Spoilers below for the final episode of DTF St. Louis for anyone who hasn’t yet watched it on HBO or streamed it via HBO Max subscription, so be warned!
After seven weeks of Richard Jenkins’ Det. Homer getting bamboozled by one sexual fetish after another, HBO’s genre-mashing mystery DTF St. Louis came to a close with quite the revealing finale. (And I’m not just talking about the two lead actors in their skivvies.) Answers were delivered, and a non-murder was solved, but not before audiences spent a little more time with suspect Kevin, a.k.a. Faux Tiger Tiger, as portrayed by Abbott Elementary great Chris Perfetti.
DTF St. Louis will likely remain one of the most off-kilter and well-structured shows to hit the 2026 TV schedule, and Perfetti’s character entered late in the game as an additional bizarro layer to the fabric of Floyd Smernitch’s death. It’s like the best example of a hat on a hat, and I was happy to talk to the actor about playing a red-haired red herring. A big reason he joined the show was due to creator Steven Conrad, whose past idiosyncratic creations include Patriot and Perpetual Grace, LTD, not that acting opposite Jason Bateman, Richard Jenkins and Joy Sunday was a chore.
Article continues belowWhen I asked the Twinless star for his reaction to the emotional turmoil laid out in DTF St. Louis’ finale, and to the reveal, Chris Perfetti put the focus back on the creator and spoke to how much he loved the thematic throughline combining with the purposefully fractured timelines, saying:
Yeah, I think it's beautiful. I love Steve for so many reasons. I mean, I feel like we share an interest in the sort of quiet oppression of everyday life. I feel like a lot of his stories have to do with male bonding and the plight of men, and in such a generous and interesting way. But probably chief among all the things that I love about Steve is I think he has a knack for taking what could be a relatively simple story and putting it in a blender and telling something greater than just the story of what happened. By sort of picking what we think the audience should see, rearranging the way events happened.
An easy 10 points to Chris Perfetti for perhaps untentionally mentioning CinemaBlend's namesake appliance in the above answer. Now back to our regularly scheduled interview.
He continued, speaking to the idea that the reveal itself wasn't as jarring as how it felt to experience the endgame culmination of everything that led to Floyd's suicide-by-meds. As he put it:
So yeah, I was not surprised, but I was surprised by the emotional release that he crafted by the end of the seven episodes. I think it's really masterful. It's so wild to be a part of a project where the first episode and the last episode were shot pretty much at the same time. You know, the whole series was made knowing where it's going, but that time would unfold for the audience in a different way.
I honestly hadn't considered that element while watching, despite obviously clocking the familiar footage. Having that entire gameplan in mind from the jump was no doubt extremely pivotal to being able to pull this off in an effective way without having to return to previously filmed-at locations.
Chris Perfetti enjoyed the mystery element as much as anyone, even if he didn't share any off-track theories like the ones I formed, but said that learning the answers wasn't as important as getting to knowing the core characters in the first place.
I just think the way that he kept us guessing is very sophisticated and fun, again, I think it's because he was trying to draw out things in these characters lives that wasn't necessarily about just what happened. The journey of how we got there is sort of more important, and what it said about us. Would any answer really be, you know, satisfying?
Honestly, I think the least satisfying move would have been if Perfetti's Tiger Tiger was the guilty party who'd drugged Floyd. (Or if Modern Love was responsible.) By keeping it within the characters we followed for all seven eps, there was no risk of it feeling like a stranger invaded these people's lives.
Chris Perfetti On Why Kevin/Tiger Tiger Possibly Wasn't Entirely Honest WIth The Detectives
Tiger Tiger is the kind of dude that I don't mind watching on TV, but if he sat next to me on a bus and started a conversation, I might feel the need to slink down all the way to the floor and shimmy away through people's feet. He's skeezy, but in a way that's hard to pin down.
To that end, I asked Chris Perfetti if he felt that everything Tiger Tiger told the detectives was the 100% truth. Because to me, there were moments when it felt like he was holding back in a way that he most certainly did not when he spoke about his distaste for Floyd's age and belly protrusion. (He was maybe too honest with those comments.) Here's what he told me:
Oh, thank you. I will take that as a subtle compliment. I think what's so fun about Tiger Tiger is like, obviously the show is a detective show - literally, the audience has to be a detective as it's sort of unfolding. There are characters whose job it is to be a detective, and actors are, in a sense, all detectives in a way. And when I first read the script, it was just such a pleasure to try and imagine what the circumstances of his life would be that would that would bring him into orbit with these other characters. And I guess that's a roundabout way of saying he's a peculiar dude.
I couldn't have agreed more. This atypical character's spontaneous arrival in the show's suburbia would almost feel cartoonish if the circumstances weren't so dour. Because seriously, how terrible were all the other options for what to do with his day that taking Clark's Tiger Tiger offer was the winner?
In addressing my question, Perfetti leaned into my suspicions about Tiger Tiger's honesty level, but without going all the way in. It's not so much that the character was lying about anything vital to the case, but probably that he wouldn't want to air out his personal details within the confines of an interrogation room. As the actor shared:
I think his truth is not necessarily other people's truth, and I think he's really flying by the seat of his pants. I think somebody who would take on this job, who is in sort of dire straits, and is game for as long as he is game, has probably a weird relationship to the truth. So I would say yes and no.
Perfetti mentioned creator Steven Conrad again in his concluding thoughts about Tiger Tiger and his wavering moral compass. In his words:
What's beautiful about Steve's work is he writes a lot of characters who can't help but be honest, and who are so sort of naked in their vulnerability. Yeah, I think, I think Tiger Tiger is certainly that. There's also a nefarious, kind of mischievous quality about him as well, so I think he's trying to see how much he can get away with.
Would Tiger Tiger keep the two detectives talking long enough to ensure that he gets a couple of cups of coffee and a sandwich for lunch? I don't think he'd turn it down. But, for all his quirks, at least he's not a murderer. That we know of....
All seven episodes of DTF St. Louis are available to stream on HBO Max, while Chris Perfetti's terrific performances as Jacob Hill on Abbott Elementary can be streamed via Hulu subscription or Disney+ subscription, with new Season 5 episodes airing Wednesdays on ABC at 8:30 p.m. ET.
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