Dexter, "The Getaway": I want to break free

A review of the "Dexter" season four finale coming up just as soon as you give me all your jewelry...

"This Dark Passenger is ruining my life." -Dexter
"It is your life." -Harry
"I don't want it to be." -Dexter

Whatever issues I've had with "Dexter" season 4, or with the series as a whole in recent years, I have to say that "The Getaway" was the show's strongest finale since season one, and possibly ever. (Been a while since I watched Brian go bye-bye, so I can't compare right now.) Michael C. Hall was as good as he's been on the series at showing a Dexter seriously questioning the path Harry put him on, and wanting desperately to be a real boy, and Jennifer Carpenter continued her recent strong work as Deb found out (some of) the truth about her adopted brother. And if Trinity wound up plastic-wrapped to a table like we all assumed he would be, at least he left a shocking surprise behind with Rita's murder.

As Myles McNutt points out, they lifted the Rita idea from the end of "24" season one, but I didn't see it coming, and I'm glad the writers had the guts to get rid of Rita, a character who's been offering diminishing returns for several seasons now.

I'm not sure I'm off the "'Dexter' should have ended after season two" train, but I'm at least curious to see where they go from here, and if Rita's death will have permanent ramifications (other than making Dex a widower), or if it will wind up being an excuse to again justify the status quo. (Dexter could easily say that if it's his fate to be covered in blood, and to have those he loves suffer the same fate, who is he to fight it?)

After all, Deb only got so close to Dexter's secret and no closer, and Trinity still got chopped up and thrown off of Dexter's boat. "Dexter" is still Showtime's biggest hit, so I don't think it's in anyone's financial interest to radically alter the series, or take steps to bring it closer to an ending.

But if season five finds Dexter to be a genuinely changed man - still a killer, obviously, because no one wants to watch a one-hour drama about a socially awkward blood spatter expert who's only a single dad when he leaves work, but changed in how he relates to the world, and to his need to kill - then I'll be pleased. And if not, at least season four was a big improvement on season three, and had a better ending than season two.

What did everybody else think?

Dexter, "Hello, Dexter Morgan": Dexter the dunce

I'm of two minds about tonight's "Dexter." On the one hand, Jennifer Carpenter continues her strong work this season, and the final sequence was one of the more exciting cat-and-mouse moments the show has done. On the other hand, to get to that moment, Dexter has to get an IQ transplant from Peter Petrelli for most of the episode.

Hopefully, it all leads to a finale that doesn't end the exact way we all assume that it will.

What did everybody else think?

Dexter, "Lost Boys": Correcting a mistake?

Spoilers for last night's "Dexter" coming up just as soon as I remind you that "Project Runway" is on...

Okay, here's my issue with "Lost Boys" (which is more of an issue with the series as a whole): in previous years, the show made it clear that Dexter didn't kill bad guys because he was worried about their victims, but because he had a need to kill, and Harry had drilled it into him that these were the only people he could/should kill. That he was saving other people's lives was a byproduct, but one that meant little or nothing to him. This point was made most explicitly in season two's "An Inconvenient Lie," when Dexter didn't really want to alter his killing timetable even if it meant he would stop the evil car salesman from claiming another victim. So seeing him so torn up about saving the little boy didn't ring true to me, even though part of Dexter's inner struggle was the realization that this killing would be his fault for having foiled Arthur's suicide attempt.

"An Inconvenient Lie" was also notable for giving Frank Lundy (RIP) a speech that tore to shreds any attempt by Dexter - or the audience - to justify his murders as some kind of social good, back in a time when the series viewed Dexter with a lot more moral ambiguity than it does now.

These days, the show is mainly interested in pitting Dexter against other killers so despicable that the audience won't have any compunction about seeing our man put them down. Every time the writers introduce the idea of Dexter killing outside The Code of Harry, they quickly dance away from the implications of that and distract Dexter and us with that season's big bad.

On the one hand, I don't want my TV characters to remain stagnant. So the idea of a Dexter who's growing - who's more aware that he has emotions, who can form attachments to people like Rita and her kids, who feels empathy for his target's victims - could, in theory, be really interesting. But in practice, it mainly feels like part of the ongoing attempt to make Dexter into a more palatable serial killer, so Showtime can justify keeping their biggest hit around for many more years to come.

