It's hard to know where to start with "DTF St. Louis," the latest limited series from Steven Conrad. The hook is that it appears to be a typical crime series at first, starting with an investigation into an unexplained death, spearheaded by Detective Homer (Richard Jenkins) and Officer Plumb (Joy Sunday). Flashbacks take us into the lives of the three people at the center of the case: St. Louis weatherman Clark Forrest (Jason Bateman), his co-worker Floyd Smernitch (David Harbour), and Floyd's wife Carol (Linda Cardellini). Clark and Floyd become friends, and then Clark meets Carol at a party, and they connect. However, the situation is more complicated than it appears. And the more Homer and Plumb dig into the lives and relationships of the trio, the less clear things become.
"DTF St. Louis" is named after the hookup app that Clark introduces Floyd to, reflecting the show's interest in what's going on with average people behind closed doors. There's a lot of time spent exploring everyone's sexual needs and dysfunctions. Floyd and Carol's marriage is on the rocks for various reasons, and Clark's interest in both of them takes the entire series to fully unpack. It feels wrong to put an explicit label on what these relationships really are, but the most important one is definitely between Clark and Floyd. Both of these men are middle-aged, lonely, and find themselves connecting with each other in a way that they haven't been able to with anyone else in a long time. But though that connection is valuable to them, they don't understand what to do with it, and their attempts to use it to improve other parts of their lives, or to address other deficiencies, leads nowhere good.
I think it's reasonable to call "DTF St. Louis" a mystery show, since there is a mystery to unravel, and we do get an answer ultimately, but it's the kind that completely subverts its premise, and maybe the whole conceit of mystery shows in the process. You could call this an erotic thriller - there's certainly enough sexually explicit material to justify this being on HBO, but it's rarely very sexy. Impotence, embarrassing kinks, aging bodies, and bad encounters with potential hookups are major topics. There's a whole episode where the detectives dig into the origins of a kitschy pornographic photo spread found at the crime scene, and what it might mean. I've seen the show classified as a black comedy, but that doesn't feel right either. There are some very funny moments and plenty of cringey material, but I found the treatment of the characters extremely empathetic and even heartwarming at times. The tone of the show is very specific, intimate, and refreshingly nonjudgemental. I like that it acknowledges that everyone involved here crosses the line in some way. At the same time, it refuses to show them anything but sympathy, because their impulses are ultimately all very human and very familiar.
So, I guess I'd call "DTF St. Louis" an offbeat sort of melodrama, occasionally straying into half a dozen other genres, about three middle-aged people trying to find love, and doing a terrible job of it. The performances are all very, very good. Bateman finds a nice balance between charming and being clearly guilty of something. Linda Cardellini is wonderfully opaque, and learning more about her character's motivations never gives away her intentions. However, I think it's David Harbour who comes off the best here. Floyd Smernitch is such a loveable human being. He's a positive, sweet man who only wants the best for everyone, but no matter how hard he tries he seems incapable of truly connecting with anyone romantically or sexually.
And it's also a show about people of a certain age, dealing with all the little tragedies and changed expectations of being past your prime. These stories come along more often now than they used to, which I'm grateful for, but it's still rare to see one this good, with this level of talent. At seven episodes, "DTF St. Louis" struck me as just the right length, but I still found myself sad when it was over.
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