As I did with the previous season of Dexter, I’ve decided to write about season four in three chunks, one blog post to follow each fourth episode — thematically an appropriate place as a season of Dexter generally follows a three act structure. Which means, of course, each fourth episode is going to offer some big climax or revelation that makes for perfect blog fodder.
And big time spoilers — you have been warned.
Big time warned.
So, last night’s episode ‘Dex Takes a Holiday,’ didn’t disappoint in the climax department — we had both the culmination of the whole ‘Dexter needs his space’ theme that has been building since the first episode, and a big banging surprise in the Lundy-Trinity plot-line — namely Lundy and Deb getting gunned down by an unseen assailant (who probably looks a whole lot like John Lithgow).
I’d say episode 4 was the best so far, and hopefully marks the season hitting its stride. I thought the first few episodes laid the ‘new father is sleepy’ thing on with all the subtly of a spackle knife — pushing Dex past the point of reasonable exhaustion and painting his wife as some sort of oblivious and unreasonable task master. Yes, it made for a bit of cuteness as New Dad Dex yo-yoed between late nights with the kid, long days at the office, and extra curricular activities involving yards of saran wrap and surgical saws. But, as annoying as Rita can be as a character, it felt like a stretch to suggest that someone with her experience raising children — and obvious concern for her husband — would cheerfully let him shoulder so much of the load and even have the gall to suggest Dexter hadn’t been as ‘together’ with the family as he should be. The writers could have done this a bit better — didn’t he just get into an accident because of sleep deprivation and she’s haranguing him the next episode about not doing enough?
Speaking of which, great little mini-arc with Dex potentially losing a body. I’ve always thought he was rather vulnerable when transporting his kills — just one serious car accident away from getting caught. Having it happen at the end of the first episode was a nice touch, and got the whole season rolling with some immediate suspense of the season 2 variety. Further points awarded to episode 1’s ‘tonight’s the night’ shtick at the beginning, and the skewed credit sequence of missed mosquitoes, broken laces, and stained shirts that shows just how off his game Dex was at the start of the season.
Trinity has proven an interesting presence, and Lithgow doesn’t disappoint — managing to exude creepy menace without any sort of haminess. Trinity’s MO is interesting and suitably dark, but I hope the writers are smart enough not to spin out the mystery of it for too long. It seems rather obvious that the Trinity killer is reenacting his family history — sister either a suicide or killed by Trinity or their father (my bet is on Dad), mother jumping to her death, and finally Trinity killing his father . Last night’s episode with Trinity picking a fight from a random stranger, and letting himself get punched around, only reinforces that his third victim is a stand-in for an abusive father (who is surely to whom he offers a whiskey ablution in episode three). Trinity is reenacting his early life, and stuck repeating it.
Dexter in suburbia offers some more fish-out-of-water fun for a guy that just doesn’t get how us mundanes navigate the weird rituals of social interaction that vex our every step. Dex’s new environment has everything from swimming pools to car pools — and nosy neighbors willing to set up high-powered halogens and organize a militia whenever something threatens the suburban status quo. Episode three’s vandal shared a bit of Dexter’s fish-out-of-water nature — a damaged man having seen past the veneer of civility that governs the manicured and picket-fenced world — but in the end Dex comes down on him like a hammer to protect himself and, by extension now, his family.
But what is really interesting about Dexter’s confronting the vandal is of course the parallel with the Trinity killer’s threats to kill his second victim’s children in the same episode — Dexter, who understands all too well that ‘fear is a powerful motivator’ uses the same tactic, sending a bit of a reminder to an audience that has been no doubt vicariously enjoying his handling of the situation thus far that, yes Virginia, Dex is a monster.
I will admit that I saw Frank Lundy’s death coming, if not from miles away, than at least by a good few football field’s lengths — but it worked well and still registered as something of a surprise when it happened. The surprise was more Deb getting shot than anything — poor Lundy just had martyr written all over him from the beginning. A good motivator for Dex and Deb to crack the Trinity case, and at least superstar FBI agent Lundy goes out having been right about the hunt and, by virtue of being attacked, proving he was close to his quarry. He got the girl, too — bravo Frank, you’re way cooler than Anton.