So as good as Michael C. Hall and John Lithgow have been this year, I find it harder and harder to care about what's happening on the show - which is why I wanted to stop reviewing it in the first place.

Talk about it if you want, and maybe next week I'll just do an open discussion thread and save myself the aggravation.

What did everybody else think?

Dexter, "Hungry Man": Turkey for me, and a turkey for you

There's been clamor for a place to keep the "Dexter" discussion going, and I'm not made of stone. So as soon as I'm done watching an episode (as I did with "Hungry Man" a few minutes ago), I'll do a post that at least gives you guys the opportunity to talk about it. All I have to say is that the Lithgow/Hall portions of the episode were very strong this week, but most of the other stuff - particularly the final scene - was as silly and/or boring as usual. (I make an exception for the Masuka scenes, though. Masuka with normal people/children=genius.)

Fire away, guys.

Dexter, "Dirty Harry": The family man

Some quick, belated thoughts on Sunday night's "Dexter" - as well as an explanation for why it's leaving the blog rotation for a while - coming up just as soon as I hear from my landlord...

"Dirty Harry" had a strong beginning, with Dexter forcing his way into the crime scene to see if Deb was okay, and a strong ending, with Dexter stalking Trinity and discovering he's not the only successful serial killer with a wife and kids back home. And that ending promises to create a nice moral dilemma for Dexter, who wants vengeance for his sister (and, to a lesser extent, for Lundy, whom he liked as much as he's capable of liking anyone), but who's also going to want to learn how Trinity has compartmentalized his life for all these years.

In between though, the only part that was engaging at all was Deb's meltdown in the parking lot, with too much time spent on nagging Rita, or the boring supporting characters.

After my review of last week's episode, a reader suggested that I should perhaps give "Dexter" the That's It For Me! treatment, since it had been so long since it seemed like I enjoyed an episode unreservedly. And while I'm not ready to give up on watching it, I think I might be ready to treat it the same way I've been treating "Grey's Anatomy"(*) this year: watching but not blogging, so that I can enjoy the parts I still like and not dwell on the other parts that annoy me.

(*) And in what other way would I ever be able to discuss "Dexter" and "Grey's" in the same sentence? Maybe for a story about shows that rely too much at times on voiceover narration?

And, on the odd occasion when an episode is really strong (like last week's "Rashomon"-style "Grey's"), I'll pop back in and do a blog post. Because at the moment, writing this stuff is as fun for me as I imagine it is for you to read.

What did everybody else think?

Dexter, "Dex Takes a Holiday": When Frank met Trinity

Quick spoilers for tonight's "Dexter" coming up just as soon as I fix the disposal...

As I've mentioned, when I was taking notes on this particular episode, I jotted down the thought, "I care so much more about Lundy than I do at Dexter at this point." So with him apparently bleeding out(*) at the hands of Trinity, I'm not sure how much more invested I'm going to be in the rest of this season.

(*) Let me once again remind you that talking about the previews qualifies as violating the No Spoilers rule, so if Lundy was shown to be alive, or dead, in the previews for next week's episode, I don't wanna hear about it.

Keith Carradine was great, as was John Lithgow, and the moment where the two crossed paths was as tense as it was designed to be, especially since both of them realized on some level who the other one was.

But the stuff with the regular characters? Blah, at best. Not only do we have to keep suffering through Batista/Laguerta, but now Quinn and the reporter's relationship gets more screen time. It's as if the writers, having halved the number of boring Angel and Maria relationship scenes by putting the two of them together, had to scramble to fill that space with a second boring romance involving a character we care even less about.

Dexter got to go on the hunt, and be scolded by Harry's ghost again about the limits of married life. But there's a rote quality to his kills at this point, as if we're just marking time until his path crosses with Trinity's.

Also, because this is the last episode I've seen in advance, the episode five review will be later (and, unless there's a big improvement, shorter) than usual.

What did everybody else think?

Dexter, "Blinded by the Light": Won't you be my neighbor?

Quick spoilers for tonight's "Dexter" coming up just as soon as I play my Best of Bananarama tape...

Still not feeling all that inspired by the non-Lundy/Trinity portions of the season, but at least there was more of those two in this one, as we start to get a sense of how Trinity operates, and as Lundy gets into the heads of both Deb and Dexter. I like how ambiguously Keith Carradine plays Lundy's scenes with Dexter, so that it seems like he's always one Dexter misstep away from realizing what our man is all about, even though (for now) he's focused 100% on Trinity.

