Jake Johnson joins ABC’s Stumptown cast to possibly will-they/won’t-they with Cobie Smulders

While Jake Johnson turned in an exemplary vocal performance in Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (and will offer another one in the upcoming Netflix animated series Hoops), he hasn’t been seen on TV in a regular series since New Girl wrapped up about a year ago. But Johnson’s downtime appears to be over. Deadline announces that the Evanston native/Joe Swanberg favorite will replace Mark Webber as Grey in the upcoming ABC series Stumptown.

Based on a graphic novel series by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth, the series stars Cobie Smulders as Dex Parios, a private detective who focuses on aiding people with problems that the police can’t solve. Dex is a “a strong, assertive and sharp-witted Army veteran with a complicated love life, gambling debt and a brother to take care of in Portland,” Deadline describes. “While her military intelligence skills make her a great PI, but her unapologetic style puts her in the firing line of hardcore criminals and not quite in alliance with the police.”

We’re guessing that Jackson’s role will contribute to that complicated romantic life, as he’s playing Dex’s “best friend, though the two have unresolved feelings that run deeper,” says Deadline, and we all know how that’s going to play out. Coincidentally, Grey also owns and operates a bar, just like Johnson’s New Girl character Nick Miller. So Stumptown looks to be just like New Girl, if Jess was a renegade detective/gambling addict. We’ll find out for sure when the series debuts on ABC this fall.