Veronica Mars is back, but there’s also a new PI in town that we think you’ll want to check out.
Cobie Smulders and the team behind her new show, Stumptown, came to SDCC to tell an eager audience about what they’ve been working on. The panel began with a clip of the show’s pilot episode cold open, which is the amazing car fight scene featured in the trailer at the bottom of this post. After that, the cast and creative team sat down with moderator Marc Andreyko to discuss what’s to come in Stumptown.
Cast members Cobie Smulders, Jake Johnson, Michael Ealy, Camryn Manheim, Cole Sibus, Tantoo Cardinal and Adrian Martinez were in attendance, along with executive producers David Bernard and Ruben Fleischer. The panel also included the creator of the Stumptown graphic novel series, Greg Rucka.
Greg Rucka started things off be expressing his passion for the series, calling it the “PI series that I wanted.” The show, like the graphic novels, follows Dex (Cobie Smulders), who’s become a private investigator after returning from her military work in Afghanistan with severe PTSD.
As the trailer suggests, Dex definitely doesn’t have it all together. It looks like Stumptown will be a series full of watching an awesome character trying to find her way through life, love, and some sticky PI situations.
We know we’re on board, but in case you’re not sure yet, here are some teases from Stumptown’s SDCC panel that will definitely make you want to investigate this show!
You’ll get to see Cobie Smulders kick ass in a whole new way
We’ve all seen Cobie Smulders as the iconic Maria Hill in the Marvel movies, but more often than not, as Smulders put it, she’s just “really good with a Bluetooth.”
“She has all the heroes on speed dial,” she joked. Dex is a different story entirely. “She’s not a superhero. She’s not really highly skilled, but she’s a scrapper,” Smulders said of her Stumptown character.
’Stumptown’ hopes to portray an accurate picture of PTSD
Dex is a character living with PTSD from Afghanistan, and the show is putting in the work to understand what that means.
“We had an expert who I talked to who deals with people who are ex-military coming out of these traumatic experiences and are going through it. I spoke with her and read a lot about women in combat,” Smulders said.
There could be a love triangle in the works
The panel teased a potential love triangle between Dex and the men played by Jake Johnson and Michael Ealy. While Johnson was pushing the love triangle angle hard, Ealy coyly said “I don’t know how much of a triangle it will be. There are things I can do that he just can’t do.”
So, it looks like it might be more of a case of jealousy on Grey’s (Jake Johnson) part at first, but that’s okay because according to Smulders, at the moment, Dex is “incapable of a long term relationship.”
’Stumptown’ seems like the perfect mix of procedural and serialized
Dex is a PI, so naturally she’ll be dealing with different cases as the show progresses. However, Stumptown won’t be leaning too heavily on the case-of-the-week format.
“It’s character driven with procedural elements,” David Bernad assured the SDCC audience.
’Stumptown’ will place an indigenous woman in a lead role and a position of power
Tantoo Cardinal was very excited to discuss her role in Stumptown, saying that after 50 years in the business, she was surprised that this character was being put in a series.
“How often do we get an indigenous woman in a principle role,” she said. “There are so many women in our communities that are powerful, that are leaders. It’s so exciting and I’m so honored to be able to sit here and bring Sue-Lynn Blackbird to your homes.”
Sue-Lynn Blackbird is the owner of a casino, and is the mother of Dex’s ex, whom her PTSD is linked to in some way. The moderator described her as the show’s “most powerful and scary character.”
Dex is a character with fluid sexuality
In the graphic novels, Dex has relationships with both men and women, and that will also be the case in the TV series. “She’s sexually fluid and is definitely attracted to women and men,” Smulders said. “It’s one of the things that drew me to this character.”
’Stumptown’ will feature the city of Portland as a character
Portland is a delightfully weird and unique city that definitely isn’t featured on TV enough, outside of the satirical Portlandia. Greg Rucka is actually from Portland, and said, “I have not seen Portland look like Portland on TV until I saw this.”
The writing staff has even subscribed to Portland’s newspaper, “The Oregonian,” so Dex could be solving some real life weird Portland crimes on Stumptown!
’Stumptown’ features a character and actor with Down syndrome
Cole Sibus will play Dex’s brother, Ansel, who is said to have a sweet relationship with Dex and Gray, and will likely be a great motivating force for both of their characters! We can’t wait to see him on screen.
Check out the trailer for Stumptown, starring Cobie Smulders here!
