‘DTF St. Louis’ Review: Jason Bateman and David Harbour Star in Sex and Death Mystery That’s Mostly Flaccid [D]
I was 18 the first time I downloaded Grindr, an app I had been fully unaware of before an explanation from a close gay friend tossed me into a world of men looking to have sex. Dating apps with the sole focus being on hooking up is trickier than a Tinder profile because there’s more for the eye to explore, the stakes are raised slightly higher by skipping romance and moving straight to foreplay. Steven Conrad’s new series, DTF St. Louis, finds itself using the titular website to tie together a story of desire and mystery that ends in murder. Unfortunately, HBO’s newest limited series offers little beyond a slightly fascinating, vague plot description that unravels into nonsense as the episodes pass by.
At the center of DTF St. Louis is a friendship between Clark (Jason Bateman, Ozark) and Floyd (David Harbour, Stranger Things). Clark is the local weatherman, and Floyd has just been brought on as his field sign language interpreter — when Clark is live during a storm, Floyd stands next to him signing. The two grow close quickly, the pilot racing through the first few months of their relationship to establish the immediate kinship they felt for each other. Their closeness leads to the introduction of DTF St. Louis, a new website where people lonely inside their relationships can meet like-minded others for casual, no strings attached fun. Clark tells Floyd about this, gauging his interest in the website while not hiding his own. The episode swiftly moves to the meat of the story: Floyd has met an untimely demise, and DTF will now plug in all those weeks that it previously sped by, filling in minor details that are, unfortunately, unable to create a cohesive narrative.
The series gives extra care to show Clark and Floyd’s time spent together, but once the gaps in plot start taking shape as the story unspools it becomes apparent that Clark also liked spending time with Floyd’s weird wife, Carol (Linda Cardellin, Dead to Me). Carol works for Purina, as noted by her consistently wearing a vest with the brand’s name emblazoned on the left breast, and is miserable in her marriage. To the chagrin of Floyd and their sex life, Carol has also started a part-time job on the weekends as an umpire. It’s clear that they’ve drifted, but Floyd’s aversion to his wife in her umpire gear and his explanation on it completely derailing his libido solidifies the point the show is making. Carol and Frank begin having an affair, which doesn’t feel natural given the lack of chemistry between Bateman and Cardellini, but what’s craziest is they don’t meet on the titular sex website. DTF St. Louis doesn’t feel important in the story, nor does anything brought up because of it. Even meetups that Floyd is engaged with don’t feel substantial enough to be mentioned in plot because they feel out of place.
The series is a tonal nightmare, shifting through attempts at sincerity and light plays at dark humor, neither landing correctly and coming across as hamfisted attempts for prestige. DTF St. Louis spends the first four episodes — what was given to critics for review — attempting to find footing that never comes. The show trips over itself at every narrative turn, only made worse by the unrealistic, strange dialogue that is constantly repeated thrice as if to emphasize points further but without any change in tone. The aforementioned lack of chemistry doesn’t just apply to Bateman and Cardellini (though they are the best example), as most of the cast acts as if they’ve just met their scene partner moments prior to filming without any interest in creating rapport. It’s no wonder Carol and Floyd are having a hard time in their marriage, they don’t even like each other! The most fascinating moments of the series are between Floyd and Carol’s son, but they’re so few and far between that there isn’t any real impact. The series makes it clear he’s a troubled youth and lazily tosses a diagnosis at him after a few episodes in an attempt to reframe him as someone deserving of sympathy.
Of course, Floyd’s death is being investigated as a murder because it happened at four in the morning and in a public restroom, so the series introduces the two who will be looking into it. Homer (Richard Jenkins) and Jodie Plumb (Joy Sunday, Wednesday), who sound like they materialized right out of a detective novel, start off on the wrong foot at the crime scene and attempt to work peacefully together to figure out Floyd’s death. The lack of chemistry, a common thread that holds the series together, extends to these two as well. Plumb feels like she’s reading dialogue straight from the script, while Jenkins never feels fully immersed into Homer. In one of the more baffling scenes of the first four episodes, Homer brings Clark to the police station to ask him some questions in the lobby that looks perfectly designed for a dramatic scene on AppleTV’s Foundation, a stone room devoid of soul.
The show’s biggest pitfall is that everything feels disconnected. The dialogue is reliably terrible every episode, many times involving sweeping statements that aren’t applicable to the story but seeking to make the show more elevated than it is. DTF St. Louis cannot decide what it wants to be, or exactly what it wants to explore, so, in an inverted move, doesn’t become anything. In some ways, the plot seems so simple that it doesn’t feel like it can go anywhere, so it doesn’t. It’s unfortunate to have so much talent attached to a project only for it to fall flat in almost every aspect.
DTF St. Louis never reaches the heights of a typical HBO limited series, not pushing any boundaries or striving to create anything unique. The episodes provided for review feel aimless and without intent, not pulling together anything meaningful over the course of the first four hours of the show. It feels disjointed from the start, only pulling itself apart further as the series trudges on. DTF St. Louis is a misfire that can’t seem to find its voice, a dud that offers nothing to its audience.
Grade: D
The HBO Original limited series DTF St. Louis debuts March 1 on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. The seven-episode series will air weekly leading up to the series finale on Sunday, April 12 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT, ahead of the season three premiere of Euphoria.
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