Review: The Lowdown, “Dinosaur Memories” / Season 1, Episode 3

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Earlier this week, Our Fearless Leader Myles McNutt and Every TV Critic’s Friend Alan Sepinwall had a fun two-part conversation, appearing both in Episodic Medium and What’s Alan Watching?, concerning two popular television genres that have fallen in and out of favor over the years, with Alan in particular and with the recapping/reviewing community in general. One is the reality competition show. The other is the procedural. Myles and Alan's back-and-forth got me thinking about the foundational elements of these genres—especially the procedural, and especially as it relates to this week’s The Lowdown.

Now, The Lowdown is not a procedural. Let me clear about that. Yes, Lee Raybon is a detective of sorts, following leads and digging up evidence as he tries to figure out who murdered Dale Washberg and why. (If Dale was murdered, that is.) But the term “procedural” implies more of a deeply researched, nitty gritty approach to crime-solving. The term also—often inaccurately—suggests the kind of TV show where characters work a new case in every episode. We're talking about episodic series, in other words—only lightly serialized.

So yeah, that's not The Lowdown. Except…doesn’t this week’s episode feel like an episode, and not just another 45-minute continuation of the story so far? Lee even stumbles into a crime entirely unrelated to the one he’s investigating. Sure, it’s possible the new characters introduced in “Dinosaur Memories” will prove to be relevant to the larger plot. But it’s even more likely that they won’t. And that's fine! On their own merits, Lee's adventures this week are wild and wonderful. Having not watched ahead in this series, this episode makes me wonder if every Lowdown will be like this: one entertaining digression after another.

What I like most about this week's chapter is that it even though it mostly follows a clear logical progression, it’s impossible to predict where it’s going to wind up. (I say “mostly follows,” because the timeline’s a little hinky. I’ll come back to that.) Lee’s morning to-do list is simple. He intends to look for a house, so that his daughter Francis won’t have to keep crashing in his tiny bookstore bedroom. And he intends to pick up the box of Jim Thompson paperbacks that his antique dealer buddy Ray was supposed to buy for him from the Dale Washberg estate sale.

So how does all of this end with Lee being held at gunpoint by caviar bootleggers?