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The third episode of ABCs private-eye dramaStumptownshows the lead character, Dex Parios, lost in a daydream.
Her new mentor, Artie (Donal Logue), is on the cover.
Suddenly funk music plays, and Dex imagines the two of them living out a 1970s detective show.
The tires squeal on aStarsky & Hutchmuscle car, disco plays, and the clothing is straight out ofColumbo.
The car chases and wide lapels promise some good-natured entertainment.
But by the end of the episode, Dex will learn that folksy Artie is actually a corrupt cynic.
Hes screwing over his own client, a single mother, selling evidence to the man who abused her.
A furious Dex goes to the clients house and promises vengeance: Theyre arrogant sons of bitches.
And they dont know that women like us have been fighting our entire lives for everything.
Its a powerful scene, and it landsStumptownsquarely in the present day.
Television detective shows are like the nation itself, taking on new identities and morphing to meet cultural upheavals.
Women watchingStumptown, women who live in that storm, see their feelings and experiences on the screen.
Stumptowndepicts injustice and its fallout with considerable nuance.
Some characters are unambiguously immoral, but most are multidimensional.
The shows tone is wry and wistful, the pursuit of justice balanced between pathos and ridicule.
Air Supplys All Out Of Love serenades Dex and Artie on an evidence-gathering expedition gone alarmingly wrong.
The show is both madcap and serious not an easy balance to achieve.
The series includes definite throwbacks to that heyday of TV detectives, butStumptownis also quite modern.
On television as in the real world, women are in the drivers seat of the fight against injustice.
