{"id":2999,"date":"2026-04-01T19:39:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T19:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=2999"},"modified":"2026-04-19T15:17:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T15:17:25","slug":"review-of-dtf-st-louis-episode-5-david-harbour-deserves-an-emmy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/review-of-dtf-st-louis-episode-5-david-harbour-deserves-an-emmy\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;DTF St. Louis&#8221; Episode 5: David Harbour Deserves an Emmy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>So I\u2019ve made no bones about my enthusiasm for the new HBO show <em>DTF St. Louis<\/em>, starring Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini. It\u2019s my favorite series right now and ranks up there with some of the best, including the incomparable <em>Better Call Saul<\/em>. At about halfway through the season the plot is cooking. Ostensibly the engine powering the plot is the murder mystery: Who killed Floyd Smernitch? And it\u2019s certainly a good mystery: I won\u2019t give away anything but there\u2019s an obvious culprit . . . who is too obvious. I have my theories: Clark Forrest\u2019s wife, Eimy Forrest (played by Wynn Everett) is suspiciously absent from any discussion in this whodunit. She could be a sneaky suspect. But why I say \u201costensibly\u201d: The real charm of the series is the writing\/acting. Bateman and Harbour get the most airtime of each episode, and both are doing a knockout job. Bateman plays against type, ditching his comic good-guy persona for something more tortured and nebbishy\u2014a local TV weatherman with a penchant for kinky sex. Harbour, on the other hand, is the center of\u00a0<em>DTF<\/em>\u2019s universe, the planet around which all the other moon-characters orbit. He\u2019s oddly likable, sloppy, charming, overweight, funny, bumbling, and dynamic. His status as an American Sign Language expert gives him a spritz of quirkiness and compassion. He\u2019s a hero who feels strongly\u2014you could argue\u00a0<em>too strongly<\/em>\u2014for others. He&#8217;s the most likable character, and from early on in Episode 1 he&#8217;s dead. In Episode 5 (there are many flashbacks) he confides in Clark an anecdote to explain how he got a \u201ccrooked dick.\u201d It\u2019s laugh-out-loud funny, and mysterious, too. Watch it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"697\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DTF-697x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3000\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.6806673333650809;width:611px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DTF-697x1024.jpeg 697w, https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DTF-204x300.jpeg 204w, https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DTF-768x1128.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DTF-1046x1536.jpeg 1046w, https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DTF.jpeg 1212w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 697px) 100vw, 697px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;In Episode 5 (there are many flashbacks) he confides in Clark an anecdote to explain how he got a &#8216;crooked dick.'&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/review-of-dtf-st-louis-episode-5-david-harbour-deserves-an-emmy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[348,18,349,388,346,258],"tags":[391,389,390,392],"class_list":["post-2999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-david-harbour","category-good-tv","category-hbo-series","category-hbos-dtf-st-louis","category-jason-bateman","category-prestige-tv","tag-david-harbour","tag-hbos-dtf-st-louis","tag-jason-bateman","tag-linda-cardellini"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2999"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3041,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions\/3041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}