Stumptown: Rip City Dicks

October 9, 2019 8:07 PM - Season 1, Episode 3

In hopes of becoming a certified private investigator, Dex seeks mentorship from veteran PI Artie Banks; and Hoffman grows suspicious of Grey after evidence proves that he has a connection to a victim in his case.
posted by oh yeah! (7 comments total)

Dex strikes up an apprenticeship with a celebrated local P.I. Of course, it's not all perfect hair and supermodel poses for the camera. With Artie Banks, it's more like multiple near-death experiences and being treated like a mushroom -- knee-deep in shit and kept in the dark.

We get more of Grey's background, more Hoffman (yes, please!) Lieutenant Cosgrove puts in more hours as the wise but jaded supervisor. Sue Lynn Blackbird (Tantoo Cardinal) checks out Dex's apartment for the first time ("I'm not surprised." "You have an interesting way of throwing shade.")

And we get more versions of the haunted indestructible eight-track in Dex's 1992 Ford Mustang GT. Very pleased with the bold stroke usage of Chaka Khan's "Power."
Qu: I have no car-fu. A post on IMDB.com is all over the fact that this is not an "authentic" GT -- this model is actually a hatchback with no trunk, where are the 5.0 badges that are supposed to be on the front fenders, etc. Apparently one viewer is righteously miffed about this. Huh.

Anyway... the running theme so far in the cases (there are cases, this is a detective series) is that people are devious and what you see is not always what you get. Or as Banks says in a parting shot, "The one thing that is holding you back at being a fantastic detective? You really care."
posted by TrishaU at 3:28 AM on October 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

And, per IMDB.com's trivia section, graphic novelist Greg Rucka did give her the name Dexedrine Callisto Parios in the nineteen issue limited comic book series. Banks made liberal use of her name, just in case we weren't listening the first time he mentioned it as part of his apprenticeship interview.
Which doesn't foreshadow a long-term Yoda/Skywalker relationship.
posted by TrishaU at 3:42 AM on October 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

Even if Artie brought the video to Tapper instead of the client, wouldn't the other woman still have it? The show was acting as if it only existed on that one phone, but it's not like she would have given them the video by handing her phone over to the PI's, she would have just forwarded them the video file. I guess maybe they meant to imply that by showing/giving it to Tapper he'd be forewarned to institute a cover-up, but, it still seems like that would leave a trail of evidence that could be used against him, and that Dex could get another copy of the video right when she figured out Artie was going to pull the double-cross.

Loved the Rip City Dicks daydream-1970s-opening-credit-montage though, that was awesome.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:33 AM on October 10, 2019 [5 favorites]

I've been loving this, and was completely unspoiled for the presence of Donal Logue as the PI mentor. I loved Terriers, which meant I was already prepped for him being the slightly skeezy and questionably moral mentor figure. So even though there were hints that he was was even less upstanding than he appeared (there was no way the Chaka Khan story was real, I was thinking he would make even more money going with the rich guy than the poorer girl), I was ready to accept this as a longer partnership.

As much as Stumptown feels like a boilerplate Detective/PI show (and I love those! there is nothing wrong with those!), I appreciate how they're still poking some holes in audience expectations - even without Donal Logue, the grizzled mentor that talks a good game but secretly has a heart of gold (especially with a younger female partner) is such a standard trope that we can be given multiple pieces of evidence that Artie Banks is 100% about the money, 0% about the girl, a manipulator, and a liar, and feel like they're actually not going to be that bad, we can trust them.

I'm totally here for Dex as avenger mini-arc, not in the least because I don't actually know if she'd be successful at taking down Banks - or even if she is, whether or not it will achieve what she actually wants.

I love that Sue Lynn Blackbird came back, I hope we see more of her throughout the season.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:35 AM on October 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

Glass truther here - there's no way that he leaves a 14,000$ piece of art right next to a door that people can barge through. My money is on a 50$ Wal-Mart thing that he leaves there for people to smash. His reaction to Dex smashing it was underwhelming, to say the least, more like "Great, now I have to go buy another one".
posted by Mogur at 8:27 AM on October 14, 2019 [3 favorites]

I am really liking this show so far. It's not a masterpiece, and that's OK. Also, as a Gen-X'er who was an adult in 1992, Dex's mustang definitely has a cassette player, not an eight-track, as stated earlier. Minor quibbles, though. I am surprised at how good these three episodes are so far, and how interested I am to see the rest.
posted by seasparrow at 1:14 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

Does the GT get its own thread? Not that I care, but still....
posted by TrishaU at 1:36 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]