Let’s reflect on those no longer with us: Dale Washberg, Blackie, Berta, and now, Allen. How are these men related? Blackie and Berta tried to kill Dale, and Allen killed them for their failure. Allen was implicated in their failure, though whether he was killed for that or for killing Blackie or for some third reason remains a mystery. It’s unlikely that Dale knew the other men before his death, yet his death kicks off this spree of interconnected murders. And if all this violence strikes you as improbable in dusty Oklahoma, Sterlin Harjo has anticipated your doubts: Tulsa has the highest crime rate in the country, as Lee mentions a few episodes prior.
It seems obvious that the man bathed in the sinister red light of refracted explosions at the end of “This Land?” — presumed Governor Donald Washberg — is behind it all. So obvious, in fact, that he probably isn’t behind it all. But even if “the candidate in the study with the revolver” isn’t the winning accusation, Donald’s so odious that it’s hard to imagine loathing the real triggerman more. Even if he’s not our killer, this man is our villain. As such, the engine of each episode isn’t Lee’s progress toward identifying Donald, it’s the friends he makes and loses along the way. Last week, Betty Jo. Before that, Francis and Ray’s Wild Ride. This week, we meet misanthropic Wendell, Lee’s oldest friend, who basically can’t stand him.
Lee’s sleeping off his hangover with his duct-taped buckaroo boots still on when Francis barrels into the bedroom, agitated by what she’s seen on the local news: Allen, the guy who walked into Hoot Owl Books and threatened her dad, was gunned down in broad daylight. Lee’s surprised by the development, impressed that his teen daughter watches the news (“That’s cool … They lie sometimes.”), and mildly disapproving of the fact that Francis cut class to find him. In fact, it seems to have reawakened him to the fact that he’s her parent. Before dropping her back at school, Lee tells Francis that it’s too dangerous for her to be part of his investigation. It’s a line he should have drawn a few episodes ago, before he dragged her to the marina to find the missing books. Now, Lee’s ban feels unfair to her and his reasoning capricious — it was okay for Francis to play Clue when she was saving the letters her dad wanted.
Wendell (Peter Dinklage) has come to town for the pair’s annual memorial to a friend who overdosed, and his arrival serves as an unwelcome mirror for Lee. Once he learns what his old pal is up to, Wendell warns Lee that he’s going to get Francis hurt by being selfish. That’s what Lee does. Incidentally, their friend Jesus’ relapse a few years ago isn’t Lee’s fault, but, as Wendell reminds him, Lee was supposed to check on him that day.
To some extent, Lee and Wendell are versions of the same guy: greasy Gen Xers who’ve made a whole personality out of being a little clever and smoking pot; wry and rancorous men who pride themselves on owning nothing more formal than a graphic tee. Wendell’s briefly upset to learn Lee wants to bail on Jesus Day in favor of gumshoeing, but he can’t resist the chance to prove he’s better than Lee, who’s struggling to figure out where the land Dale and Donald were arguing over is located. If a place isn’t on Google Maps, can it really be said to exist?
Once he’s read into the case, Wendell boasts that he can find Indian Head Hills in less than two hours. And so begins this week’s scav hunt. First stop is the Skiatook Municipal Courthouse, where Wendell charms an exhausted clerk into finding him an atlas from before 1950. Lee can’t believe how far a little flirting can go, but Lee doesn’t really stop long enough to notice what other people need. Even with Betty Jo last week, it took him a few tries. Indian Head Hills is a plot of land in the middle of nowhere, but when they drive out there, they find the next clue: a “no trespassing” sign posted by White Elk LLC.
Wendell thinks it’s a stupid name; there are no elk in Oklahoma. Lee says there are elk in Oklahoma. The point is that these men can argue about anything. Maybe they were friends once, but now Wendell can’t stand anything about Lee, from the way he orders a Dr. Pepper cocktail to the way he still believes in himself. It offends Wendell that Lee thinks his article in some way contributed to Dale’s death, and it affronts his cynicism that Lee thinks he can bring down one of the most powerful men in Oklahoma.
Out on the Indian Head Hills that Lee didn’t believe existed, the simmering tension between them spills into violence that’s played for humor. They each land at least one good punch, but the fight’s choreography is less concerned with naming a winner than landing a joke — Lee’s face ends up in the same patch of grass where Wendell pissed minutes earlier. And before either man can do much damage, a truck pulls up behind Lee’s pedo van. The guys who get out carry machine guns, but they don’t spot Wendell and Lee on the hill. At least now, Wendell believes that Lee is onto something nefarious.
