Lowdown Recap: Living Fire
Let’s think about those who are no longer with us: Dale Washberg, Blackie, Bertha, and now Allen. How are these guys related? Blackie and Bertha tried to kill Dale, and Allen killed them for failing. Allen was implicated in their failure, although whether he was killed because of that, Blackie, or a third reason remains a mystery. It is unlikely that Dale knew the other men before his death, but his death set off a wave of linked murders. And if all this violence seems unbearable in dusty Oklahoma, Sterlin Harjo might anticipate your suspicions: Tulsa has the highest crime rate in the country, as Lee mentioned a few episodes ago.
The man is clearly bathed in the ominous red light from the refracted explosions at the end of This Land? — Presumptive Governor Donald Washberg — is behind it all. So obvious, in fact, that it might not so Behind all that. But even if “the candidate in the office with the gun” isn’t the winning accusation, Donald is so obnoxious that it’s hard to imagine him hating the real shooter any more. Even if he’s not our killer, this guy is our villain. As such, the drive of each episode is not Lee’s progress toward getting to know Donald, but rather the friends he makes and loses along the way. Last week, Betty Jo. Before that, Frances and Ray’s road trip. This week we meet the misanthropic Wendell, Lee’s oldest friend, who can’t stand it.
Lee was sleeping off his hangover with his shoes duct-taped when Frances entered the bedroom, disturbed by what she had seen on the local news: Allen, the man who had walked into Hoot Owl Books and threatened her father, had been shot to death in broad daylight. Lee is surprised by the development, impressed that his teenage daughter is watching the news (“That’s great…they lie sometimes.”), and somewhat disapproving of the fact that Francis interrupted class to find him. In fact, it seems to have reawakened him to the fact that he is her father. Before sending her back to school, Lee tells Frances that it is too dangerous for her to be part of his investigation. It’s a line he should have drawn several episodes ago, before he dragged her to the docks to find the missing books. Now, Lee’s ban seemed unfair to her and its logic twisted – it was okay for Francis to play an idea When she was saving the letters that her father wanted.
Wendell (Peter Dinklage) comes to town for the annual memorial service for a friend who overdosed, and his arrival serves as an unwelcome mirror for Lee. Once he learns what his old friend is doing, Wendell warns Lee that he will hurt Francis by being selfish. This is what it does for me. Incidentally, their friend Jesus’ relapse a few years ago was not Lee’s fault, but, as Wendel reminds him, mine He was I’m supposed to check on him that day.
In a sense, Lee and Wendell are two versions of the same guy: greasy Gen Sarcastic, spiteful men who pride themselves on not owning anything more formal than a graphic T-shirt. Wendell is briefly upset when he learns that Lee wants to bail on Jesus Day in favor of the shoe tradition, but he cannot resist the opportunity to prove that he is better than Lee, who is struggling to figure out the location of the land that Dale and Donald were arguing about. If a place doesn’t exist on Google Maps, can it really exist?
Once Wendell reads about the case, he boasts that he can find Indian Head Hills in less than two hours. And so the search for missing people begins this week. The first stop is Skiatook Municipal Court, where Wendell woos an overworked clerk to find him an atlas dating back to before 1950. Lee can’t believe how far a little flirtation can get, but Lee doesn’t stop long enough to notice what the others need. Even with Betty Jo last week, it took a few tries. Indian Head Hills is a piece of land in the middle of nowhere, but when they drive there, they find the next clue: a “No Trespassing” sign posted by White Elk LLC.
Wendell thinks it’s a stupid name. There are no elk in Oklahoma. He tells me there are elk in Oklahoma. The point is, these guys can argue about anything. They may have been friends before, but now Wendell can’t stand anything for Lee, starting with the way he orders a Dr. Pepper to the way he still believes in himself. It insults Wendell that Lee believes his article somehow contributed to Dale’s death, and it insults him that Lee believes he can bring down one of the most powerful men in Oklahoma.
In Indian Head Hills, a region that Lee can’t believe exists, the escalating tension between them turns into violence for the sake of humor. They each land at least one good punch, but the fight choreography is less concerned with naming a winner than telling a joke — Lee’s face ends up in the same patch of grass where Wendell peed minutes earlier. Before either man can do much damage, a truck pulls up behind Lee’s pickup truck. The men who come out carry machine guns, but they don’t spot Wendell and Lee on the hill. At least now, Wendell believes Lee is involved in something nefarious.
