‘RJ Decker’ Review: Scott Speedman in ABC’s Carl Hiaasen Adaptation

Florida, in the public imagination, is not like other states. Florida is a wild and lawless swamp, even the parts of it that are paved over with high-rises and run by people in tailored suits. It’s alligators and strip clubs and old men in Speedos, and a mythology built out of hijinks so bizarre they could only have been dreamt up by that most quintessentially American creature, Florida Man.

All of which makes the Sunshine State fertile terrain for quirky crime dramas, the latest of which is ABC’s Tampa-set RJ Decker. The two broadcast hours (44ish minutes without commercials) sent to critics try to take advantage of this humid locale by sending its characters on breezy murder mysteries sprinkled with oddball details, with mildly amusing results. So far, though, it’s short on perhaps the most crucial ingredient for selling this milieu in the long term: a lead who actually seems like he belongs there.

Not that RJ Decker, played by Scott Speedman, is an unlikable or unworthy hero. A former news photographer, he’s convicted in the first few minutes of an assault that, okay, he did technically commit. But he was in extreme emotional distress, having just documented the crime scene of his own slain colleague. And anyway, he swears, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the rich-brat victim makes it out to be. He is nevertheless locked up, damned by perjurious but passionate testimony from the young man’s sister, Emi (Jaina Lee Ortiz).

Two years later, RJ has completed his prison sentence and reinvented himself as a private investigator — though not one successful enough to reliably make rent on his trailer, perched at the edge of a growing sinkhole. But when he stumbles across a murder eerily similar to his coworker’s, he throws himself into the pursuit of justice, with reluctant help from his ex-wife, Cath (Adelaide Clemens), who is conveniently a journalist; her current wife, Mel (Bevin Bru), who is even more conveniently a cop; and his own femme fatale, Emi, who most conveniently of all turns out to be a well-heeled and well-connected lawyer.

The premiere episode suffers, as many premiere episodes do, from the weight of setting up all this exposition. It also struggles initially to find the right tone. An opening conversation about RJ’s love of Almond Joy candy bars is too cutely symbolic by half, while a later monologue about his lingering trauma around documenting the crime scene of his own slain colleague feels too heavy for the show’s otherwise sunny tone.

Still, the series, created by Rob Doherty (Elementary) based on the novel Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen, would seem to have most of the ingredients required for a solid procedural. If Cath, Mel and Emi haven’t made strong impressions just yet, their respective jobs and relationship statuses should provide enough drama for seasons to come.

The premiere’s mystery feels a touch too gloomy and predictable, but the second episode’s is entertainingly twisty, starting with an illegal Venus flytrap operation (a plant that feels Floridian in spirit, even if it’s a plot point that it’s native to the Carolinas) and winding through a male strip club called Manatease and a natural-health company on its way to a satisfying solution.

What RJ Decker does not have, however, is a convincing lead. The RJ that comes through in the writing is exasperating yet irresistible, the sort of dude who’ll try his ex-wife’s patience by begging for a place to crash when his trailer finally topples into the aforementioned sinkhole, but also the sort of dude who’ll devote himself tirelessly to exonerating an innocent man sentenced to prison. He’s a bit of a hustler but even more of a do-gooder, a knight in scuffed armor and flip-flops.

The RJ we actually see, on the other hand, is perfectly genial, but neither charming nor obnoxious enough to leave much of a mark. Though it’s certainly possible Speedman will grow into the part as the season progresses (again, I’ve only seen two episodes), he comes off as simultaneously too sweaty and too clean-cut in the early going. Which is to say, like a handsome TV actor trying very hard to look scuzzy rather than a guy who feels naturally at home in this sandy, seedy universe.

It doesn’t help matters, either, that RJ Decker is arriving relatively soon after another Hiaasen-based, Florida-set crime drama, Apple’s Bad Monkey, forcing the inevitable and unflattering comparison between Speedman’s nice but unconvincing RJ and Vince Vaughn’s much more believably roguish Yancy.

For better or for worse, though, the best example of what could eventually work about RJ Decker but doesn’t right now is embedded right there in the show itself. My favorite character by far in these first two chapters is Wish, RJ’s best friend and former cell mate. With a taste for offbeat vintage tees (“Women’s Wilderness Club — Dillos Before Dudes,” “1996 Overstimulated Grown-Ups Running Club”) and a standing offer of free drinks to any patron who can show him both a “Florida Man” headline and proof that they are the “Florida Man” in question, the bar owner makes a delightfully distinctive impression right off the bat.

As played by Kevin Rankin, Wish is criminally mischievous yet touchingly earnest, a ride-or-die pal as game to help pants a shady suspect (it makes more sense in context, sort of) as he is to bring groceries to the pregnant girlfriend of a falsely accused man. Rankin effortlessly nails the scruffy-but-sweet vibe the rest of the series is still striving to capture, and it seems only a shame he’s relegated to a supporting player rather than a co-lead. RJ himself might do well to spend more time knocking back beers with Wish at his bar, in hopes that some of that secret sauce might someday rub off on him.