Bigger spoilers than you can handle lurk bellow.
As anyone will know who has read my two previous posts on Dexter’s fourth season, Family, Suburbia, and Killing for Two and Road Kill, or The Jumping of the Snark, my attitude toward season four is veering dangerously close to the double-yellow line of disappointment. And now that Rita has been found in a blood-filled bathtub and a becrimsoned little Harrison gets a chance to develop a sociopathology just like his dear old dad, I’m supposed to have arrived at a defintie opinion about season four.
Thing is, I haven’t. Not really. I’m still ambivalent — which is probably condemnation enough for a show I once loved.
There seems to be a speculative ritual common on all the forums and groups that discuss Dexter, something almost akin to a game. Over the course of a season increasingly ridiculous theories are advanced as to the identity of such-and-such a person — Masuka is the Ice Truck Killer, Rita’s Mom is the Skinner. They’d be laughable if it was the case that no one believed them, but someone always does. Someone out there posits them in earnest, under the theory that if you throw enough darts at a dartboard without looking you’re bound to hit a bull’s-eye eventually.
In the character of Christine Hill it seemed to me the Dexter writers were following the blind dart throwing method of integrating character and plot. Sure, at first it seems like Hill’s roll is essentially to be shamelessly topless as often as possible (which naturally predisposes one-half of the audience to think kindly of her), but she turns out to be the Lundy shooter AND the daughter of the Trinity killer. Why not make her Angel’s ex-wife’s aerobics instructor and Miguel Prado’s former PA while we’re at it? Sure, Hungry Man’s “Hi, Dad” when she opened her door to a livid Arthur Mitchell was a nicely handled surprise — the capacity for shock is still there. But does this twist hold up above the level of melodrama? Is it on par with the thematic unity of season one’s unraveling of Dexter’s past, or the slippery cat-and-mouse of season two? Now that we’ve experienced season four’s twits and turns, will there ever be a reason to revisit it?
I don’t think so; and this is were the show is starting to fall flat. For every legitimate turn over the course of this season, there are three gimmicky ones. Discovering that Trinity was in fact a family man as Dex follows him home one evening was the highlight of the entire story for me — a surprise both revelatory and thematically relevant. It changed things in a way that a ‘plot twist’ is supposed to, and it did it without feeling like the hand of the writing team was on the back of the audience’s neck, steering them in the desired direction. It was elegant, intelligent, emotionally-freighted, and reminiscent of what we’ve come to expect from the show.
Which is more than can be said for Christine Hill or, even, Rita dead in a bathtub — which I will get to in a moment.
The last four episodes of this season played out the inevitable endgame between the Bay Harbor Butcher and the somewhat inaccurately named and by now thoroughly un-mysterious Trinity Killer. From the dawning realization that Dexter’s confidence in Trinity as a suitable mentor is misplaced, to the well-turned revelation that Trinity actually kills in groups of four, to the rather silly Christine Hill stuff, the appalling Angel and LaGuerrta romance, the molehill of Deb’s uncovering that Dex and the Ice Truck Killer are brothers, and the hastily executed discovery of Dexter’s true identity by Trinity, quite a lot happens in these last four episodes. The pace is there, and the performances certainly, and it’s all enough to keep the plot ticking along quite briskly. It kept me watching, even shook me out of some of the ambivalence I fell victim to mid-season, but ultimately all the shocks and twists illustrated to me just what it was that is bothering me about this season.
I can see the strings.
That’s the big problem — Dexter now feels like it is leading the audience around by the nose. The master-touch isn’t there, the puppets are all strongly illuminated by the cold light of day. The soap opera feel, the melodrama, the big emotional scenes that leave the audience rolling their eyes more often than not — the illusion of reality is now gone, and with it goes any emotional attachments. Compared to the yearning for emotional connection Dexter experienced in season one, the pit-of-the-stomach thrill ride of season two, and even the weirdly intense friendship with Prado in season three — season four’s meditations on family, loss, and love feel shallow and affected. Granted, the suspension of disbelief in Dexter was always tenuous — but the fact that it was maintained so deftly in early seasons is what made this show one of the most compelling and satisfying on television. A show that once navigated the deliciously dark borderlands between thriller and satire with a stylish and expert cool, has now gone over to the ham-fisted Hollywood thriller model of twist-a-minute plot points heavy with shock-and-awe and light on narrative and thematic logic.
