Let’s talk about swagger, that combination of confidence and charisma that enables some people to move through the world in a way that lesser mortals envy and sometimes try to emulate through posturing or preening. The difference, particularly in straight men, shows in how they move their bodies. An insecure man leads with his chest. He’s puffed up, quick to take offense, ready to bark back at a perceived insult to show off how tough he is. A man with actual swagger? His power rests in his core — obliques, abs, lower back and glutes. He rolls in low-key. Who needs to show off when you’re the magnet that draws people in?
And thus we come to Duster, a new Max crime drama created by J.J. Abrams (Lost, 2004; Cloverfield, 2008; The Rise of Skywalker, 2019, etc.) and LaToya Morgan (Parenthood,2010; Shameless, 2011), set in 1972 Phoenix. More precisely, we come to Jim Ellis as embodied by Josh Holloway, also of Lost fame. Jim drives — yep — a Plymouth Duster for the local crime boss. Lanky and laid-back, Jim is a man as at home in his body, hence the swagger, as behind the wheel. And when he flashes his killer smile, most women can’t resist giving him the information he needs or giving into whatever distraction he’s hoping to create.
One woman utterly unbothered by his charm is our other protagonist Nina Hayes, a character loosely based on the first Black woman FBI agent, Sylvia Mathis, and played as swagger personified by Rachel Hislon of The Good Wife. Hilson needs every ounce of inner confidence she can bring to the job because her FBI peers and superiors — shocker — doubt her abilities. But Nina’s belief that she’s the one to bring down crime boss Ezra Saxon is backed by the iron will to do so.
Our third swagger icon (fourth if you count the car) is Saxon himself, played by the magnetic Keith David (American Fiction, 2023; Nope, 2022). You know the type who’d stop at nothing to protect you but wouldn’t blink before killing you if you crossed him? That’s Saxon. He’s like family to Jim, but he’s drawn Nina’s wrath for what he’s done to her own, lending extra motivation for her to enlist Jim in her crusade.
Like most characters in the new-person-trying-to-prove-themselves role, Nina disobeys commands and does things her own way, a risky move given the racism and sexism she already faces daily. As usual, sometimes her actions backfire, sometimes they lead to breakthroughs. But with each step forward, Nina also moves herself and her underappreciated, rule-following partner Awan Bitsui (Asivak Koostachin), a Navajo FBI agent, closer to danger. The narrative complexities, such as they are, require a bit more than the preferred level of disbelief suspension, but no matter. The cast is so damn fun that they even make the fashions of the 1970s look sexy as hell.
As Jim wrestles with both his loyalty to Saxon and the doubts Nina’s instilled, misadventures ensue giving us the opportunity to watch Jim flirt, drive and despair at his predicament in various amounts. While Duster is described as a thriller, humor and a certain amount of ridiculousness run through the show like a fast car on a desert highway. Hopping in a car with Jim probably isn’t the smartest idea but it’s a helluva lot of fun.
Under the hood
Sylvia Mathis could not have been an FBI agent in Duster’s 1972 as the racist policies of the FBI only allowed white women to join. However, once J. Edgar Hoover finally departed (office and the world) that same year, opportunities opened up, leading to then-26-year-old Mathis becoming the FBI’s first Black female agent. Once inside the Bureau, she joined the organized crime squad, where she chased down gambling rings and extortionists, and even went undercover. Mathis left the Bureau in 1979, pivoting back to legal work and community service. She died in a car accident in 1983 at the age of 34.
Plymouth only made Dusters from 1970-1976. Jim’s 1970 version is a Duster 340, capable of making 275 horsepower at 5,000 rpm, impressive for the time. When choosing a car to star in this homage to car-centric shows of yesteryear, co-creator LaToya Morgan told Esquire magazine: “[The Duster] was a car that had a reputation for being fast and good, but not a lot of people knew about it. We wanted that in our hero car, a car that had personality.” Problematic gas-guzzling, smog-emitting issues aside, Duster‘s entire car lineup is an ode to how much cooler, how much more swagger, cars of that era had over the generic boxes we drive today. TVMA. 60M. MAX.
Jennifer Savage (she/her) is a freelance writer and full-time environmental activist. Find more of her personal writing at outonthepeninsula.com.
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This article appears in Restaurant Week 2025.