Speaking of Anton — there’s his sort of buddy Quinn, last year’s red herring, trying to puzzle-out how to handle Dexter’s witnessing of his cash grab. Quinn, a man with good taste in women and horrible taste in music, is surprisingly amusing as he tries to curry favor with Dex, and his ‘this is how it is’ refutation of the ‘crooked cop’ label worked for me. He’s certainly not in the same category of moral failing as, say, a serial murderer. And speaking of serial murderers — poor old Quinn apparently can’t remember not to mention the hush-hush and unofficial Trinity killer investigation going on when there is a gorgeous topless reporter on his back. Actually, I guess I can’t really blame him for that.
And then there is Batista and LaGuerta — seeing the two of them embrace is like watching Grover hook-up with Oscar the Grouch. Which isn’t a good thing, if you were wondering. Doing the obvious ploy of throwing these two together (hey, they both speak spanish and neither of them has anything to do this season!) and giving them a cutesy little ‘hidden’ affair feels forced, lazy, and pretty much undermines what little respect the audience has for them. Everybody likes Batista, because he’s a Teddy-Bear with a hat affectation, and everybody hates LaGuerta, for reasons too numerous to mention (at least she stopped hitting on Dexter — aye carumba!), but putting the two together makes them both . . . pathetic. Really, them both asking Dex for advice in last night’s episode felt like High School all over again, only with smaller stakes.
But what last night’s episode really delivered on was a thematic climax. With the annoying family gone and Dexter breathing a sigh of relief, he goes off to hunt a cop who killed her own family in cold blood — all to be free. Can he, or can’t he, relate? The cat-and-mouse between the two was handled nicely, and Dexter’s provocation of their final confrontation exhibited the kind of lateral thinking that makes for so many interesting twists in the show. But finally it was the revelation — spoken at the ‘moment of truth’ when Dexter is his most alive and honest — that Dexter would rather risk getting caught than be without his family that is the true climax of the first act of season 4. He does love them, inconvenient and perplexing as they may be, and this shows how his character has changed subtly since the ‘little wooden boy’ was introduced to us in season 1.
A final word should be said about a big character missing from the last two seasons of Dexter — Miami. Now, sometimes Long Beach kind of works — I mean, it has palm trees and water, just like Miami, right? — and sometimes it really doesn’t. Go back and look at those first seasons of Dexter to see what I mean — you can feel the heat of the place, and smell the Cuban food wafting over from the yard next door. There was much more of a sense of place and style in earlier seasons, and the absence of that does lend these later seasons a somewhat less authentic feel. I don’t think that’s a deal breaker — but it does mean that these seasons are less than they could (and should) be.
And another thing — how about some continuity references for us long-time fans? I understand the need for a clean slate with each season — but has anyone even so much as uttered the words ‘Bay Harbor Butcher’ since season 2? Shouldn’t Prado have suspected Dex as being the butcher? Shouldn’t Prado himself be mentioned or name dropped at least once? Or Rita hint at Dex’s supposed substance abuse problems, or the kids once being kidnapped by a crazy British firebug? Stuff like that reinforces the illusion of reality, and it’s a shame there isn’t more of it in evidence in subsequent seasons of Dexter.
Oh, and Harry. The actor is consistently great, and I liked the premise of his ‘visitations’ in moderation, but Harry having a chat with Dex three times an episode has become a bit formula at this point — and half the time it isn’t anything that couldn’t be handled with a Dex voice-over. What this does is kill the dramatic potential of the exchange — so when the big climax comes later in this season as it did in the last and Harry talks Dex through some dilemma we, the audience, will be saying ‘ho hum, there’s dead Harry talking his kid’s ear off again.’ Flashbacks to young Dexter were much, much better, and something I miss. I mean, Michael C. Hall spent less time talking to dead people when he ran a funeral home!
And, purely as a thought exercise and proof that producers should at least occasionally consult me for ideas, you know what would show some real innovation? How about making Doakes Dexter’s invisible conscience for a season? Don’t tell me the premise wouldn’t automatically make the show twice as interesting.
But, overall, Dexter continues to deliver what audiences have come to love from the show — dark thrills, wow-worthy surprises, and explorations of a first-rate character in Dexter himself. The writers have never been afraid to really advance the plot, and they keep Dexter evolving right along with it, which is a rare and wonderful thing in television. The new family, the child, and the new nemesis-slash-role-model — a man who does what Dexter does and has done it more successfully than anyone else — has created a whole new slew of possibilities and complications, something the writers have done well to capitalize on. I have to say the new season has me hooked and, at the end of the day, that is how I know whether Dexter is doing what it’s supposed to do — when I can’t wait to see the next episode.
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dexter is an nice story. I just saw it in German TV. I love it.