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Credit: HBO
Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched the latest episode of DTF St. Louis on HBO or via HBO Max subscription, so be warned!
When DTF St. Louis first arrived on the 2026 TV schedule, I wasn’t expecting its episode-ending corpse reveal to be one of the small-screen mysteries I’d think about the most over the next month and change. Yet here we are, a week away from the dramedy’s finale, and I pretty much NEED to know all the answers behind what happened to David Harbour’s lovable oaf Floyd Smernitch, and I’ll crash a recumbent bicycle into the shins of anyone who tries to get in my way.
Though creator Steven Conrad refrained from giving viewers any direct answers in “The Denny’s Plan,” the episode seemed to more or less close the door on all of the once-promising leads that made this case seem like an easy win early on for Detective Donoghue Homer. Which, as I theorize below, likely leaves us with a solution where murder wasn’t involved at all. Not that this idea will be a lot less dark than that outcome.
Credit: HBO
What I Now Theorize Happened With Floyd
From the jump, I assumed Linda Cardellini’s Carol was the culprit, and that assumption has yet to completely vacate my system, especially after Episode 5 revealed Carol’s secret conviction from her past. (Though without sharing what it was, annoyingly enough.) I started to hypothesize about Clark possibly killing his best buddy when Episode 4 made it seem like he’d be upset about Floyd and Carol rekindling their sex life. After everything that played out in Episode 6, though, here’s what I think happened.
Every episode of this show has showcased Floyd’s need for connections and affection, whether it be from Carol, Clark or stepson Richard. (Or crowds of concert-goers, or his dance instructor, etc.) By this point, though, Carol destroyed his ego, Clark usurped the sexual pleasures Floyd sought, and also falsely bolstered Floyd’s confidence and self-worth by creating the Tiger Tiger social profile and setting up a fake date. His kinship with Richard is seemingly better than ever, but that may not be enough.
Tying back to one of my earlier left-field ideas, I think that Floyd reached a point where his body and mind had been put through the wringer enough by his loved ones that he couldn’t take it anymore, and he maybe- purposefully took too many of the meds that Clark gave him, knowing that it could have a detrimental effect on his heart. So I don’t believe anyone killed Floyd in the sense that they were physically responsible for his death, and I think he took his own life.
Does that make Clark and Carol 100% innocent? Not one iota, since Floyd would no doubt still be alive if he and the weatherman’s paths never crossed, miserable as that life may have stayed. Let’s talk about the other side of that below.
Credit: HBO
Why I Still Think Carol Is Partially Guilty
One of the biggest hang-ups that the detectives have dealt with remains the driver of the recumbent bike that was known to be around the scene of the crime. It seems clear that Carol was the one who took it there, though the details get fuzzy around there, since nothing around Floyd’s body indicates she was involved.
While I don’t have any beyond-the-norm guesses for why Carol showed up, I’m guessing she went there knowing that Floyd was an emotional wreck, and that he was already dead when she went inside. Rather than reporting it as a suicide, however, I think that Carol’s first instinct was to redress the scene to make it look more like someone killed Floyd.
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Why go through such a horrible ordeal before being able to properly mourn her husband? Because life insurance policies often won’t pay out to beneficiaries when deaths are self-inflicted. Carol had already put the time and effort into convincing an already eager Clark to take out an insurance policy on Floyd, and there has to be something behind that impetus, other than just her thinking ill about his weight gain.
If Floyd’s suicide led not to a million-dollar payout, but rather another pile of finance-wrecking funeral bills, Carol’s life would be in even worse shambles. So I don’t see any issues with believing her capable of cleaning up a crime scene to set it up more in her favor.
Do I think that Carol knew about Floyd’s boner pills and purposefully insulted his weight in front of Clark just so her hubby might be browbeaten enough to off himself? That’s some widlly f–ked up psychological warfare…but I’m not saying she’s incapable of it. We’ll have to wait and see.
DTF St. Louis‘ Season 1 finale is set to air on HBO on Sunday, April 12, at 9:00 p.m. ET.
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