Diksha Sundriyal
ABC’s ‘RJ Decker’ follows an ex-con turned private investigator who uses his skills of photography, among other things, to get to the bottom of some truly twisted cases. Set in Florida, the show follows a “case of the week” format that takes the protagonist and his team, which includes his journalist ex-wife, her new cop wife, and his new politically connected love interest, to all sorts of places, introducing them to the weirdest people around Fort Lauderdale. Still, there are a couple of locations that the show keeps returning to, especially Palmetto Pastures and FM Station. Interestingly, both these locations are not what they seem. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Palmetto Pastures and FM Station are Fictional But Important Locations
In ‘RJ Decker,’ Palmetto Pastures is the trailer park where the protagonist lives for a while before his trailer falls into a sinkhole. FM Station, on the other hand, is owned by his friend and former cellmate, whose journey to come into the bar’s possession was so absurd that he decided to honor all the other absurd people in the city. While both these locations are integral to the show’s storyline and present a distinct character of the city, both are entirely fictional, and neither is in Fort Lauderdale. In fact, most of the show’s filming takes place in Wilmington, North Carolina, where soundstages are used to create the perfect environment for the locations.
North Carolina’s tax benefits were one of the things that attracted the show’s creator to use it as the base, but they also made a point to film certain outdoor scenes in Fort Lauderdale to keep Florida’s unmistakable vibe in the story. The actors enjoyed the filming process, but they confessed that filming the tropical vibes of Florida in the winter months did make things challenging, to say the least. This is where the soundstages come in handy. Despite the changing weather in Wilmington, the crew was able to sustain the sunny atmosphere of Fort Lauderdale. Palmetto Pastures and FM Station became key locations in this context, especially considering the display of absurdity of the city.
The weirdness of Palmetto Pastures is on full display with a man in a clown costume and makeup creepily hanging around, while Decker, rather unbotheredly, lives next to a sinkhole, entirely aware of the fact that his trailer is going to tumble into it soon enough. When it eventually does, he still visits the place, venturing into its upside-down state, which reflects the ongoings of his life at the moment. In the same vein, FM Station becomes his regular haunt because it is run by his former cellmate and now-best friend, who couldn’t have bought it if he hadn’t won the lottery, whose ticket he wouldn’t have bought if he wasn’t exonerated a day before serving his full sentence. Details like this reflect the weirdness of the place, its people, and its murders, making things more entertaining and even realistic to some extent.
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