptance speech for a journalism award.
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Lee → give → award
“I think that all of your traumas come up in those instances,” Harjo admitted.
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Harjo → think → instances
In Season 2, Lee is also dealing with the sudden arrival of his ne’er-do-well father, Lee Sr. (Tommy Lee Jones), who makes it clear where Hawke’s character inherited his nose for chaos.
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character → deal → chaos
Hawke plays Lee like an exposed nerve this season, especially as his father’s arrival brings old pain to the surface.
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arrival → play → surface
The actor told The Post that throughout Season 1, he wondered “why Lee doesn’t want to grow up and why can’t he handle success.”
asserted
he → tell → success
But, he said, “One look at Tommy Lee Jones’ face and you see it.”
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you → say → it
Harjo added that Lee recognizes himself in his father’s behavior.
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Lee → add → behavior
“It’s the version of himself that he doesn’t want to be.”
asserted
he → ’ → himself
New additions to “The Lowdown” also have Hawke confronting his past in a more personal way:
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Hawke → have → way
Season 2 also gives a bigger role to Keith David, who first appeared with Hawke in “Reality Bites” in 1994, played private investigator Marty Brunner in Season 1; he tells The Post that he took the role in part because playing a TV detective was on his bucket list.
asserted
playing → give → list
In the new season Marty has now become a journalist and is digging into an archaeology smuggling ring.
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Marty → become → ring
— and admitted that he took the role, in part, because playing a TV detective was on his bucket list.
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playing → admit → list
“You gotta love Sterlin, because you think he’s going one way with a story and then all of a sudden, we take a sharp left turn and a different world opens up,” said David.
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David → got → turn
“It certainly keeps you in the moment.”
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It → keep → moment
Hawke’s longtime friend Martha Plimpton also makes an appearance as a menacing small-town sheriff with outsized personal style, including “a lot of gold jewelry and a duck’s ass hairdo.”
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Plimpton → make → jewelry
“Ethan’s one of my oldest, dearest friends,” she told The Post.
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she → ’ → Post
“If he says, ‘Do you want to do something with me?’ it’s an automatic yes.”
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it → say → me
In this case, it was more like a sí, as Plimpton commuted all the way from Madrid, where she was shooting “Murderbot,” to make the show.
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she → commute → show
There is also the addition of Betty Gilpin as Ginger, a lawyer imperiled by her connection to a Native man who has mysteriously vanished from an Oklahoma prison.
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who → be → prison
Her character brings out the best and worst in Hawke’s Lee, who smells both a grave injustice and a good story — and also can’t resist a pretty face.
asserted
who → bring → face
And there are standalone episodes that function almost as one-act plays (or as Hawke puts it, a John Cassavetes short film).
asserted
Hawke → be → it
“The great noirs always have these little digressions into little pools, where you just feel the reality of the universe that’s surrounding the protagonist,” he explained.
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he → have → protagonist
“I will push things as far as I can and go wild with a side story,” Harjo added.
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Harjo → push → story
“I want to be able to break off and go into the seedy underbelly of wherever we’re at.”
asserted
we → want → wherever
The goal, said Hawke, is to remove any trace of a soap opera from the show.
asserted
Hawke → say → show
“It feels like these people are your friends and it’s confusing and messy, the way real life is,” he said.
asserted
he → feel → ?
…and 2 more, not listed.
The Aporia
