Stumptown is a comic book adaptation on ABC. Cobie Smulders stars. It’s my favorite new TV series and I have reasons!
Cobie Smulders has always been a favorite of mine since way, way back. In Stumptown she plays Dex Parios, a vet with PTSD. She’s hard-drinker and not exactly a 9 to 5 kind of gal. By episode 2 of the series she figures out that her drinking talents and fisticuffs talents are perfectly suited to being a P.I.
She’s quick and funny and smart. She’s plagued with flashbacks from her service and prone to using her fists to settle things. She’s a one-night-stand kind of woman and isn’t looking for love.
I like that she looks like a natural woman and not a perfectly made up and coiffed beauty.
This series is written by a man; two episodes in all the writers and directors have been male. Letting Cobie Smulders look like an ordinary human is not what you’d expect from the male gaze. She does fight as well as a man, however, a characteristic aimed at the male gaze.
Dex lives in Portland, Oregon. She looks after her brother Ansel (Cole Sibus). Sibus is a man with Down Syndrome and an excellent actor. I like that Sibus has a role in this series.
Her best friend is bar owner Grey (Jake Johnson), a fellow she hooked up with once years ago. It’s from a flashback with Grey that we learn that the lost love of Dex’s life was a woman. I like that the lead character in a new show is bisexual.
In further inclusive good news, the local casino owner Sue Lynn Blackbird is played by another favorite actor, Native woman Tantoo Cardinal.
Bisexual woman in the lead, inclusive casting – but there’s more.
Dex interacts with the local cops quite often. She does stir up a lot of trouble. Detective Miles Hoffman (Michael Ealy) and Lieutenant Cosgrove (Camryn Manheim) are further proof of perfect casting in this series.
Finally, I love Dex’s car. It’s an old beater with a cassette tape stuck in the tape deck. The tape plays an appropriate song for every scene. It makes the car into a character.
Are you watching Stumptown? What do you think of it?
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I’m impressed so far. Too often something is seriously lost in the translation between book and screen. The serious is definitely less dark and seriopus than the books, but not disasterously so. Smulders is certainly not who I would picture as Dex, but she is doing a great job with the material as presented. The tone of the show is significantly lighter and goofier than the books, but doesn’t shy away from the heavier topics both and treats them with the gravity they deserve. I think they show could stand to draw the cases out a bit more across multiple episodes, adding depth and tension to the stories instead of the case-a-week format that can easily become formulaic. But, two episodes in I am enjoying it so far.
Slight correction: The woman she mentions dating was not the love of her life, just a criminal she dated, mentioned to let Gray know she doesn’t hold his past against him. The love of her life who died in Afghanistan was Benny, the son of the casino boss in the first episode.
Thanks for the comment, thanks for the background info, and thanks for the correction. Now that you say it, I remember it!
Just for fun, who would be less girl next door and a bit darker for Dex if Cobie Smulders hadn’t gotten the part?
Honestly, I’m not sure who I would cast for the character. Preferably an unknown, someone a bit stockier and a bit more grizzled, someone more believable as a soldier. Smulders has done a good job so far, I am not putting down her performance in any way, she’s just no who I would have pictured in the role.
Lol. You got out of that smoothly.
loving it so far. but i think i’d watch all of these actors in just about anything.
That’s a big part of the attraction for me too.
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