Since I foolishly chose to become a journalist (I was in college, it seemed like a good idea at the time) and even more foolishly assigned myself the Tulsa King beat over the summer (indefensible by any measure) I find myself now in the unfortunate position of reporting that there are new episodes of Tulsa King available for you to watch.
It would be weird for us not to mention it, what with our commitment to knowing Tulsa better and all that. But I do think we’re at an unprecedented moment in city history, where not one but two competing streamer/broadcasters are airing fresh episodes of TV shows set in Tulsa, not to mention a Tony-winning Broadway show adapted from S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders set to kick off its North American tour here today.
Why does the rest of the country suddenly seem interested in Tulsa?
I don’t have a satisfying answer to that question, but I am confident that the American TV-watching public will not learn much about Tulsa by watching Tulsa King. It’s a charmless workplace soap made for an audience of clapping seals. The second season eased off on the Tulsa-specific references, opting to pipe in Tulsa B-roll (drone shots of Gathering Place, downtown, etc.) between scenes of the principal cast acting on location in Atlanta.
Tulsa King’s dedication to representing Tulsa as an American city with a unique history is basically nonexistent. I went on about all that earlier this summer:
So why watch Tulsa King when you can get the real shit? The Lowdown is only halfway through its first season and already has given Tulsa’s history and idiosyncratic regional identity the full embrace. Its dedication to local lore and culture borders on the maniacal, incorporating distinctly Tulsan reference points into its setting, costuming, casting and storytelling.
The Lowdown is certainly more ambitious, original and artful than Tulsa King, and it’s aiming much higher too by blending reality with fiction—we see Ethan Hawke depict a character very much inspired by the real Lee Roy Chapman—to produce a mythological Tulsa that is contemporary but very much haunted by the ghosts of its past.
That’s not to say that The Lowdown is weighed down by its own reverence. In fact it’s much funnier and more joyful than its counterpart in Tulsa King.
If Taylor Sheridan embraces the “Great Man” theory of history, then Sterlin Harjo seems dedicated to rendering that great man as a dunce. In The Lowdown the closest thing we see to a great man is Donald Washberg, a delightfully doofusmaxxing Kyle McLachlan, who gets mixed up in questionable land deals and cries after sex. Meanwhile Harjo mines humor from the malevolent forces that prop up his great man: Christianity, white supremacy, resource extraction, land ownership, policing.
That’s all a very long way of saying that the new season of Tulsa King is now streaming on Paramount Plus! But you should watch The Lowdown instead.
