Sterlin Harjo Turns Oklahoma Into a 'Land of Secrets' on FX

Sterlin Harjo was on set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in July, shooting his new FX series "The Lowdown." The Seminole and Muscogee filmmaker has described his home state as a "Land of Secrets" — a place whose stories he intends to reveal one by one.

That framing comes from Harjo himself, and it tells you how to read his career. He isn't treating Oklahoma as a backdrop. He's treating it as the subject.

Who is Sterlin Harjo?

Harjo is the writer-director who co-created "Reservation Dogs," the acclaimed series about Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma. That show put Tulsa and its surroundings on the creative map, blending deadpan comedy with a specific, lived-in sense of place.

Now he's back on FX with "The Lowdown." Details about the new series remain scarce, but the production fact is concrete: Harjo was directing on location in Tulsa in July.

What does 'Land of Secrets' actually mean?

Harjo's phrase suggests a working method, not just a slogan. Oklahoma, in his telling, holds stories that mainstream film and television have historically overlooked or flattened — particularly Indigenous ones.

The mechanism is straightforward. Harjo shoots where the stories happen, with the communities they concern. That grounds the work in local detail: speech patterns, landscapes, humor, histories. The result feels documented rather than imagined.

Staying in Tulsa reinforces that approach. It's also a statement about where television production can happen — not only on coasts or in tax-incentive hubs, but in the region the story belongs to.

What does this change for viewers?

Practically, it means FX's slate continues to carry a distinctive regional voice that the network's comedy and drama lineups have lacked elsewhere. For Oklahoma, it means continued production activity and on-screen representation of a place usually reduced to stereotype.

For Harjo, "The Lowdown" is the next installment in a project he has framed himself: revealing Oklahoma's secrets one at a time. Each series functions as another disclosure.

What comes next?

The July shoot indicates "The Lowdown" is in active production for FX. No premiere date has been announced. What's certain is Harjo's direction of travel — more Oklahoma stories, told from Oklahoma, by one of the state's most prominent filmmakers.