Spotlight: “The Lowdown”
Ethan Hawke is feeling the pressure bad in “The Lowdown,” from FX

Spotlight: “The Lowdown”

Ethan Hawke rages against the machine as a crusading Tulsa bookworm in a rollicking, riveting series that’s one of the year’s best.

By Peter Travers

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★★★½ (3½ out of 4)

Ethan Hawke is all kinds of scuzzy/funny/wicked/wonderful in “The Lowdown,” a series on FX (available the next night on Hulu) that has no right to be as sneaky good as it is. I don’t know why I’m surprised. The show is the brainchild of writer-director Sterlin Harjo, who created “Reservation Dogs,” an exuberant gift of a series about Indigenous teens that makes me smile just saying it out loud. Yes, I often talk to myself, it happens with writers.