We're All Just Weird Eggs Looking for Connection

This is exactly why showrunner Steven Conrad (Patriot) is so brilliant: He laid out a broadly appealing White Lotus-style murder mystery in the opening episode, and now that he has his audience hooked, he’s spent each subsequent episode zeroing in on the quirky, idiosyncratic details that make his body of work so uniquely his. In doing so, what began as a murder mystery is quietly becoming something more heartbreaking — a tragedy about loneliness, and about how desperately we reach for each other.

That tragedy in DTF St. Louis deepens the more we learn about Floyd (David Harbour). What initially seemed like a weird man-toddler trying to get some strange turns out to be something far more affecting: an eccentric but deeply lovable man who just wanted to find human connection wherever he could. It seemed at first that he joined the DTF app because he was unhappy in his marriage to Carol (Linda Cardellini), but given what this episode reveals, it’s more likely he joined because it gave him an opportunity to bond with his new friend Clark (Jason Bateman). And yes, Clark nudged him toward the app partly so Clark would feel less awful about sleeping with Floyd’s wife — but what’s becoming clear is that Floyd and Clark’s friendship was profoundly real. They loved each other. Not in a sexual way. In a deeply meaningful way, nonetheless.

Most of what this third episode does — relayed largely by Clark to his interrogators — is reveal Floyd as a loving, sensitive soul. Consider: he arranged a date through the DTF app with Christopher (Peter Sarsgaard), then spent much of it confiding in Christopher about his marriage and his struggles with his stepson — even after realizing that Christopher had misrepresented himself as a woman using a David Bowie photo (because apparently Floyd doesn’t know David Bowie). Floyd is heterosexual, but rather than object to the misleading profile, he pivoted toward connection. Sex doesn’t seem to interest him. People do. And when Christopher — having realized by evening’s end that there was no romantic spark — leans in for a French kiss anyway, Floyd goes along with it. Not because he was attracted to Christopher, but because he didn’t want Christopher to feel bad about being attracted to him.

It was weirdly sweet. Doubly so when paired with the way Floyd treats his stepson Richard (Arlan Ruf), something of a social outcast. Rather than push Richard to be more palatable to the kids at school, Floyd leans into the kid’s weird-egg energy entirely. Fishing vest every day? Wear it. Dark, strange drawings? Lean in. All Floyd wants is for Richard to develop some basic small-talk skills — just enough to forge meaningful friendships of his own, the way Floyd has with Clark (notwithstanding the fact that Clark is sleeping with Floyd’s wife). He is not trying to fix Richard. He is trying to give Richard the one thing Floyd seems to value above everything else: the chance to be known by someone.

I have a feeling that when we finally arrive at the moment Floyd discovers Carol and Clark’s affair, he might not even be angry. He might be relieved — glad that the two people he loves most can give each other something he can’t. He really is such a lovely man. A lovely man who, it should be noted, has also been quietly perfecting a pommel horse routine every single day of his life. Because this is a Steven Conrad show.

We may also be inching closer to understanding who killed Floyd. Given the life insurance policy Carol manipulated Clark into taking out — and the way she orchestrated their meet-cute at a Jamba Juice — she certainly has motive. Clark had motive, too, though it feels increasingly less likely he’s the one who pulled the proverbial trigger. Maybe it was someone else entirely. Maybe Floyd took his own life. Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe — and this feels most Conrad — all these nefarious-seeming people are just lonely souls grasping for human connection in whatever form they can find it. Maybe we’re all just weirdos trying to reach someone, even if it means bonding over a dating app or pretending to be a robot for sex games. It’s Steven Conrad’s world, y’all. We’re just grateful to be lost in it.