How Did the ‘Stumptown’ Finale Set up a Season 2?
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Stumptown, “All Hands on Dex.”]
Dex (Cobie Smulders) may have figured out what really happened to Benny in the Stumptown Season 1 finale, but “All Hands on Dex” ended on quite the cliffhanger.
And by the end of it, we — and the characters — were left wondering what comes next.
Who killed Benny?
The feds printed a whole lot of cash to help rebuild Afghanistan and pay off warlords and politicians, and in 2006, $10 million was stolen. Benny’s unit was responsible, and he was going to blow the whistle.
The men in his unit were being killed off in the present, and Dex thought the staff sergeant at the time was going to be the next target — only for him to shoot at her and Grey. “It was him or me,” he insisted. What followed was a brutal fight in the woods, which ended with her shooting him (using Sue Lynn’s gun).
(ABC/Eric McCandless)
Are Miles’ days as a cop over?
Miles (Michael Ealy) was torn between his job and Dex when she was the prime suspect for murder in the finale. Due to his actions, he was facing disciplinary action (suspension without pay and a review). But he instead handed in his badge to Lieutenant Cosgrove (Camryn Manheim).
“I just didn’t want her to go down after all she had been through,” he explained. “So I helped her, by not helping you. And in the process I betrayed my badge and I betrayed Dex.”
While Cosgrove insisted he was a good job, he disagreed. “I wasn’t on this one,” he said, and he told her to hold onto his badge. “I need some time to figure out what I am.”
What could that mean for Miles in a potential second season? Could he work alongside Dex on some of her cases?
Bad news about Grey’s father
Grey’s father Michael (Matt Craven) had ostensibly changed and was a good family man. Sure, he missed out on plans that they made, but he was seemingly trying to make up for it … only for Grey (Jake Johnson) to learn that he was probably wrong to hope.
(ABC/Eric McCandless)
While recovering from a gunshot wound he sustained helping Dex during her investigation, Grey received a visit from his “father.” However, the man who entered his hospital room was a stranger, also looking for Michael.
“He was in town. He did a job for us, and he took some things that did not belong to him,” the man explained. “Now he’s in the wind.” Whether or not Grey knew anything about it wasn’t important. “But you’re going to help us find him.”
Uh-oh, what has Michael gotten himself into? And how is this going to affect Grey — and those in his life like Dex and Ansel (Cole Sibus) as we saw earlier in the season — going forward?
A bombshell at Dex’s door
Like Miles, Dex, too, ended the season not knowing who exactly she is. “For 12 years, this whole thing defined me,” she told Sue Lynn (Tantoo Cardinal) about Benny at his grave.
But that may have to take a backseat — or rather, it may be coming up at just the right time — because a surprise visitor came knocking at her and Ansel’s door in the last moments of the finale. “Mom?” Dex asked the person standing on the other side of the door in surprise. (We didn’t see her mother, likely because that role hasn’t been cast.)
(ABC/John Fleenor)
As we already knew, Dex’s parents took off when she was overseas and left Ansel alone in a home. “Whenever I think about them leaving us, I just want to smash something,” she admitted to Grey. Dex hoped that talking to her aunt in Episode 15 would yield some clues, but sadly, her aunt was suffering from dementia.
“I told you it wasn’t right,” Maribel said, thinking she was talking to her sister. She last spoke with her the night she and Dex’s father left, but she has no idea where they went. “You said you had to leave and you couldn’t come back.”
As Grey pointed out, people bail for many reasons, and none of them are good. If there is a second season, we’ll likely find out just what Dex’s parents’ reason was.
Let’s hope we get that chance.
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