Stumptown Review: Bad Alibis (Season 1 Episode 5)

Grey’s secrets come out on Stumptown Season 1 Episode 5, “Bad Alibis,” and it all feels a bit anti-climactic.

From the beginning, Stumptown has been building a story about Grey’s past coming back to haunt him, and on “Bad Alibis,” everything he’s been hiding and trying to protect Dex and Ansel from comes to a head in some of the worst possible ways.

This episode should feel a lot more intense than it does, but “Bad Alibis” is the first episode of the freshman series that falls kind of flat, lacking the life and spark of the first four.

There are two main problems with “Bad Alibis” and biggest is that it underutilizes the strengths of the series that make it engaging to watch in the first place.

Plot is not what makes Stumptown special. What makes it special is its style, its dialogue, and above all the character moments we get with Dex. All three of those things are lacking on “Bad Alibis” but none more so than Dex’s journey and development.

There are plenty of opportunities on “Bad Alibis” to explore Dex’s character and dig into her complexities in new ways, but, with the exception of when she punches Grey for putting Ansel in danger, those opportunities feel wasted.

The perfect example of this is that in this episode Dex gets her PI license after a final interview, but it’s more of an afterthought than anything else. This is such a big moment for Dex and it deserves more than lip service.

Dex isn’t in a place yet where any “ah ha” moments are called for in regards to being a PI. She probably doesn’t actually have a real answer as to why she wants to be a PI at this point.

That’s OK. In fact that is a really interesting part of her story.

The episode could benefit from more than one short interview scene with an equally under-utilized guest star, Janeane Garofalo, and the final scene where she gets her license that is more emotionally focused on her relationship with Grey than this big change in her life.  

The other issue with “Bad Alibis” is that what seems like the climax to the storyline about Grey’s past come too quickly. There’s barely been enough time to get invested in Grey himself let alone his past.

The writers may have more story to tell with this, and maybe the choice to move this story so fast will feel more satisfying down the road, but right now it feels rushed.

Dex doesn’t forgive Grey by the end of the episode, so even though it seems like she is already moving in that direction, there is more emotional fall out to explore between them.

That could very well justify the plot outpacing the emotional development, but within the confines of the episode itself there just isn’t enough to pull viewers in or feel invested in what’s happening with Grey’s story.

I don’t want to be to hard on “Bad Alibis.” It isn’t a bad episode; I even really liked all the time we get to spend with Ansel. “Bad Alibis” is still better than a lot of episodes of other shows; it just isn’t as interesting as the four proceeding episodes of this show.

What did you think of this episode of Stumptown? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Stumptown airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on ABC.

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