As for Dex's adventures with the neighborhood watch, it continues the defanging of the character: Oh, that wacky serial killer! He can't even sneak around his own neighborhood!" That said, I did like his problems with Astor, in that it's a reminder of how much Dexter is faking his emotional interactions with the world. He was great with kids, where the emotions are broader and easier to both understand and pretend to reciprocate, but teenagers are so hard to read - more volatile, and with more emotional gradations, than most adults. So it was at least vaguely interesting to see an unexpected complication to his life as Daddy Dexter.

But when the most memorable part of a storyline with the main character is Masuka's hilariously pimped-out truck, that ain't good.

What did everybody else think?

Dexter, "Remains to Be Seen": Wake up to clean up

I'm too swamped this weekend to go very deep into tonight's "Dexter," except to say that I don't think the show functions very well as a straight mystery, and that "Remains to Be Seen" was therefore the weakest of the four episodes I got to see before the season began.

What did everybody else think?

Dexter, "Living the Dream": Family guy

"Dexter" season four premiered tonight, and after the jump, I'm going to offer some spoiler-minimal thoughts on why I'm probably not going to be writing as much about the new season as I did in years past, followed (with fair warning) by a few specific thoughts about the premiere itself. All that coming up just as soon as I TiVo Jon Stewart...

I've seen the first four episodes of this season, and while they're definitely an improvement over season three, they weren't enough to shake me of my belief that this isn't a show that should be having a fourth season. The longer "Dexter" is on, the more diluted the concept feels, and the cuddlier he becomes. Dexter as reluctant husband and father leads to some funny moments in the premiere, and in the other episodes I've seen. But it also keeps sanding off the character's edge, in the same way the writers did by making Miguel Prado(*) a monster whose crimes pre-dated his involvement with Dexter, and who had become so loathsome that even his estranged wife wasn't upset he was dead. A Dexter who kills a once-decent guy whose soul he destroyed is morally gray; a Dexter who puts down this mad dog is a hero. Similarly, Dexter wanting to maintain his secret identity to avoid hurting his new family and "killing for two now" makes him seem a bit more noble, and the audience more complicit in wanting him to stay free.

(*) And I couldn't help noticing how far we got into the "Previously, on Dexter..." sequence before Miguel was mentioned, and how quickly the montage dispensed with his story.

Michael C. Hall is still great, and the season's story arcs are unfolding more clearly and confidently than last year's muddled plots. But there came a point in an upcoming episode where I jotted down the following note: "I care so much more about Lundy and Trinity than I do about Dexter."

Hall is good enough, and the show well-made enough, that I'm going to keep watching, but I don't feel particularly invested in it. And since I've learned it's no fun for me or for my readers for me to keep writing at length about a show where I've reached that point, these weekly reviews will be much briefer - or, in some weeks, simply opportunities for you to offer up your own thoughts on the latest episode.

And if you've made it this far without having watched the episode yet, now's the time to turn away, as I'm going to get more specific with a few bullet points about "Living the Dream," in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

• As that Lundy note suggested, I'm really glad to see Keith Carradine back, and to see how Lundy's presence so disturbs both the unflappable Dexter and the very flappable Deb. Carradine has this great relaxed charm, and it's easy to understand why half the shows on television (like "Damages," where he'll appear in the next season) are trying to engage his services.

• Angel and LaGuerta are together? Sigh... I like the supporting actors on "Dexter," David Zayas as Angel in particular, but their non-Dexter-related subplots are never very compelling, and just there to lighten Hall's workload. The one plus of this is that it means instead of having to slog through a boring romance story for Angel and one for LaGuerta, we only have to see one for the two of them.

• Because John Lithgow's most notable role of the last 15 years is Dick Solomon on "3rd Rock from the Sun," it's easy to forget that he spent much of his early career playing a series of creeps and killers. Go rent Brian DePalma's "Blow Out" for a fine example of how well he could do it then, and he still can get uber-creepy when he wants, as he did with the bathtub killing.

• I still love love love the show's opening credits, and was therefore amused by the parody of them featuring a Dexter too sleep-deprived to do his morning routine properly.

Anyway, that's me. You may be feeling more enthusiastic about the show being back, and this new story direction. What did everybody else think?