And we’re back! It’s been two full weeks since Dex’s best friend Grey got kidnapped by his old crime buddy Kane–What do you call the guy you stole from who then murdered your former partner, broke out of prison, and beat the crap out of you? A buddy, right?–and I’m sure everything’s gonna be fine! Totally fine! Nothing to worry about here!
Let’s dive right in, with some thoughts on Stumptown’s “Bad Alibis.” Spoilers below.
1. Time for Some Crime
Grey is in the hands of the baddies, and they’ve enlisted him to pull off what they say is the heist of the century. He’s understandably not pleased, especially when he learns that this break-in job is also going to include a bit of (twirls mustache) muuuuuurder.
Jake Johnson is quite good here, walking the line between exasperation and a stoic, bottled up fear. He knows how this job can easily go wrong, despite his best efforts to keep the train running smoothly.
Things escalate when Kane takes Dex’s brother hostage (more on that below), forcing Grey to fall in line. This plotline mostly works, even if at times it feels a bit generic. The episode doesn’t set up what they’re stealing, making the entire break-in sequence feel pretty ungrounded. When we do eventually learn what’s being stolen, it’s so underwhelming that it begs the question of why the mystery was needed at all.
2. Badges? We Don’t Need No–Oh OK Yeah A Badge Would Be Nice
Dex, meanwhile, is attempting to balance managing Grey’s bar in his unexpected absence with her meeting to get her PI license. Thankfully, she manages to get her interviewer–played by the always wonderful Janeane Garofalo–to come by the bar for a criminally brief scene where Dex is forced to explain why she wants to be a detective.
It’s hard to say the episode wastes Janeane Garofalo, because Janeane Garofalo could have made the scene sing if they had literally asked her to sing all of her lines of dialogue in a full operatic voice. And she totally crushes her five lines of dialogue, including a pitch perfect button on the scene that emphasizes that maybe Dex hasn’t fully thought through her reasoning for pursuing this new profession.
But I mean, come on. It’s Janeane Garofalo. Don’t waste Janeane Garofalo.
3. Hoffman Goes Rogue
On the third front of this episode’s conflict is Detective Hoffman, taken off the case by Lieutenant Cosgrove and stuck at home doing his best impression of Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He’s in too deep, still obsessed over the fact that Kane killed one of his good friends, and like any good hard-boiled cop he just can’t let this one go. He tells Cosgrove he’s in Hawaii, which she buys for exactly ten minutes before she shows up at his apartment for a hacky scene that could have been plucked wholesale from any detective show from the last 30 years.
The scene lacks any teeth because we never for a second buy that Hoffman is actually going to get in trouble for his actions–“I came here to take your badge!” Cosgrove says before leaving his apartment without taking his badge–and I’m getting pretty sure that the cop stuff is going to be consistently the least interesting thing about this show. It’s underwritten, and the solid performances from the cast can’t save it.
Hoffman decides he needs Dex to crack this case, so he enlists her help to dig into Grey’s history and uncover what’s going on. Just in time, too, as Grey’s frenemies had already come looking for Dex and her brother.
4. Kidnapping 2: Electric Boogaloo
A thing I haven’t mentioned much (or at all?) in my previous reviews is that Dex’s brother Ansel (Cole Sibus) has Down syndrome. The number one reason for that is I am 100% not qualified to comment on whether or not I think this is positive representation of people with disabilities, but with this episode I feel like it’s worth calling out.
Ansel’s character is one I don’t think I’ve ever seen on TV before, and certainly not in a network show. He’s a character with an intellectual disability with a job, who is shown to be a functional, helpful member of his family. For the first few episodes of the series, it sidestepped most of the tropes that could have made his storyline or character feel dated or offensive.
Continued belowThere have been a handful of other moments in the show where the threat of danger against Ansel has been used to drum up tension, but this is the first time it’s escalated to full on kidnapping. That usage of his character rubs me the wrong way, painting him as a damsel in distress. It’s a symptom of a show that doesn’t know what to do with his disorder, and as a result has decided to slot him in to a place previously reserved for underwritten women. As I said, I’m not the most qualified on the issue so I could certainly be overthinking it, but to me it’s a regressive move that’s out of sync with the show’s generally progressive tone.
5. Cops and Robbers
That’s not the only regressive element of the episode though–gotta spread that dated, vaguely offensive love around. After Dex rescues her brother, she and Hoffman figure out what Grey and Kane are attempting to steal: a priceless artifact from the Portland Museum, which is I guess a good enough macguffin to drive the episode. They arrive in the knick of time, just as a firefight breaks out when Grey attempts to save the life of someone else on his crew.
Hoffman chases down and subdues Kane pretty easily, and we’re treated to a gem of a scene where a cop repeatedly threatens to shoot an unarmed man point blank in the head. Maybe it’s just me, but woooo boy does a scene of a cop going off like that on a criminal (even one who the episode goes to pains to paint as a psychopath) play different in 2019. It’s a tone-deaf image, and possibly the perfect one to wrap up this plot line that has been fully stuck in the past.
But that’s all for…pretty much every plotline the series has introduced so far! Dex gets her PI license, Grey and Hoffman get off scot free despite numerous crimes–multiple cops witness Hoffman with his gun at an unarmed victim’s temple, and Cosgrove has to physically pull his hand away from the man, he should have been fired on the spot–and Kane gets shipped back off to prison where I’m sure he won’t escape for revenge later in the season. It’s a wide open town ready to be stumped. Who knows where the show will head next?
I mean, I watched the preview for the next episode, so I kind of know. But no spoilers.
