The Stumptown premiere hooked us with its unique style, intriguing characters and quality drama.

Stumptown is based on the comic book series of the same name by Greg Rucka. The series follows Dex Parios, who is played by Cobie Smulders, as she stumbles her way through life in Portland, Oregon, after serving her country in Afghanistan.

Cobie Smulders, as always, is reason enough to watch the show. Dex is equipped with her special brand of snark and sarcasm, but is still distinctly different from the characters you’ve seen and loved the actress as before.

One of my favorite things about Smulders, as a performer, is that her characters are rarely the ones that I like the best, but they’re almost always the characters who I understand the best. It’s not that the actress, herself, is unlikable. Quite the opposite, in fact. She somehow pulls off the impossible task of being extraordinarily beautiful, oozing “cool,” and still coming off as relatable and unintimidating.

What makes her characters so deep, but also penetrable, is her ability to capture their intricacies and humanity. She delivers defects, strengths, motivations and reactions in such a way that nothing can hide behind the screen. She portrays characters in their fullness.

Luckily, Stumptown’s Dex Parios is no exception, and she gives Smulders a lot to work with. Dex’s life is a mess. She’s barely making ends meet for her and her brother, Ansel. She squanders the little money she does have away at the casino. She’s barely handling her severe PTSD, and she distracts herself from all of it with sex and alcohol.

The Stumptown description bills Dex as a P.I., but from the premiere, we can see that even that is something that she’s fallen into. She has the skills leftover from her work “finding” combatants in the war, but other than that, it seems like it’s a new and accidental endeavor.

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That being said, I can’t wait to see where Dex’s new life as a P.I. takes her, as the scenes of her chasing down Nina were my favorite of the episode. The work highlighted her intellect, the scrappiness that makes her someone to root for, and her huge heart. I absolutely loved how she trusted her instincts and kept fighting to save someone she cared about, and how in the end, she proved everyone wrong. She’s definitely an underdog, and I’m excited to see her rack up some more wins in Stumptown.

The show’s supporting characters are also interesting, although we didn’t get to explore them much in the Stumptown premiere. The hilarious Jake Johnson is channeling his inner Nick Miller, back behind the bar, playing Grey. I can already tell that Grey’s relationships with Ansel and Dex are going to be a highlight of the show for me, and I’m excited to see what’s to come with his obvious feelings for Dex.

Miles and Dex also have amazing chemistry, although I feel slightly robbed of at least a couple episodes of “will they, won’t they” action, because…they already did. Dex’s past with Sue Lynne is also fascinating, and I can’t wait to see those layers unfold.

As a show, Stumptown wasted absolutely no time letting people know exactly what it is. It’s criminals discussing the finer taste notes of coffee and singing along to Neil Diamond. It’s slow motion, high speed car chases. And most importantly, it’s Dex being a fighter.

The fight scenes in Stumptown are especially entertaining because they manage to capture the feeling of comic book panels. Strategic slow mo and close ups where most shows would cut to a wide shot keep you in the action and let you react to every punch and every other scrappy move that Dex throws in.

I’m already looking forward to the mixtape becoming a running joke and a part of the fabric of Stumptown. I’m desperate for more not-so-passive-aggressive meetings between Dex and Sue Lynne. In the Pilot, Stumptown has already reached a depth that indicates a great potential for both humor and drama.

I’ll admit that one of the reasons I was drawn to Stumptown was because of my obsession with Veronica Mars and the similarities between the two shows. For other fans of Veronica, parallels can definitely be drawn between the two heroines, in both their humor and the (often flawed) way in which they relate to other characters.

Just as Veronica Mars, and many other detective shows, are always best when the mysteries are close to stars of the series, it looks like Stumptown will be following the same formula. From the pilot, it’s obvious that Sue Lynne’s casino will serve as a backdrop for a lot of the drama in Stumptown. Dex’s personal connection to her family will definitely pack an extra punch into the season’s cases.

If there’s one thing I’m wary about with Stumptown, it’s the treatment of Dex’s sexuality. I’m slightly nervous that they’re going to play into a harmful trope that women who like sex must be broken, since it’s obvious that Dex uses it as a coping mechanism. However, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this, for now. Especially since Cobie Smulders has previously spoken about the character’s bisexuality, and many fans are excited to see that portrayed in the show.

Overall, Stumptown delivered a pilot that made me excited to come back for more, and a cast of characters who I can’t wait to know better. Fans of Veronica Mars, detective shows, Cobie Smulders, cool cinematography and great characters will definitely want to check it out!