Stumptown Star Drops Bombshell: Ill-Fated Season 2 Would’ve Featured New Love Interest for Cobie Smulders ‘Every Single Episode’
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File under: What Would’ve Happened Next.
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Three years after ABC renewed, then un-renewed, Stumptown, series star Jake Johnson is revealing that Season 2 of the Cobie Smulders P.I. drama would’ve looked like a “totally different show” under the stewardship of new co-showrunner Monica Owusu-Breen (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fringe) and a completely overhauled writers’ room.
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“It was going to be a totally different show in a very exciting way,” Johnson, who played ex-con Grey McConnell, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Everything was building. Every single episode [would have had] a new love interest for Cobie [Smulders’ character Dex], kissing and fight scenes every week,” which probably would’ve spelled doom for the love triangle between Dex, Grey and Miles (played by Michael Ealy).
Cancelled Shows: What Would’ve Happened Next
In the Season 1 finale, which aired in March 2020, Ansel opened his front door to reveal his long-estranged mother, whose appearance stunned older sister Dex. It was then that the episode cut to black, before viewers got a peek at Mama Parios, who would’ve been formally introduced in Season 2.
At the time, series creator Jason Richman told TVLine that the introduction of Dex and Ansel’s mother would’ve eventually led to their father, too. “Mom leads to Dad in a way that’s kind of circuitous,” he teased. “It gives [us] this deep-rooted, compelling storyline [for] Season 2.”
Alas, COVID delays made a second season cost-prohibitive, and ABC cancelled Stumptown in September 2020. “I get word that the amount of COVID testing they need to do is wild,” Johnson recalls. “They have no idea how to do any of it with social distancing. So we got a very honest call where they just tell us that the cost of COVID made it so high that we’d need like Seinfeld-in-the-’90s success to justify making Season 2.”
Are you still upset about Stumptown‘s cancellation — more so now that you’ve read what Johnson revealed about Season 2? Sound off in Comments.
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