[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Lowdown, Season 1, Episode 4, “Short on Cowboys.”]
The Lowdown‘s plot grew thicker in its latest chapter, as Episode 4, “Short on Cowboys,” killed off a seemingly major character, who was believed to be a big bad.
It turned out that the mysterious and terrifying Allen Murphy (Scott Shepherd) was merely a red herring for a bigger villain to be revealed on the horizon as Tulsa’s resident “truthstorian,” Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke), attempts to uncover the truth behind Dale Washberg’s (Tim Blake Nelson) death. While he became entangled with Dale’s widow, Betty Jo (Jeanne Tripplehorn), Lee was distracted from the fact that Allen had gone from hunter to hunted.
Introduced as seemingly being employed by Akron, a company that’s been buying up Black-owned businesses around town, Allen proved to have a different role that still remains unclear. All viewers know so far is that skinheads who were threatened by Lee’s reporting tried to deliver him to Allen, only for the man to shoot the captors, leaving Lee to witness the event from a car trunk.
FX
A “reformed felon,” Allen was seen speaking to some sort of support group as he hoped aloud that he could get things back on track, seemingly afraid of the consequences he might face amid the chaos. While stopped at a red light in his truck, Allen is taken by surprise as a bullet rips through him.
The shooter? A man played by striking character actor Ty Mitchell. “He’s a real cowboy and from Marfa, Texas, and I met him on the set of the Scorsese movie Killers of the Flower Moon,” Shepherd gushes to TV Insider. “Ty was already a dear friend from hanging out in our downtime for that movie in Oklahoma, and so we were back in Oklahoma again [for this], and I was honored to be hunted by him.”
As to whether we’ll get some clarity on Allen’s role in the larger conspiracy at play, or whether we’ve seen the last of him onscreen this season, Shepherd teases, “I mean, it’s not impossible. There were some guys who I thought were gone as of the pilot, and they came back,” he points out of the flashbacks that featured the return of the dead skinheads.
Stay tuned to see what other shenanigans ensue as The Lowdown continues on FX, and let us know what you thought of Allen’s shocking demise in the comments section.
The Lowdown, Tuesdays, 9/8c, FX