‘The Lowdown’s Ethan Hawke & Tommy Lee Jones Break Down Their Tragic Episode 6 Road Trip

The Lowdown finally reached a turning point for Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) and his father, Lee Sr. (Tommy Lee Jones), in the pivotal Season 2 episode, “Leaving and Coming Back.” But was it too little too late? Warning: Spoilers for The Lowdown Season 2 Episode 6 ahead!

As Lee attempted to dig deeper into what was going on with Fresh Start and its connection to a larger corruption scheme, he set out on a quest with Lee Sr. to retrieve an item from storage to gift to Francis (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). This meant a father-son road trip filled with bickering and different perspectives as they recounted different moments from their shared past.

“I love that because, as a father of some adults now, it never ceases to amaze me how differently they perceive the vacation that we took in 2005 than I remember it,” Hawke explains of the onscreen father and son working to find a middle ground in this episode. “The things that they took away as important were not the moments that I took away as important.”

“And I don’t believe it’s easy to say one person has got it wrong, but really the truth is so flexible from point of view, and from where people’s hearts are, and what their sensitivities are, and what their calluses are, and so I find that exploration of the parent-child relationship extremely interesting,” he continues. “Every parent has blind spots.”

One particular subject the men get caught up on during their journey is their differing takes on when Lee put his father into a mental hospital. While Lee believes Lee Sr. holds it against him, the latter claimed he doesn’t, but also didn’t need to be sent there. As tensions eased though, Lee Sr. sincerely told his son that he probably did need to go to the mental hospital and that it was helpful.

Sadly for Lee, those would be the final sentiments he’d hear from his father as he went into a gas station to stock up on snacks, only to return and find a dead Lee Sr. in the front seat of his van. As he took a moment to cry over the man he’d cut out of his life long ago, Lee got back in the van and drove toward Oklahoma.

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“Every story tells a picture, don’t it?” Jones shares. “Everybody has a different story, so there are many, many pictures to the past… and it’s fun to be aware of that. It’s fun to have that to be a tactile part of the dramatic experience.”

Even though Lee Sr. didn’t make it out of Episode 6 alive, Hawke teases it isn’t the last fans have seen of the character. “The best scene that we have in the whole series comes in Episode 8, and it’s really thrilling, and I can’t spoil it cause you have to see it to even understand how it could be, but it’s part of what makes this an easy show to work on.”

As he puts it simply, “The story just gets richer and deeper.”

Stay tuned to see how Lee’s ongoing investigation unfolds, especially after taking another step in his relationship with Ginger (Betty Gilpin), and check out the full conversation between Hawke and Jones in the video above.

The Lowdown, Season 2, Wednesdays, 9/8c, FX and Hulu