Tag: Jake Johnson

Stumptown Season 1 Episode 10 : Reality Checks Don’t Bounce Recap

~ Metacrone

Dex Shows Judge Cat Photo

This week on Stumptown, Dex helps a reality show judge with his wayward brother and tries to cope with the thought of Ansel moving out. Miles, Grey and Dex all deal with the fallout from Grey’s relationship with Liz. Miles brings Grey in to help with a case.

Dex spends the episode struggling with her fear of being alone, as symbolized by the many cat and cat lady references. The cat lady references and warnings to uppity women who aren’t nice enough to men and children even spilled over into Fox’s Almost Family, which aired at the same time on Disney’s other broadcast network. Interesting synergy.

I am traumatized by tuning in early enough to catch the last ~minute of the show that’s on before Stumptown, in which a group of very young children coach a very old man on how to pick up women in a bar, then heckle him as he puts their advice to use. This might be the most disturbing thing I’ve seen this month, and I’ve seen the news. It’s like those old commercials that put talking adult faces onto babies. Chilling. We don’t need to find new ways to sexualize children.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 9: Dex Education Recap

~ Metacrone

Stumptown S1Ep9 Dex & Penny

The winter finale of Stumptown finds Dex reunited with one of her high school nemeses, a redhead formerly known as “Perfect Penny”, who knew our heroine as “Dirty Dex”. Both have grown beyond their high school personas, though they each still have some of the character quirks that earned them their nicknames, proving we are all works in progress. And that it’s easy to use words to mislead, which happens a lot this week. From the interrogation room techniques the police use to the way the drug dealers try to misdirect Dex, there are many ways to lie, including to oneself.

Penny brings Dex the case of the week, which involves her daughter being expelled from an expensive private high school for dealing drugs. Meanwhile, Dex tries to sort out what really happened at the end of her night out at the casino with Liz.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 8: The Other Woman Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Stumptown S1Ep8 Dex & Dex

This week on Stumptown, Dex faces old foes and old issues in order to solve a case for Sue Lynn Blackbird. Dex and Grey attempt to navigate around Grey’s relationship with Liz, while Liz and Ansel become better acquainted.

Recap

Dex sits at the bar and checks out a comics-style drawing of herself done by Liz, at Grey’s request, for Dex to use on her PI Yelp page. Grey thinks she needs tp jazz up the page to bring in hits and paying customers. Dex, as usual, rejects ideas that are new and related to Liz, despite Ansel’s enthusiastic approval. During the conversation, they find out that Liz played college soccer with Tobin Heath, a famous real life player for the Portland women’s  pro soccer team, the Portland Thorns FC. Ansel is a big fan of the team.

Sue Lynn enters and puts a stack of cash down in front of Dex as a retainer. She says that someone is harassing her using seemingly minor acts and she wants Dex to find out who. They’ve stolen her wallet, broken into her house, put a rotting fish on her windshield, and laid a honeytrap by sending a man to seduce her. He was just her type, but too perfect. Dex thinks she’s being paranoid. She’s barely finished saying it when a bomb explodes on the hood of Sue Lynn’s car. Dex sees Sue Lynn’s point and takes the job.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 7: November Surprise Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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This week, Dex is hired by the State Senate campaign of Llewellyn Slocombe, a wealthy rancher who was supported by her nemesis Randall Tapper, until Dex cost him so much money that he had to withdraw his donation. Slocombe’s campaign manager, Vanessa, hires Dex to dig up dirt on his gay, but squeaky clean, political opponent, beloved Councilman Dan Gibson. Vanessa gets a little intense about her need to destroy Dan and offers Dex $50k to compromise her morals. Dex decides she can stomach getting involved in politics for that price. Then the building is evacuated because of an anthrax scare.

Politics is a truly cutthroat business.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 6: Dex, Drugs and Rock & Roll Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

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Episode 6 of Stumptown is about ghosts. The characters work through their ghosts while the show tests out new character combinations and expands backstories.

After their falling out in episode 5, Dex and Grey both spend time with new love interests, causing other cast members to feel they’re being left behind. Ansel and Miles take steps to ensure their interests haven’t been forgotten. Dex takes a PI job that has her tracking down the stalker of an old flame.

Meanwhile, Tookie continues to have business issues with his food truck. This time he closes up and goes to visit the highest ranking member of the police force he knows, Lieutenant Cosgrove. This is a friendship I never knew I always wanted. They bond over their love of mole sauce  and experimental cuisine.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 5: Bad Alibis Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment

Stumptown S1Ep5 Dex v Miles

This week on Stumptown, almost everyone is trying to please a tough superior. Grey is forced into working for Kane to pay off his debt. Dex has a PI cerification interview with a licensing  official. Tookie’s cooking is reviewed by an influential food critic. Miles tries to convince Cosgrove that his intuition about Grey and Kane is on point.

After all sorts of confusion at the bar, Ansel is taken hostage by one of Kane’s men. Never fear, Dex’s brother is the glue that holds this episode together and he knows just what to do.