The third stop on the intelligence-gathering tour that destroys their friendship is a visit to Vicki, Lee’s resourceful realtor. I was able to learn that White Elk is selling the Indian Head Hills parcel of land to a company called One Well, at four times the market value, with no other bidders involved. Suspicious, actually. But when Lee points out that “this sounds like a great way to launder a bribe for a future governor,” he implies that he has discovered something Wendell hadn’t already thought of. You can see what’s been getting on Wendell’s nerves for the past few decades—the subtle insistence that Lee is sharper than anyone else in the room.
In the end, the men gather in a holy place (a deserted parking lot) for Jesus’ holy ceremony (sitting around a bucket of fire). For fuel, Lee and Wendell burned books, an irony that pleased them both, I’m sure. They then exchange the picture of Jesus back and forth, while confiding to their absent friend what they are most ashamed of. Today is the closest Wendell has been awake in 72 days. “I’m a mess,” he says. Li Francis has put him in danger, and he will lose the library: “I’m in a mess, too.” In a losing Olympics, there are no winners.
Lee told Wendell that he had become a person who didn’t like anything anymore. Wendell told me he didn’t trust him. So why does Wendell still want to make this pilgrimage every year? He calls Jesus’ death “the hound of hell that pursues me,” words he borrowed for me to describe what it means to be friends with someone as nihilistic and destructive as Wendell. Wendell’s foot has been in a cast for reasons he won’t talk about; He carries painkillers to court when he is on probation. Jesus may chase Wendell, but Wendell terrifies Lee.
Finally, we get the needle drop we’ve all been waiting for: Emmylou Harris’ “Queen of Tulsa.” While Lee takes road trips around Osage County, Betty Jo sits at the sink deciding whether or not to wear her wedding ring. She was still sitting there, thinking about how to fill the hours of the long day, when she heard the sound of a door closing downstairs. It’s contempt for Donald, who saw that scoundrel Lee leaving his mistress’ house this morning. Betty Jo argues that she’s the unloved party here – if Donald still cared about her, why would he send Marty to pay her off? Betty Jo does a good job of insisting that she never told Lee anything about Dill or Pearl, but she’s scared and angry, and Donald jams his fist into her kitchen cabinet. She grumbles as he leaves, taking his brother’s gun with him. Betty Jo then wisely called her new boyfriend.
Donald didn’t have time to come to terms with her anyway. He is scheduled to shake hands at a meeting of the 46, a group of powerful but oppressed men named after the order in which Oklahoma won statehood. I’m assuming they’re a racist organization because (a) Frank is giving a speech there and (b) the speech includes the questionable line “It’s not about race” directed at a single-race crowd. “These Indian tribes, it is like foreign governments established here, under our noses, subject to no man or laws except those made by their own hands,” Frank warns the nodding audience. (Yes, Frank, that is the definition of a more or less independent tribal nation, at least as far as state laws are concerned.) After the speech, Frank and Donald talk. Frank wants to know why the White Elk deal didn’t go through. “The buyer’s patience has run out,” he tells Donald, suggesting perhaps there’s a bigger villain—a player with more money than Frank and more power than Donald.
A good rule of thumb is that the more rings Jane Tripplehorn has, the better, so it’s dark news that Betty Jo is going into hiding. After meeting with Lee, they agreed that she was not safe in Tulsa anymore. Lee suggests that she sign up for a women’s resort that he happened to see on a Hoot Owl flyer and agrees to tell her daughter about the plan. In a somewhat mind-boggling scene, Lee finds Pearl, played by Oklahoma native Ken Pomeroy, at an open mic night, singing “Bound to Rain,” a Ken Pomeroy song.
Lee is about to explain Betty Jo’s absence when the cops who hate him – last seen at Dale’s memorial – arrest him and consign him to hell. And Hell is the wildest house party I’ve ever seen. People rev up chainsaws and start fires. They throw punches and shoot machine guns. What’s worse is that everyone in this crowded place – an unholy collection of police and skinheads – knows Lee Raybon by sight, and they all have something to say to him: Fuck you. Lee’s here because there’s someone he wants to talk to, the ringmaster of this hellish circus: Donald Wachberg. We won’t know what the devil wants to say until next week, but it’s hard to imagine that his words will be any more threatening than the simple act of dragging Lee here, across this river of boiling blood.