On the premiere of HBO‘s weird crime drama DTF St. Louis, David Harbour’s Floyd Smernitch casually explained that he knows American Sign Language (ASL) because he has Peyronie’s Disease. And on this week’s episode, titled “Snag It,” we got further into it as — spoilers past this point — Floyd told a long, meandering story that was supposed to be about how he got Peyronie’s, which never actually provided any details. So what is the deal? What is Peyronie’s Disease, and what does it have to do with ASL?
So to recap briefly, probable murder victim Floyd struck up a friendship with weatherman Clark Forrest (Jason Bateman), working as his ASL interpreter. And as the two become closer, this episode Clark gets more info from Floyd about his Peyronie’s Disease. Floyd proceeds to tell a story about him getting a high stress job interview, detailing everything his wife Carol (Linda Cardellini) did to not just snag him the interview but also make sure he got there on time. Only thing, as he was about to get to the building where he was interviewing, he saw a man wandering aimlessly in the road, clearly not right in the head. Not only did Floyd go to the man across the busy street and hold him, he slowly walked him to safety, ending up on the news for his good deed.
The purpose of this sequence is to show us something the episode continues to double down on throughout the hour, that Floyd is deep down an earnest, good guy. Clark? Not bad, but not always great. Same with Carol. On the other hand, from saving a perhaps mentally ill unhoused man, to later joyfully performing ASL at a Todrick Hall concert, Floyd doesn’t have a bad bone in his bone.
…Well, he does have one bad bone: his penis bone. Which isn’t a bone, but you get the gist. Floyd has Peyronie’s Disease, which, per the Mayo Clinic, is “a condition in which fibrous scar tissue forms in the deeper tissues under the skin of the penis. This causes curved, painful erections. It also can make the penis shorter while erect.”
Symptoms of Peyronie’s include scar tissue, a bend in the penis, erection problems, shortening of the penis, pain, and other changes. What it does not do is impact your hearing in any way, which would potentially explain the ASL of it all. And the story certainly seems to be heading towards Floyd getting hit by a car in such a way that it bends his penis irrevocably or something.
But nope! Floyd gets distracted and never finishes the story, and we don’t find out why Floyd has Peyronie’s Disease, or what it has to do with ASL. Which, to be blunt, is the whole joke. It’s possible we could find out at some point about both of these things. But more likely based on how comedy works, we’ll get another meandering story that also doesn’t explain it later in the series. Non-spoiler, but the first four episodes of the series were provided to critics for review, and you won’t get any more info there.
So yes, Floyd has Peyronie’s Disease, and perhaps part of the reason for this is to note that in the Indiana Jones porn left near Floyd’s body, which this episode turns out to be of Floyd in his younger days, his penis seems non-bent and fine. So some time between filming what Richard Jenkins’ Detective Donoghue Homer keeps calling “Indiana Jones jerk-off porn” and “now,” Floyd’s penis got twisted. But how that happened? And why that caused him to learn ASL? We’ll have to wait and see.
DTF St. Louis Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of DTF St. Louis premiere Sundays on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. ET. Here’s what we expect from the full list of episodes in DTF St. Louis with premiere dates.
- Sunday, March 1, 2026: DTF St. Louis, Episode 1 – “Cornhole”
- Sunday, March 8, 2026: DTF St. Louis, Episode 2 – “Snag It”
- Sunday, March 15, 2026: DTF St. Louis, Episode 3 – “The Go Getter”
- Sunday, March 22, 2026: DTF St. Louis, Episode 4 – “Missouri Mutual Life & Health Insurance Company”
- Sunday, March 29, 2026: DTF St. Louis, Episode 5 – “TBA”
- Sunday, April 5, 2026: DTF St. Louis, Episode 6 – “TBA”
- Sunday, April 12, 2026: DTF St. Louis, Episode 7 – “TBA” *Season Finale*
Where To Watch DTF St. Louis
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