Welcome back gumshoes! Stumptown is settling into its formula now at episode 9. There’s a comfort to that, knowing where the episode is heading right from its start. There are heroes, there are villains–we get the picture. Cobie & Co. are going to take us on a ride through the slightly mussed up streets of Portland, and it’s a pleasant ride indeed.
Here’s five thoughts on Stumptown’s “Dex Education,” spoilers follow as always.
1. Waking Up…and Then She Go-Go
Picking up where we left off from Dex’s disastrous life last week, Dex just woke up with her best friend’s girlfriend, Liz, in her bed. I had high hopes for this storyline. I love a good “people screwing up ultimately brings everyone together” storyline, but immediately something is off. Liz, who to this point has mostly been a pleasant addition to the character dynamic, suggests lying to Grey about what happened.
This is of course destined to blow up in their faces, and it would have even if Liz didn’t clearly have another objective in mind. But she does, and it’s at this point early in the episode that we know Liz’s days on this show are numbered.
2. Volley Volley Oxen-Free
The case of the week is, you guessed it, another blast from Dex’s past. This time it’s Dex’s high school bully asking for her help. I do have to wonder just how many figures from Dex’s colorful history can possibly show up at her doorstep, but for now it’s a nice well to pull from that gives us more of an understanding of her character.
This time Dex’s nemesis Penny (Lindy Booth) comes knocking to try to save her daughter, who’s been kicked out of school after being caught with a whole bunch of pills. Dex goes undercover as a substitute to dig into the school politics, quickly discovering that there’s something fishy in the volleyball team.
Dex’s scenes with Penny are nice, and you can add Lindy Booth to Stumptown’s long list of excellent guest stars. Dex cracks it pretty easily, but it is nice to have a case where we just get to see how good Dex is at her job rather than the usual: people telling us Dex is good at her job while she repeatedly screws things up.
3. Ballistic: Dex vs. Grey-ver
Look. Dex and Grey are fighting again. It’s a plot that somehow feels old hat and we’re on *checks notes* the ninth episode of the series. Should it work? Probably not. Should I be tired of it? Almost definitely. Would I have enjoyed an entire episode that was nothing but them arguing like this? Absolutely.
Cobie Smulders and Jake Johnson are the saving grace of this show. It makes sense for Smulders–the entire show by design rests on her shoulders (shmulders?) and she is more than up to the task–but Johnson’s Grey is an interesting aspect of this show who is key to it continuing to work. Their chemistry rules, and the show would fall apart without them. Any scene where they get to flex how good they are together immediately becomes the standout scene of the episode.
This time the fight is about Dex (*spins wheel*) drinking too much and lying about her (*throws dart at board*) night at the casino. Somehow the result of this fight is Dex being no longer welcome at Grey’s bar, which is both a) a reasonable reaction to Dex’s decisions since the first episode and b) a bizarre reaction to the information he currently has. As far as we’ve seen, Dex has literally never done something to hurt Grey like this–she’s more than happy to blow up her own life, but Grey is different. For now, of course.
4. Clean Up
Dex and Hoffman handily uncover the volleyball coach’s drug ring, but that’s not the clean up I’m talking about. In a nice scene, Sue Lynn Blackbird encourages Dex to clean up her act…by making her bed. Literally. The idea here is that Dex needs to assert control over her life, and Dex takes the advice, treating us to a bed making montage.
Stumptown has grappled with Dex’s PTSD mostly in passing, but as her life has become more and more functional her issues have only become more of a hindrance. It’s a nice observation about life with mental illness, that sometimes it’s during your best times that your problems become more amplified.
Continued belowDex isn’t the only one putting their life together. After dropping hints all episode, her brother, Ansel, announces that he wants to move out and live on his own. Dex doesn’t get a chance to react to this, but I for one am ecstatic that the show is giving Ansel a plot where he isn’t being reduced to Dex’s, well, damsel.
5. RIP Love Quadrangle, Long Live Love Triangle
Liz’s arc so far has been a “Liz or Dex” rivalry (that has felt, to me, entirely unearned), so of course the logical endpoint was Liz turning out to be a bad person. Let me state that, for the record, there isn’t as much of a substantial difference between Liz and Dex’s misdeeds as the creators think. Liz getting Dex drunk to drive a wedge between Dex and Grey vs. Dex illegally tricking Detective Hoffman into investigating Liz’s past as she did in last week’s episode–I’m just saying, there are some misdeeds on both sides. So the episode has to paint Liz as a maniacal mastermind, manipulating events to rip apart the old friends. Liz’s character deserved better.
But anyways, Liz appears to be out of the picture for good when evidence of Liz’s foul play comes to light. But when Grey goes to Dex to talk–and possibly to confess his feelings–Detective Hoffman has beaten him to the punch. We’re left with Dex and Hoffman discussing their relationship, while Grey watches sadly from the sidelines.
And that’s it! It seems right for the show to enter its midseason finale on this love triangle, which despite its supposed procedural structure has really used the Dex-Grey-Hoffman will-they-won’t-they as its central propulsive force. We’ll have to wait until the new year to find out who will, who won’t, and who will get left behind.
