‘DTF St. Louis’: David Harbour, Jason Bateman and Linda Cardellini’s new show driven by middle-age desperation

For four years, David Harbour and Steve Conrad (Patriot) worked together to create a new show, something Harbour described as “truly enjoyable, pleasurable television.” That’s how we got to DTF St. Louis (premiering March 1 at 9:00 p.m. ET on Crave in Canada, HBO and HBO Max in the U.S.), a series starring Harbour, Jason Bateman and Linda Cardellini that combines a murder mystery with a complicated love triangle.

Floyd (Harbour) works as an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter, which includes a gig with St. Louis TV weatherman Clark (Bateman). In his personal life, Floyd is trying to connect with his stepson, but it’s not exactly going well, while he and his wife, Carol (Cardellini), are trying to stay afloat amid financial struggles.

Getting more intimate, it’s been some time since Floyd and Carol have had sex. Floyd is knowingly turned off by seeing Carol in the uniform she wears as a little-league umpire. He also has Peyronie’s disease, a condition that has left his penis abnormally curved.

Clark and Carol first meet at a cornhole party thrown by Floyd, and there is clearly a flirty connection between Floyd’s wife and his coworker. That’s followed by Clark telling Floyd about an app called DTF St. Louis, where married people go to seek hookups.

But as we learn early in the first episode, with DTF St. Louis jumping between timelines, Floyd is dead, and Donoghue Homer (Richard Jenkins), a detective with the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office, and Jodie Plumb (Joy Sunday), special crimes officer with the crime unit in the suburb of Twyla, are investigating the circumstances of his death.

‘Grown-ups making mistakes’

For anyone who’s even been slightly exposed to Harbour’s relationship with Lily Allen and her pointed, raw album that addresses their split, that adds an unavoidable point of interest in DTF St. Louis, given the subject matter.

There’s no real link between Harbour’s real-life scandal and the show. But in terms of what actually inspired DTF St. Louis, as Conrad told reporters during a press conference, middle-aged desperation was a core story element he and Harbour wanted to explore.

“David and I had started looking around for a show that … would have … this desperation that you might find in middle-age as its driving force of emotionality,” Conrad said. “We looked at some stuff, some articles, we started to try to conceptualize something, … and then decided that we would have a stronger show, a more comprehensive set of things to say, if we just started from scratch on it.”

“So we took this idea that there would be a set of middle-aged people in a suburban community who, over the course of one summer, when each of their lives were falling apart in one emotional way or another, they found each other. And meanwhile, started flirting with this dating app, which is not quite a dating app, it’s more of a sexual hookup app, the likes of which were more common in 2018 when the show is set. So sites like this would promise all the excitement, none of the consequences. Married people could connect, cheat on their spouses and go home and resume their normal lives. And that promise just seemed not quite stable to me. So I thought it would be a great place, and David and I agreed to hang a series of suspenseful and tense events that might follow from grown-ups making mistakes and then trying to fix them, only to create greater mistakes.”

The most uncomfortable, brave and infectious elements of ‘DTF St. Louis’

Without spoiling too much of the show, we will say that Bateman has some intimate scenes throughout the series, and the actor shared he was “apprehensive” about doing them.

“I haven’t done a ton of intimate scenes in my career, so I was definitely a little apprehensive about it all, but looking forward to the challenge,” Bateman said. “And Steve made me feel super comfortable early on when I had phone calls with him about what his expectations were regarding these scenes. Fortunately, my character is someone who’s not comfortable with it either.”

“The superpower of this show is just that, that Steve constructed these three characters at the center of it that are at these varying levels of emotional, spiritual nudity, and it’s infectious to watch because it’s something that I think every human kind of goes through. We all kind of learn how to wear these skins, these suits of capableness.”

Meanwhile, Cardellini was incredibly “moved” by the show’s writing, a script that has so much dark humour while also featuring great elements of emotional tragedy.

“I thought, you know, what a gift the role is,” she said. “She’s so complicated. … And it’s just very different for me. And it felt a little dangerous and brave for me, compared to other things that I’ve done.”

‘It’s hard as a 50-year-old heterosexual male to make new friends’

While Floyd and Clark’s separate relationships with Carol are important in the story, what’s particularly critical is their friendship. As Harbour and Batement highlighted, a natural bond developed between them on set.

“It’s hard as a 50-year-old heterosexual male to make new friends,” Harbour said. “I’ve found it hard.”

“And yet, there was something on set where, even … thinking, I wonder what he thinks of me in the scene today? I would let those colours play on me as we played the scene. And … it was a joy to do. And I think the chemistry was very organic, and I’m very pleased to see that it translates on screen so well.”

“In any occupation, any work environment, it is a choice to have a connection with the people that you’re working with and building with,” Bateman added. “And so, when you’ve got people that aren’t jerks, it’s not tough.”

In the four episodes provided to journalists ahead of the premiere of DTF St. Louis, the show’s unexpected tone really shines. It’s a series that will keep you guessing at every step of the story, while also being bold in the way it leans into comedy in the most absolutely absurd moments.