\u201cAt least she was watching,\u201d Conrad says, laughing. \u201cAnd it sounded like she was watching based on a recommendation, which meant somebody else was watching too. I took that as a good sign.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d<\/a> was indeed watched, gaining viewers week to week as it aired in the spring. On the surface, it looked like a limited series straight out of the HBO playbook, a murder mystery driven by sex and midlife ennui. Floyd (Harbour) joins a hookup app looking for sex and winds up dead. His wife, Carol (Cardellini), has been having a kinky affair with weatherman Clark (Bateman). Meanwhile, Clark and Floyd strike up a deep friendship, easing their suburban loneliness. <\/p>\n But it turns out that these are not bad people. They just make bad decisions. And by the end we feel for all of them.<\/p>\n Nominated for 13 Emmys<\/a> \u2014 including series; writing and directing for Conrad; and acting nods for Bateman, Cardellini, Harbour and Richard Jenkins and Joy Sunday, who play detectives investigating Floyd\u2019s death \u2014 \u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d became one of the year\u2019s most talked-about limited series. Like the events in the show, it could have gone terribly wrong. How did they get it so right? We spoke to the principals. Grab one of the show\u2019s signature Jamba Juices and settle in. <\/p>\n David Harbour.<\/p>\n (Erik Carter \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Harbour [also executive producer]:<\/b> For a long time, \u201cDTF St. Louis\u201d was not the title. It was \u201cArea Weatherman Charged With Murder.\u201d<\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> [Laughs] That\u2019s different. I felt like I couldn\u2019t tell people \u2014 my parents, my teenage daughter \u2014 the title. I kept telling them it was untitled. The other day I was at a school event, and a parent came up to me and said, \u201cOh, I watched your show, you know the one? Well, I can\u2019t say it in front of the children.\u201d And then she whispered in my ear, and I said, \u201cYes, I know that one.\u201d<\/p>\n Conrad:<\/b> I was 54 when I started to write \u201cDTF St. Louis.\u201d My friends are the same age, and I had seen the threat that middle age poses, the compulsion to make really poor choices at the cost of so much. It was endemic around my group of friends \u2014 failed marriages, kids go to college and marriages split up, impulsive decisions to cheat. That felt like a good place to start.<\/p>\n Harbour:<\/b> The \u201cDTF\u201d title is a joke. It has nothing to do with the show. The DTF app is a red herring, setting up suburban noir and salaciousness. It looks like a Lifetime movie, but the payoff is optimistic in what it says about human nature. <\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> My parents never did get back to me when they found out the title. <\/p>\n Harbour:<\/b> The more intimate something becomes, the less people want to ask you. <\/p>\n Bateman:<\/b> The thing I found beautiful, and also heartbreaking, was just how open and vulnerable these characters are and how little artifice there is in their lives. Floyd and Clark, these two guys are almost completely devoid of swagger. We\u2019re in a country that really puts a premium on swagger, on faking it till you make it. And they\u2019re incapable of that. <\/p>\n Linda Cardellini.<\/p>\n (Erik Carter \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Cardellini: <\/b>My first day was sitting on Jason\u2019s face on a date. <\/p>\n Conrad: <\/b>I have a small group of people who have worked for me for 10 years or so. We know each other well. That didn\u2019t prevent me from being embarrassed when I handed out tasks like, \u201cFind me a kink that nobody else has.\u201d And the report came back: That doesn\u2019t exist. <\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> That\u2019s what Steve told me when I asked, \u201cHow\u2019d you land on the umpire thing?\u201d [Carol takes up umping, wearing a chest protector around the house \u2014 a major turnoff for Floyd.] And he said, \u201cI was just trying to find something that no one was into \u2014 or if they were, it was still funny.\u201d<\/p>\n Conrad:<\/b> I\u2019d come up with something like the scratchy safety vests they make you wear when you go fishing on a boat. No one could have a sexual interest in that. And lo and behold, there\u2019s a subgroup of people dedicated to incorporating those vests into their sex lives. <\/p>\n Harbour: <\/b>The show\u2019s on the razor\u2019s edge of tone. The characters feel strange, maybe heightened, but they\u2019re people you could meet in real life. <\/p>\n Conrad:<\/b> Face-sitting, or what Clark calls \u201cweight placement,\u201d that surprised me, the extent to which that was something people request. You learn to leave your judgment at the door, though, because you realize that to divulge any of your kinks involves a wonderful intimacy. It really is the allure that Carol has over Clark.