Stumptown: At the beginning of the network season, I'd have said this was my favorite new series. That first episode, the rare good pilot, seemed to be aiming for "Spenser: For Hire, if it were written by the Coen Bros, and if Spenser was a woman with PTSD and a little brother to take care of." It had a weird sense of humor and well-choreographed fight scenes featuring characters who didn't really know how to fight and car chases with people who weren't very good drivers. But then it seemed to lose its nerve and turned into a much more generic private detective show. The episodes with Dex being a P.I. have been the real yawners, while the episodes featuring the supporting characters have been the most fun. Ansel and Tookie are a great pair. Gray and the car thieves was kind of fun. I liked Max; I didn't like Inbar Lavi much in Lucifer - she plays Eve - but I did like her here. The show seems to start to do something and then chicken out a lot. When Dex partied with Gray's girlfriend, for example. Total wimpout. Max and Gray. Wimpout. Dex and her Army girlfriend. Probable wimpout, I'm assuming, we'll see. Y'know, now that I'm thinking about it, the writers have a pattern of setting up these dangerous women, threatening to throw a monkey wrench in Our Heroes' lives, and then chickening out and writing them off the show before they do too much damage. Boo, I say. Boooo. I am starting to come around to the idea that it's alright if the main character is the least interesting character. That can work. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was like that, for me, where the main character was sort of there for the nuttier supporting cast to orbit around. Cobie Smulders hasn't wowed me, but Sarah Michelle Geller never really wowed me either, and I watched that show almost from beginning to end. Dancing around the edges of Dex's PTSD is working for me, too. I'm glad they don't just bonk us over the head with it. I think there's a couple episodes left. I wouldn't be furious if it got canceled, but I think it's still got some potential, if the writers can just let their freak flags fly.
