The Lowdown Finale Recap and Ending Explained: How Did Dale Washberg Die?

The mystery weaving throughout season 1 of ‘The Lowdown’ finally finds its startling conclusion in episode 8, titled ‘The Sensitive Kind.’ Following Arthur’s tragic death and Lee’s reckless endeavor into the One Well Church, the reporter begins to realize that the gravity of the situation requires him to abandon his act-first methodology. As a result, once one fruitful meeting reveals the truth about Dale Washberg’s murder, the citizen reporter decides to reach out and make allies with someone unexpected. Thus, the bigger picture begins to reveal itself to Lee, unveiling the secrets surrounding the sale of the Washberg land, the upcoming election, and the white supremacist church operating on the outskirts of the town. However, now that the truthstorian finally finds himself armed with the coveted truth, he realizes all information comes with a price and a responsibility. SPOILERS AHEAD!

Marty Saves Lee From the One Well Church

In pursuing Frank, after Arthur’s murder at the apartment housing, Lee ends up at the One Well Church during an ongoing service. As it starts to become obvious that the head and the patrons of the establishment have no interest in helping him, the reporter frantically pulls out his own gun in an attempt to make a citizen’s arrest. Consequently, the situation escalates, putting Lee in danger against the Church guards’ much more lethal ammunition. Fortunately, Marty manages to swoop in at just the right time to rescue his friend from a doomed situation. He barges into the white supremacist church, a bold decision on its own, and asserts himself as a federal agent who is here to arrest Lee. The absurdity of the scene gives Pastor Mark and his guard enough pause to allow the duo to make a run for their lives.

Still, the pause is only momentarily, and as Lee and Marty frantically drive away from the scene, they are subjected to a few gunshots. Although they manage to make it out with their lives, the latter ends up taking a shot to his thigh. In turn, the reporter comes up with the dubious plan of breaking into a feed farm on the way to steal a bunch of animal painkillers to help with the gunshot first aid. As such, Marty gets high on bovine vagina muscle relaxer, whose effects keep a hold on him even after he arrives at the reporter’s bookstore for the night. The next morning, their day finds an equally frightening and eventful start as someone throws a brick through the shop’s front window. Initially, Marty and Lee are inclined to believe the neo-nazis have followed them back to the store. However, the vandal ends up only being Chutto, Arthur’s grandson.

Lee Sets Up a Meeting With Betty Jo

Following the brick-throwing incident, Lee attempts to talk to Chutto, apologizing for Arthur’s death in the same breath as urging the young man to seek out his rightful ownership of Dale Washberg’s land. In turn, Chutto makes it clear that, unlike Dale, Mark, and other powerful white men, he has no desire to ruin his life and others’ in pursuit of a piece of land. He’s simply a man grieving his grandfather, whose death rests heavily on Lee’s conscience. The fact that Frank manages to shake off the entire mess by claiming self-defence against Arthur, subsequently burying the reality of his greed-driven murder, only adds salt to the wound. Thus, the reporter realizes he can’t back down without making things right. He finds his start in leaving Dale Washberg’s letters to his daughter, Pearl.

Alongside reuniting the kid with her dad’s final legacy, it also does the job of getting Betty Jo to finally reach out to him. So far, the widow has been playing the perfect part of the largely innocent woman, gaining Lee’s trust and ultimately using it against him. Yet, now that she knows about Dale’s letters, written in the lead-up to his death and describing his paranoia regarding the same, she can’t help but grow concerned. For the same reason, she agrees to meet with Lee in a public location, desperate to learn whether or not the letters can be used against her in any capacity. However, her distress makes her slip up, revealing far too much information to the reporter than she ever intended to.

The Lowdown Ending: Who Killed Dale Washberg? How Did He Really Die?

Initially, when Dale Washberg is introduced, his death, which sets off the narrative into motion, is written off as a suicide. However, after some snooping at an estate sale, Lee finds a letter tucked inside a Jim Thompson book, which presents a much different story. As the older man’s pre-mortem writing reveals, he had grown paranoid about his own death long before the date of his actual death. Furthermore, he seems to have believed that his family, especially his wife, had it out for him for some ambiguous reason regarding the Indian Head Hills land. Once Lee learns more about the Washbergs, he begins to suspect his politician brother, Donald, is behind the entire affair. Nonetheless, a different truth emerges in the end. Unlike the last time the reporter published an audacious piece about the Washberg family, this time around, he actually reaches out to the family patriarch, giving him a chance to learn the truth before everyone else.

With Marty’s help, Lee manages to compel Donald to meet with him at a safe location, where he discloses the reality behind his brother’s death. As previous avenues of investigation had revealed, before his death, Donald’s younger brother developed an infatuation of sorts with Chutto, but mostly with his grandfather, Arthur. The two older men would routinely talk for hours, sharing stories and forging a friendship. Thus, Dale got to learn about the horrific history behind the Indian Head Hills land and how his family wrongfully stole the land from its native american owners, Arthur’s ancestors. Consequently, he had made up his mind to leave the land to Arthur and Chutto in his will so that it could go back to its rightful owners. Around the same time, Donald was making plans to sell the same land to another buyer for a profit.