The third stop on their friendship-destroying, intelligence-gathering tour is to Lee’s ever-resourceful realtor, Vicky. She’s able to learn that White Elk is selling the Indian Head Hills plot to a company called One Well, at four times the market value, with no other bidders involved. Suspicious, indeed. But when Lee remarks that “that sounds like a great way to launder a bribe to a future governor,” the implication is that he’s figured out something that Wendell’s not already thinking. You can see what’s maybe been getting on Wendell’s nerves over the past few decades — the subtle insistence that Lee is sharper than everyone else in the room.
Eventually, the men gather in a sacred space (an abandoned parking lot) for Jesus’ sacred ceremony (sitting around a bucket fire). For fuel, Lee and Wendell burn books, the irony of which I’m sure delights them both. Then they trade a photo of Jesus back and forth, as they confide in their absent friend what they’re most ashamed of. Today is the earliest Wendell has woken up in 72 days. “I’m a mess,” he says. Lee has put Francis in danger, and he’s going to lose the bookstore: “I, too, am a mess.” In the loser Olympics, there are no winners.
Lee tells Wendell he’s become a person who doesn’t like anything anymore. Wendell tells Lee that he doesn’t trust him. So why does Wendell still want to make this pilgrimage every year? He calls Jesus’s death “the hellhound on my trail,” words that Lee borrows to describe what it’s like for him to be friends with someone as nihilistic and destructive as Wendell. Wendell’s foot is in a cast for reasons he won’t talk about; he carries painkillers into a courthouse when he’s on probation. Jesus may haunt Wendell, but Wendell terrifies Lee.
Finally, we get the needle drop we’ve all been waiting for: “Tulsa Queen” by Emmylou Harris. While Lee road trips around Osage County, Betty Jo sits at the vanity, deciding whether to put on her wedding ring. She’s still sitting there, figuring out how to fill up the hours of a long day, when she hears a door slam downstairs. It’s scorned Donald, who saw that scoundrel Lee leaving his mistress’s house this morning. Betty Jo argues that she’s the scorned party here — if Donald still cares about her, why did he send Marty to pay her off? Betty Jo does well to insist she didn’t tell Lee a thing about Dale or about Pearl, but she’s scared — livid, Donald puts his fist through her kitchen cabinet. She whimpers as he leaves, taking his brother’s gun with him. Then, Betty Jo wisely calls her new boyfriend.
Donald didn’t have time to reconcile with her anyway. He’s slated to shake hands at a meeting of The 46, a group of powerful, aggrieved men named for the order in which Oklahoma gained statehood. I assume they’re a racist organization because (a) Frank is giving a speech there and (b) the speech includes the suspicious line “it’s not about race” to a single-race crowd. “These Indian tribes, they’re like foreign governments set up right here, under our nose, beholden to no man and no laws except those of their own making,” Frank warns the nodding audience. (Yes, Frank, that is more or less the definition of an autonomous tribal nation, at least in relation to state laws.) After the speech, Frank and Donald talk. Frank wants to know why the White Elk deal hasn’t gone through. “My buyer’s getting impatient,” he tells Donald, suggesting, perhaps, a bigger baddie — a player with more money than Frank and more power than Donald.
A good rule of thumb is that the more Jeanne Tripplehorn an episode has, the better it’s going to be, so it’s dark news that Betty Jo is heading into hiding. After meeting with Lee, they agree she’s not safe in Tulsa anymore. Lee suggests she check into a women’s retreat he happened to see on a flyer at Hoot Owl and agrees to tell her daughter the plan. In a faintly mind-bending scene, Lee finds Pearl, played by Oklahoma’s own Ken Pomeroy, at an open-mic night, singing “Bound to Rain,” a song by Ken Pomeroy.
Lee’s just about to explain Betty Jo’s absence when those cops that hate him — last seen at Dale’s memorial — scoop him up and deliver him to hell. And hell is the most savage house party you’ve ever seen. People are revving chainsaws and lighting fires. They’re throwing punches and firing machine guns. What’s worse is that everyone in this crowded place — an unholy congregation of police and skinheads — knows Lee Raybon by sight, and they all have something to tell him: Fuck you. Lee’s here because someone wants to talk to him, the ringmaster of this infernal circus: Donald Washberg. We won’t find out what the devil wants to say until next week, but it’s hard to imagine that his words will be more threatening than the simple act of having Lee dragged here, through this river of boiling blood.