<\/p>\n Bateman: <\/b>There\u2019s something lovely [about] watching characters bang around through these life choices they\u2019ve made without the skills to manage it. It\u2019s the antithesis of all the coping mechanisms that our culture almost demands you adopt. <\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> Tone was my big question. I\u2019ve played in the dramedy realm a long time, and the tone can go many different ways. You don\u2019t warm up to Carol at the beginning, and it\u2019s on purpose. She\u2019s opaque. So I asked Steve, \u201cWhat\u2019s her sense of humor? What is her social lubricant?\u201d And he said, \u201cShe likes to do voices.\u201d <\/p>\n Jason Bateman in \u201cDTF St. Louis.\u201d<\/p>\n (HBO)<\/p>\n Harbour:<\/b> Doesn\u2019t she imitate Batman?<\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> Yes! And I asked Steve, \u201cDoes she think she\u2019s good at it?\u201d Yes! \u201cIs she good at it?\u201d No! And I thought that was hilarious. <\/p>\n Bateman: <\/b>Clark became more wide-eyed than I originally planned. He\u2019s a weatherman, so there\u2019s a degree of polish and capability to him that runs counter to the vulnerability and virginal aspects of his character. <\/p>\n Harbour:<\/b> Traditionally in art, there\u2019s two realities in us \u2014 part of us is gods and part of us is animals. Floyd struggles with the idea that he is a good man, but, biologically, no one finds him attractive. He tries to reconcile this. And, ultimately, at the end in that pool-house scene, he believes that if a man can get an honest boner in his presence, he will feel validated as an animal on this planet. <\/p>\n And when Jason can\u2019t do that, Floyd doesn\u2019t go away. He still loves his friend. But there is a piece of him that realizes he probably can\u2019t exist anymore. And when his son sees the horror of Floyd\u2019s need for biological validation, Floyd realizes, \u201cI\u2019m just going to kill myself.\u201d <\/p>\n Bateman: <\/b>What happens is so tragic. That pool-house scene is close to 10 pages long. Dancing, to me, is kryptonite to start, and then I\u2019m in my underwear. I don\u2019t know if \u201canxiety\u201d is the right word, but it\u2019s a close cousin to whatever the word would be. And we did it all in one take, and I remember Steve coming out with tears coming down his face. I was so relieved. <\/p>\n Conrad:<\/b> The Barry White song<\/a> they danced to came in the edit. Max Koepke, one of our two editors, found it. That song helped me find that maybe there was a little river of romance in their imaginations in that moment. I don\u2019t remember the song that was playing when we shot it.<\/p>\n Harbour: <\/b>It was \u201cBump It\u201d<\/a> by Erykah Badu. I think it works better now, but I do miss the purity of the moves we made to \u201cBump It.\u201d <\/p>\n Conrad:<\/b> What\u2019s next for Clark? I sure hope he buys a book about single parenting. If he was sitting next to me on a plane and asking for single-parenting advice, I\u2019d tell him to find someone to teach him how to cook. He\u2019s out of work. He\u2019s going to have some time on his hands.<\/p>\n Bateman:<\/b> Maybe he goes next door and talks to that couple and sees if they\u2019re interested in getting involved in a throuple. [Laughs]<\/p>\n Harbour: <\/b>That\u2019s a nice sequel. I\u2019d watch that. <\/p>\n Cardellini: <\/b>I think those people move out. Or build a higher fence. There\u2019s a creep next door! [Laughs]<\/p>\n Conrad:<\/b> Carol is going to have to keep scrapping and not let anything worse happen to her son. Her life for the next eight years that he\u2019s in her household is just to try to be a little more normal.<\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> I think she and her son go into therapy together. She\u2019s going to have to figure out how to afford that. Maybe ump a few more games? And I think she ends up missing Floyd for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n Conrad: <\/b>I have given some thought to a \u201cDTF Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n Cardellini:<\/b> There\u2019s a lot of broken dreams here. <\/p>\n Harbour:<\/b> A lot of tragedy and Botox and implants gone wrong. Butt lift murders? BBL<\/a> murders? I\u2019d like the weatherman idea to continue. Steve loves weathermen. <\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786962259_646_.jpeg\")
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