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Four episodes into the series DTF St. Louis, and the mystery remains: What on earth does Floyd’s (played by David Harbour) battle with Peyronie’s disease have to do with sign language? According to Harbour, we’ll have to stay tuned for answers, courtesy of the show’s creator, Steven Conrad.
**Warning: Spoilers for the first four episodes of DTF St. Louis, currently available on HBO Max**
It has been nearly a month since viewers met Clark Forrest (Jason Bateman) and Floyd Smernitch. These two unlikely friends were brought together by a news segment, where Clark served as a meteorologist and Floyd as his ASL interpreter. Their bond formed when Floyd revealed that his Peyronie’s disease—a condition causing a notable curvature of the penis—somehow led him to learn ASL. However, he didn’t elaborate on how he acquired the disease or its connection to sign language. The explanation, it seems, will require patience.
“I’ve been working on this series for about four years, and this plot point has been there from the start. I told Steven, ‘You can’t just have a guy share a bit of his story each episode and then dash off,’” Harbour shared with DECIDER in a recent interview. “But Steven insisted, ‘Yes, we can,’ and he was right—it’s actually hilarious.”
Harbour, along with co-stars Bateman and Linda Cardellini, hinted that viewers will need to wait until the season finale, airing on April 12, to uncover the full story behind Floyd’s condition. The finale will also delve deeper into the events leading to his demise at the Kevin Kline Community Pool in St. Louis, Missouri.
“You got to wait til [Episode] 7, I think, to get to the full story because he tells the story several times,” the Stranger Things alum said, adding that having Floyd repeatedly start and stop his explanation “That was one of the funniest little jokes throughout.”
Slow-burn is the name of the game for this TV series, which has proven that sometimes, it pays to be weird and a head scratcher. From the start, the exact vibe of the show has been all over the place, with fans and critics alike struggling to box it into one genre. Murder-drama feels accurate, but with so many bits and whacky parts, surrealist comedy could also be just as apt. For the stars, that confusion is part of what brought them to the project in the first place, as they similarly struggled to deduce the tone of the series.
“You think it’s just going to be a silly thing, we have a bunch of little silly things, and then in the end, it really is a big, huge emotional payoff,” Harbour said of Episode 7 as Bateman chimed in, “and a slight hint towards the answer about the death.”
For television actors, though, is there anything more exciting than having to stay on your toes with a project? Well, maybe winning an Emmy is more exciting, but if all goes well, this bunch could be looking at having checked off both boxes for DTF St. Louis.
The first four episodes of DTF St. Louis are now streaming on HBO Max. New episodes premiere on Sundays.
If you’re new to HBO Max, you can sign up for as low as $10.99/month with ads, but an ad-free subscription will cost $18.49/month.
If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the discounted Disney+ Bundles with Hulu and HBO Max. With ads, the bundle costs $19.99/month and without ads, $32.99/month.