So I’m up to episode three in the new HBO series DTF St. Louis and digging it. My favorite show right now. Jason Bateman is playing against type: Usually he’s the good-hearted family guy with terrific comic timing, often playing the “straight man” character—the sane one around whom the wackos orbit. In this series, playing Clark Forrest, he’s a disturbed TV weather guy with kinky sexual fetishes that cloud his thinking. When he describes his sexual . . . proclivities . . . he’s hesitant, nebbishy, and captivating. But David Harbour, lately of Stranger Things fame (and infamy, kind of), plays the murder victim, Floyd, and does a great job. He’s a portly Sign Language expert with money problems, a wife whose side gig as a Little League umpire turns him off, and a stepson who (at first) hates him. Oddly enough he’s charming and funny and likable. Bateman has the tougher role as the more-successful friend who leads Floyd astray, sex-wise. Linda Cardellini plays Carol, Floyd’s wife, who is an obvious Suspect No. 1. But I don’t buy it. That would be too simplistic. My theory: Clark’s wife (Wynn Everett as Eimy Forrest) has been suspiciously absent so far. She’s not a suspect but we know nothing about her. Hmmm.
