Alright Dicks–we’re back with more thoughts and feelings about the various stumpers of ABC’s Stumptown
Now, the title this week, “Rip City Dicks,” already sparks a ton of questions, not all of which are strictly of the “safe for work” variety. Rather than speculate–an act which would surely cause me to break down into an endless series of giggles and be unable to wrap this review–let’s just dive right in and Rip up some City Dicks, shall we?
(Ok, fine, Dicks probably means, like, detectives or something, just let me have my fun ok?)
(Oh, also, spoilers ahead.)
1. Previously On…
Where last we left our heroine and her allies, there’d been a muuuuuurder (*twirls mustache*) in Stumptown–Jack, a criminal ne’er-do-well who has a history with Dex’s best friend Grey, was found dead in a ditch. It’s an interesting wrinkle that–as I noted last week–puts Grey on a collision course with Dex’s new fling Detective Hoffman.
As for our heroine, Dex has just decided that, after spending the last episode repeatedly screwing up and getting beaten up, perhaps a bit of formal training and a PI license would be more of an asset than just pure instinct. Whodathunkit?
So we open the episode with Dex meeting up with Mr. Artie Banks (Donal Logue). Dex needs to rack up some on-the-job hours to get her PI license, so she turns to Banks, asking him to let her do a job shadow in exchange for a cut of her future profits. In a bit of fun, genre-goodness, Banks is introduced via Dex’s Miami Vice-style dream montage, where she imagines the two of them as partners, sliding over car hoods and kicking in the teeth of the big-collared baddies.
Banks, of course, immediately undercuts that dream, rejecting her offer straight out and slamming the door in her face.
2. The Job
Donal Logue’s Banks is a veteran detective, which makes TV veteran Logue a bit of inspired casting. Comic TV fans will recognize him as Harvey Bullock on Gotham, and Logue is channelling some of that same energy here. He adds just the right bit of sliminess and smarminess to his character so that he doesn’t feel like he’s overplaying the role, and, most importantly, it seems like he’s having fun with the part. He’s got good one liners–“You know this isn’t a real car, it’s a golf cart, with doors”–and even though it’s not the nature of a procedural, I found myself hoping he’d stick around beyond this episode.
Banks agrees to take Dex on as an apprentice, and she accompanies him on the episode’s case-of-the-week. They’re tasked with digging up dirt on a woman’s soon-to-be-ex-husband to help her keep her child in the divorce settlement. He shockingly does not like being investigated by two PIs, and soon they find themselves in a bit of danger related to the case (or so they think).
3. Hoffman v. Grey
Hoffman continues to follow the trail of Jack’s killer, which brings more of Grey’s past misdeeds to light. Grey’s old buddy has squandered his half of the money they stole from a crime boss, leaving him dead and Grey on the hook for the whole total. Grey plays dumb for awhile, but Hoffman manages to piece together most of what’s going on on his own.
Well, with a little help from a cagey Dex. I’m not super into the Dex-Hoffman budding romance–something about their chemistry isn’t working for me–but the episode interestingly has each of them trying to slyly pump the other for information about their current case. I expected the tension of Hoffman investigating Grey to be dragged out longer over the season, but I’m interested to see how this plotline plays out now that the cards are mostly on the table.
4. The Portland of it All
This is the first episode of the series so far where I could really feel the influence of Stumptown the city on Stumptown the show. Unfortunately, the city comes off more like someone looking down their nose at them hip millenials and their woke vibes than it does a realistic depiction of life in Portland. I get that Portland can be hippie-dippy, but a feminist madame delivering the line, “Your patriarchal bullshit is killing my vibe,” is a bit…over the top.
Continued belowApparently Rip City is yet another nickname for Portland, which frankly seems a bit unfair. No one city should have all those nicknames, y’know? Spread some of the nickname love around. We get our required “someone says the name of the episode” courtesy of Banks, who playfully calls himself and Dex the “Rip City Dicks,” implying they’re on their way to becoming the dynamic duo we saw in the opening scene. Alas, it’s not to be.
5. Wrap-Up
The episode’s framing keys us in early to the fact that Banks might not exactly be trustworthy–it stops just short of having a character turn to the camera and drop a The Prestige-y “are you watching closely?”–so it isn’t exactly surprising when he turns out to be kind of a crook. He manipulates Dex throughout their investigation, asking her to open up about her relationship with her father, lying about pieces of his own backstory, and slowly gaining her trust.
Unfortunately for Dex, we learn that the man threatening their lives isn’t related to their current case, it’s a disgruntled ex-client of Banks who exposes Banks’s con: selling the evidence he digs up back to his rich marks for top dollar. Dex realizes this too late, after Banks has already sold the video they found to the abusive ex-husband.
In a pleasant surprise, the episode ends with Dex vowing to go to war with Banks over his double-cross, with the next episode promising a Dex v. Banks smackdown. More Logue is certainly welcome, and I like how this show continues to surprise me even while it plays by a lot of familiar trope-y beats. In its third episode, the show has entered into a fun mix of case-of-the-week antics and season-long storytelling, where even the cases themselves haven’t felt fully contained to their episodes. I dig it!