Recap

Dex puts on a blazer and button up shirt for her interview with Janet Withers, the PI certification official from DPSST. No one is sure what DPSST stands for. Ansel thinks she looks funny. Dex says she had to buy him the pumpkin poptarts that were on sale this week instead of the blueberry ones that are his favorites, but when she’s licensed she’ll make more money.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 4: Family Ties Recap

~ Metacrone

Stumptown S1Ep4 Dex & Grey

The Ghosts of Halloween Past come back to haunt the residents of Stumptown in episode 4, as shady PI Artie banks and corrupt businessman/ex husband Randall Tapper resurface for a second round with Dex and Candace. Miles and Grey’s nightmares materialize in the form of escaped mobster Wallace Kane. Sue Lynn Blackbird and Lieutenant Cosgrove are drawn into the fray as they each work toward damage control.

Recap

Picking up not long after the end of episode 3, this episode finds Dex taking a baseball bat to Artie’s beloved vintage Mustang in retaliation for double crossing her and Candace. In addition, Tapper has hired Artie to act as his watchdog to make sure that Dex and Candace don’t find and use any new evidence to take him down. Dex declares war on Tapper, Artie and the Mustang.

I’d feel sorry for the innocent Mustang, but it’s probably been complicit in a number of crimes over the course of its long life of being driven as a midlife crisis and status symbol car. It’s about time it paid for some of them. I’m sure it’s got a good health plan.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 3: Rip City Dicks Recap

~ Metacrone

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In episode 3 of Stumptown, Dex decides to go legit as a PI, so she convinces a respected local investigator, Artie Banks, to take her on as an apprentice. Hijinks ensue. Miles investigates the murder of Grey’s former crime partner, Jack Feeley, which leads him straight to Grey. Grey decides to come clean with the crime bosses about the money he owes them, but it’s not as simple as he hopes it will be. In Stumptown, nothing ever is.

Recap

Episode 3 opens on Dex in the waiting room of iconic local PI Artie Banks, staring at the framed Detective Quarterly magazine cover that says he’s an icon. His bored secretary tells her that Mr Banks will be upstairs soon. Dex allows herself an un-Dex-like moment of hopeful fantasy and imagines herself and Artie as partners in a 1970s TV detective show, Rip City Dicks, complete with her in a sassy white jumpsuit, a funky soundtrack, and great fight choreography.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 2: Missed Connections Recap

~ Metacrone

Stumptown S1Ep2 Grey&Dex

Episode 2 of Stumptown, Missed Connections, explores how Grey and Dex became best friends instead of romantic partners. It also provides background on a part of Grey’s past that he’s ignored for years, which is now coming back to haunt him. After the pilot focused on Dex’s time in the military, PTSD and lost love, Benny, this is Grey’s chance to be seen as more than just an amiable sideman.

The story of Grey and Dex’s hook up 6 years ago, his past as a felon who did time for Grand Theft and the return of his partner in crime in the present day to draw him back into a life of crime runs parallel to Dex’s case of the week. She’s hired by a bar patron, Alan (played by Jay Duplass from Transparent) who wants her to help him find a woman he fell in love with at first sight, then lost. It turns out that the woman, Katrina (played by Zosia Mamet from Girls) is a con artist caught up in a life she can’t escape on her own. Katrina’s crime partner, Megan (Megan Le) is still very much in the picture and not okay with losing her business partner.

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Stumptown Season 1 Episode 1: ‘Forget it Dex, It’s Stumptown’ Recap

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

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Stumptown is ABC’s highly anticipated new show starring Cobie Smulders as Dex Parios, an unorthodox private investigator in Portland, Oregon. Dex has a chip on her shoulder and deep roots in the community. Unlike many TV and film private detectives, she’s not afraid to show a little vulnerability, though she’s also suffering from PTSD due to her 5 tours in Afghanistan. She’s new at the PI game, so she leans on her military experience, local contacts and well-honed instincts while she’s learning the tricks of the trade.

The show is created by Jason Richman, based on the the graphic novel series of the same name by Greg Rucka, with art by Matthew Southworth and Justin Greenwood. Stumptown also stars Jake Johnson as Dex’s best friend, Grey, who owns the bar Bad Alibi; Cole Sibus as the younger brother with Down Syndrome who lives with her, Ansel Parios; Tantoo Cardinal as Sue Lynn Blackbird, who runs the Native American casino where Dex frequently gambles and runs up a debt; Michael Ealy as police Detective Miles Hoffman, who encourages Dex to become a PI and is a potential love interest; Camryn Manheim as police Lieutenant Cosgrove, Hoffman’s boss; and Adrian Martinez as Tookie, a food truck operator and one of Dex’s sources of unofficial information.

Recap

The episode begins at the end, with a couple of thugs driving Dex’s car while taste testing coffee. This is Portland, after all. Dex is locked in the trunk. She gets the upper hand by spraying the thugs with a fire extinguisher, then climbing into the front to fight both of them while the car is still moving. Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline plays over it all.

I haven’t figured out yet whether Dex is a little bit psychic and she’s unconsciously controlling the car’s malfunctioning stereo, or if the car is a little bit sentient, so it’s consciously choosing the perfect song for each moment. Whichever one it is, they did great at matching 20th century pop songs to particular moments in the episode.

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