Betty Jo, Dale’s wife and Donald’s lover, knew all about this deal and her husband’s reluctance to play along with it. She also knew that the chances of her gaining any real profit from any land deals were slim to none. Therefore, she concocted a plan of her own and partnered up with Frank, the man vying for the broker to make the deal between Donald and the buyer. The latter was looking for ways to spook the landowner by making him think his life was in danger. He ended up putting Allen on the job, who, in turn, hired Blackieand Berta to break into the Washberg house and rough Dale up. All Betty Jo had to do was leave the house’s door open, allowing them safe access. However, things took an unexpected turn when Blackie and Berta messed things up to such an astronomical level that they ended up accidentally killing Dale. In the end, hoping to cover her tracks, the wife staged the incident to look like a suicide, erasing all traces of her involvement in the ploy that got her husband killed.

What Happens to Dale’s Land? Why Was the Price For it so High?

The Indian Head Hill land plays an instrumental role in Dale Washberg’s death. As a result, it continues to be an important piece in the gam even after the latter’s death. Frank is still eager to facilitate the sale of the Washberg land between Donald and Mark, the elusive buyer. Mark is the pastor and the head of the One Well Church. Early into his introduction, it becomes evident that Mark does not run a conventional church. Instead, his establishment is interwoven into the hidden white supremacist movement prominent in the town. Through the One Well church, the pastor runs a second-chance program, specifically for white ex-convicts like Allen, Berta, and Blackie who have been exposed to deeply racist rhetoric in prison. Thus, they have built an effective cult with the end goal of building a segregated whites-only city where they can continue to operate their white supremacist community.

Naturally, these advanced ambitions came with an equally advanced list of needs, one of which includes land and power. Mark wants to buy the Indian Head Hill land from Donald Washberg to expand his church and sink his claws into the Governor of Tulsa. For the same reason, Frank was brokering the deal, keeping the politician in the dark about exactly what kind of man he was doing business with. Inversely, Donald was happy to overlook every suspicious detail for the lucrative profit he would have made from the deal. In doing so, he also failed to realize that the paper trail left behind by this transaction would make it seem like One Well has paid the Governor an exorbitant amount of money for a non-equivalent deal. Thus, Mark can then use this instance to manipulate and influence Donald into doing his bidding.

Once Lee connects all these dots and lays out the facts for Donald, it becomes impossible for the latter to remain ignorant. In his greed and blind ambition to win the upcoming election, he had managed to corner himself into alliances that would forever tarnish his reputation and legacy. Despite his family’s sordid past, the politician isn’t immoral enough to align himself with values such as those. Therefore, he comes to an alternative decision. Donald dissolves his yet-unfinalized deal with Mark and chooses to honor Dale’s dying wishes regarding the Indian Head Hill land. Understandably, Chutto is less than eager to take ownership of the land that killed his grandfather. Instead, he decides to give the land to the Osage Nation, allowing it to go back to its original owners and support Tulsa’s native american community.

Does Frank Get Arrested For Arthur’s Murder? What Happens to Him?

Frank’s role in the entire scheme ran deeper than that of a simple broker. As evident through Dale’s death, the man was more than willing to dirty his own hands for the sake of his ambitions. The same had led him to seek out Arthur once he learned about the existence of Dale’s last written will. Although he attempts a deceitful approach at first, it isn’t long before he grows violent in his search for the will. Yet, when Arthur attempts to defend himself with a gun, Frank ends up killing him. In the end, One Well provides a haven to the man, preventing Lee from holding him accountable for the murder. Worse yet, he’s easily able to use his connections to turn the narrative around on the entire incident.

Frank makes a case to the authorities that he was simply defending himself from an old, dementia-riddled man when the latter came at him with a gun. Given the power dynamics at play, no one bats an eye or insists on a proper investigation. Thus, the businessman gets to walk away from his horrifying actions without having to pay for them. Even so, while the law protects him, karma eventually gets to him. Once Lee’s efforts put the truth about Dale Washberg’s death out into the world, Bonnie also gets some answers about the sudden disappearance of her son, Blackie. She knows that his death was a part of a cover-up, which is a part of a ladder with Frank on top of it. Therefore, saddled with her grief, the mother seeks out the businessman. In broad daylight, she shoots Frank while he’s in his car, delivering a unique brand of justice.

Does Lee Publish His Article? Does Donald Win the Election?

Lee’s story begins with the publishing of an expose piece written about the Washberg family and their thorny relationship with the history of Tulsa. Initially, many try to pin Dale’s assumed suicide on the piece, blaming the citizen reporter’s scathing writing for the death. While that was patently untrue, the reporter’s many misadventures that follow open his eyes to a certain reality about the nature of truth. As a self-proclaimed truthstorian, he has always remained in pursuit of the facts and their real-life impact. Nonetheless, in doing so, he often forgets to see the real human lives behind the latest story. While he would like Donald Washberg to be an irredeemably corrupt politician whose family’s history defines his present ideology, the truth is rarely that simple. Therefore, alongside championing the value of truth, Lee’s responsibility as a journalist also lies in having empathy and the ability to see the bigger picture.

For the same reason, once Lee finishes his article, he goes out of his way to tell Donald about it first, giving him an opportunity to right the wrongs that have unraveled around him thus far. In the end, the reporter decides not to print the expose. Instead, he pens a new piece on Dale Washberg. It harbors the same passion for the truth surrounding the man’s death, but instead of treating his passing as a spectacle, it focuses on his life and legacy. Therefore, while the piece reveals the truth, it also doesn’t vilify Donald as his last article had done. Furthermore, the politician employs measures of his own to broaden his political horizons. Where he was previously lost about how to connect with the Native American demography of voters, his decision to honor his brother’s wishes and work with the community for their shared future goes a long way. It’s also possible he listens to Cyrus’ advice and changes his approach to a specific detail to gain more support among African American voters. Ultimately, all of this culminates in success, helping Donald win the election.