A review of this week's The Lowdown, "Truth's Easy" — with spoilers — coming up just as soon as that movie The Outsiders is about me...
Alan Sepinwall
"Truth's Easy" takes its title from a coffee mug that Lee is gifted by Dale, a man he encounters while hitchhiking his way back from witnessing the murder of poor Chili Franks. Dale is played by the great Steve Earle, best known for his music but a warm on-camera presence on The Wire and Tremé, and a good verbal sparring partner for Ethan Hawke here. He is a good Samaritan, who spends his evenings driving drunks home from various local establishments. He's even willing to pick Lee up within the vicinity of a road sign warning that any hitchhikers might be escaped inmates(*). When Lee sees the message on Dale's mug, he suggests that the truth is anything but easy, and Dale later clarifies with an extended version of the phrase: "Truth's easier than lying."
(*) I'm sure many real areas near prisons have similar road signs. Seeing it reminded me of an incident from many years ago. My car was stolen off the street, and eventually was found abandoned in Newark, NJ, which at the time was the car theft capital of the world. A month or two after I got it back, I got a parking ticket in the mail, dated to the period when it was still stolen. I called the Newark parking authority to dispute the tciket, and the voicemail tree literally contained an option for "if your car was ticketed while stolen." When certain very specific kinds of crimes keep happening, bureaucracies have to make an official response to them.
For Dale, it clearly is. But lying comes almost as easily to Lee Raybon Jr. as it does to his namesake.
"Truth's Easy" spends a lot of time advancing the Mekko Dean case(*), which we'll get to in a minute. But it also spends a lot of time exploring the slippery relationship both Lees Raybon have with the truth, and the way that this has impacted each of their relationships with their children.