What lines are you willing to cross? 

Dex was learning just where she draws her own lines on Stumptown Season 1 Episode 7 during her latest case. Unfortunately for Dex, having a moral compass isn't always profitable.  

Read on through our review as we discuss just what Dex's conscious cost her and make sure to catch up and watch Stumptown online at TV Fanatic! 

Dex Parois: The P.I. with heart. 

Dex may come off hard with her rough exterior, but if there is one thing for sure, it is that, just like another one of our favorite P.I.'s Veronica Mars, she is a marshmallow at her core. 

It was clear from the moment that Dex met Vanessa that working within the realm of politics was not going to be Dex's cup of tea.

Dex vastly underestimated Councilman Dan, though. 

In Dex's eyes, all politicians are evil and crooked.

She didn't take into consideration that there may be politicians out there like Dan, who can genuinely make a difference. She also didn't think about the fact that, by taking down a politician, there could be collateral damage. 

The secret that Dan fathered a child in his younger years during a consensual, albeit inappropriate, relationship with a female student may not be the most scandalous secret given our current political climate.

However, it would have been enough to leave a question mark in the eyes of his voters. 

With the amount of access to information that voters have these days, an open and honest candidate is something that voters value.

Discovering he was once a closeted adult when he is running on the "being yourself" platform shakes his credibility as a candidate. 

Unfortunately for Dan, though, he will never find out if he would have bounced back from the revelation. 

It says a lot about Dan as a person that he was willing to step away from his campaign to protect a son that he never met, and to be honest, had no proof was his. 

It almost felt like the resolution to this episode was in fast forward. While it was clear that the writers wanted to allow room for Dex to make her decision on how to handle the situation, it didn't allow time for the end to progress in a way that felt authentic.

Dex reveals the truth to Dan, tells Dan her plan on how to solve it, and Dan drops out of the race, all within about 5 minutes of screen time.

Was Dan willing to derail his whole political career over one woman he barely knows, who just admitted she had been hired by the competition, telling him he has a son he never knew about? 

Wouldn't he want to get a DNA test before throwing his whole future down the toilet? 

I understand that they were under a time crunch, but if I were him I would have at least wanted to talk to Emma about it directly. 

Stumptown has excelled in the past when storylines, including the case of the week, got the room they needed to breathe.

During Stumptown Season 1 Episode 3 and Stumptown Season 1 Episode 4 we got to watch the Randall case progress over the span of two episodes in a way that felt natural.

If the writers had attempted to squeeze the entire case into one episode it would have come across as forced and contrived in the way that the conclusion to this case felt. 

Not every case is going to need a multiple-episode arc, but it is okay if they do. Viewers are not going to lose interest in the show if a case gets spread over multiple weeks.

In fact, it could make viewers more invested and would set Stumptown apart from other procedural dramas.

Even the B storyline felt rushed, which isn't typically the case for Stumptown. 

While promos for shows are often misleading, I was very excited by the prospect of the awkward Friendsgiving that the promo promised. 

What we got instead were two minutes of witty one-liners exchanged between Grey and Dex with thinly-veiled jealousy before fading out to the credits. 

Grey: She is perfect, right?
Dex: I don't know. She seems like really happy.
Grey: What?
Dex: Is she okay, like, mentally?

• Permalink: Is she okay, like, mentally?

With a cast that has such incredible chemistry, I could have watched a whole episode centered around them stuck at Friendsgiving together.

What Friendsgiving, and the episode in general, did show is that Dex is not a fan of sharing. 

Every time Liz was in her presence, you would have thought that Dex got handed the most offensive insult known to man. Liz could not breathe in the same room as Dex without Dex sahing something about it. 

Dex has spent so long with Grey pining away over her and devoting his life to her and Ansel that it seems she doesn't know what to do when she isn't the only woman in his life. 

Whether or not that is because Dex has feelings for Grey or just because she doesn't want to lose her best friend is something we can debate about in the comment section, but either way, Dex is not coping with the situation well. 

The main issue with Dex's jealousy and misdirected anger towards Liz is that she has a double standard for herself and Grey. 

Dex is allowed to date Hoffman and invited him to Friendsgiving, and it wasn't an issue in her eyes, but the second that Grey does something similar there was a problem. 

The issue is only going to get worse as time goes on, and it isn't going to be long before Dex ends up investigating Liz. 

If you kept up with the comments on my review of Stumptown Season 1 Episode 6, you know that I think that there is something not right about Liz. 

Grey may think that she is perfect, but it is as if she is too good to be true in a way that comes off as highly suspicious.

If there is something not right about her, Dex will be the one to find out and take it to Grey.

With how much disdain Dex has already shown for Liz, Grey will take it as just another act of anger from Dex, and it will drive them further apart until Grey sees the truth himself. 

Other thoughts:

• Where has Dex's car gone? It and its impeccable DJ skills for any given situation are very missed.
   
• What was with the uncomfortable pat on the shoulder that Dex was trying on for size this week?
   
• Hoffman seemed to have a lot that he wasn't saying when Dex passive-aggressively insulted Liz at Friendsgiving. Will Hoffman be able to get past the Grey, and Dex tension or will it drive a wedge between him and Dex? 
   
• It is great that Dex puts the good of people ahead of her own needs, but how long can she afford to do free work because she has a crisis of conscious? 

What did you think of this episode?

It's time to get the conversation about Stumptown started again.

Comment your thoughts! 

Meaghan Frey was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in September 2020.