DTF St. Louis
A hookup app, a dead body, and the most St. Louis murder mystery imaginable.
Have you ever wondered what the online dating scene is like in the suburbs of St. Louis? Neither have we. But leave it to HBO to take a hookup app, a suburban love triangle, and a corpse and think, "Yeah, there's a TV show here." To their credit — a series called DTF St. Louis has no business being this thoughtful. What sounds like a punchline turns out to be far stranger and sadder than its title suggests.
The triangle goes like this: Clark (Jason Bateman) is sleeping with Carol. Carol (Linda Cardellini) is married to Floyd. Floyd (David Harbour) is Clark's friend and co-worker. Then Floyd turns up dead. What looked like a tidy suburban affair stops being tidy very fast.
The cast is a major draw because everybody in this show feels like somebody you met once and still think about occasionally. Clark's a decent guy making dicey decisions, zipping around town on a dorky recumbent bike. Carol's trapped in a life she never imagined, navigating every conversation like she's hiding three different secrets. Then there's Floyd, exactly the kind of teddy bear you want to have a beer with. His decency makes solving his murder feel like a moral obligation.
And you'll absolutely spend the season guessing who killed Floyd. The show has a knack for making theories feel airtight right before it completely falls apart. If you're the kind of person who likes to pause an episode and declare you've solved it, there's plenty to chew on.
But the murder's only half the mystery. The other half is figuring out what the hell is wrong with everybody. A catfish date that somehow turns sweet. Interrogations conducted in an empty roller rink. People cosplaying sex robots. And romantic entanglements so messy they make solving the homicide look like the easy part. Nobody in this show seems particularly good at being a person. That's what makes them so fun to watch.
DTF St. Louis is totally weird, but we dig weird. It's a little slow at times but St. Louis is in the title, so, duh. And we're not totally sold they stuck the landing — but the journey is so strange and unexpectedly moving, we're here for it. Watch it.
The Rundown
Performances
David Harbour is undeniable here: masculine, sensitive, and often shirtless. He's hard not to love. Cardellini's bizarrely hypnotic. Bateman plays repressed like he needs a trip to the Peppermint Hippo in Vegas. Don't sleep on Richard Jenkins, who approaches modern love with the confusion of a man visiting a foreign country.
What You Come Here For
A hookup-app murder mystery, a killer cast, emotional confusion, something to spice up your queue, one of the strangest love triangles you'll find.
Best Episode
Episode 4, "Missouri Mutual Life & Health Insurance Company" — the episode where David Harbour steals the series. We dare you not to love this guy.
Weak Spots
The sci-fi-tinged police precinct and the visual style are both odd choices — neither hurts the show, but they were a bit distracting.
Pair With
Ozark, Bad Sisters, The White Lotus.
What Our
Ratings Mean
Learn More →Worth Your Time: Now we're talking. These are the shows you recommend to friends, bring up at dinner, and accidentally binge until 2AM. High 8s start flirting with greatness.
