Review: The Lowdown, “The Sensitive Kind” | Season 1, Episode 8

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Every spring, I drive up from my home in Conway, Arkansas to Columbia, Missouri to attend the True/False Film Festival. It’s a mostly lovely trip, with a lot of winding highway driving through the Ozarks, and only a little bit of big, straight interstate blandness. I do though have to pass through a town called Harrison, which is notorious for its billboards promoting “white pride.” In recent years, some embarrassed locals have been working to change Harrison’s reputation, putting up their own billboards celebrating diversity and inclusion.

The point is that sometimes—maybe all the time—the ugly and the redemptive sides of American life coexist, however uneasily. No place is beyond hope, so long as there are good people there, trying to make even the smallest gestures toward being welcoming and compassionate.

So in that spirit, let’s discuss Donald Washberg and his sister-in-law Betty Jo, two characters in The Lowdown who turned out to be more complicated than they initially appeared. If you’d asked me four episodes ago which was one was more likely to end this season as a hero and which one a heel, I would’ve guessed wrong—and I bet you would’ve too. Also I’m still not sure if words like “hero” or “heel” are wholly apt.