And the culminating example of this is the conclusion we are left with at the end of season four, episode twelve. It’s a well-constructed scene even if the ultimate emotional moment is held a beat too short. Dexter returns home from dealing with his nemesis du jour and calls Rita to join her on the honeymoon they never got to experience as newlyweds. But her phone rings from inside the house, the baby starts crying, and a sanguinary scene reminiscent of Dexter’s own birth in blood is shown with the sort of hallucinatory abruptness that must have had some watchers questioning whether or not it was a dream. A surprise, to be sure (though, of course, not wholly unanticipated by the dart throwers among us), and one that does thematically line up with the rest of the show. But it was a lazy move, one that felt more like a stroke of convenience for the writers, rather than one of genius.
Some of the cheapest characterization in storytelling — and something many comics and pulp stories are guilty of in spades — is giving the hero something to love and then taking it away purely to generate a little angst and cheap sympathy. Call it the dead girlfriend syndrome. Rita was inconvenient, unpopular with fans, and she complicated Dexter’s life — bumping her off probably made a lot of people happy since she limited Dexter’s freedom. But, beyond the ‘new dad is tired’ and ‘fish out of water’ bits played for laughs at the start of the season, the themes of marriage, family, and responsibility really were not enlarged upon as completely as they should have been. Marriage, fatherhood — all seems like a fairly cheap stunt in an increasingly long line of cheap stunts that, when arranged in a pattern, create something a lot more like a comic strip than a real life.
Therein is the problem — Dexter is dangerously close to becoming a parody of itself. The final ’stunning moment’ will no doubt function, next season, as an excuse for all manner of bad behavior from a dark and haunted Dexter. But fundamentally I doubt it will have any more lasting relevance than the psychic wounds sustained by the woman who loved Miguel Prado finding out he was a monster, the friends and coworkers of James Doakes discovering he was the Bay Harbor Butcher (well, not really), or the fiance of the Ice Truck Killer nearly consummating their union by being chilled, exsanguinated, and cubed. Sure, that’s the limitation of television — but it is also a limitation that is knocking the feet out from under this particular show.
In the end, Dexter is still entertaining. Slick, well-acted, legitimately surprising and containing some good writing. But with season three, a great show became a good one. This season it has slid even further, but it now strays in the direction of farce. What remains for it, whether its enormous popularity will drag it out even further and into even greater heights of absurdity, remains to be seen. While season four contained some real flashes of the old brilliance, and still gave a better hour of TV than much of what else you will find out there, I think it has also proven that Dexter has truly run its course. Personally, I hope Dexter will be ushered into a final season next year with some of its dignity still intact.
Best idea for a good final season: fast forward fifteen years to an older and cagier Dexter dealing with a teenage Harrison’s psychotic urges.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I am in agreement with most of your analysis. I think this season leaves much to be desired, ending with a twist that was just too forced. The writers needed something to end with and as you rightfully state, they were “throwing darts”. I do hope it will end next season that way it can still be considered a top rated series.
Very well written review Bill, yet I disagree with quite a lot here. I found the ending extremely powerful (with a little niggle I won’t go into here) and what has plagued me for the last couple of days after seeing it, is the scene on the construction site when Dexter saves Trinity’s life. That image is now one of the most powerful scenes in the show, as Dexter needed to have the power over Arthur, needed to kill him himself and the result was that it took away the thing he loved the most.
It sets up some wonderful storylines in the next season as Dexter has to come to terms with the fact that he is responsible in such a big way for Arthur not being caught, for him not facing justice (as Dexter kills those who have escaped the law and Arthur was discovered and they had all the evidence they needed), for the fact that there will be an investigation into Rita’s death, and Dexter will be a suspect, and also because Dexter can’t take revenge on the murderer, as he’s already killed Arthur.
I don’t think Christine was a case of giving her these new roles all the while, as she was in there because she was clearly insane and trying to protect her father, putting him in more danger.
I enjoyed this climax better than season three, which felt a little rushed at the end.
Hey Mark — I’m actually glad you disagree, means the show is still working on those necessary levels for some viewers (actually, I suspect it is for most viewers). And, while I am rather disappointed with this season, I’m certainly not going to stop watching. There is enough good about the show to keep me interested — I just feel like the quality has taken a dip.
And you are right about Dex having inadvertently caused the destruction of his family by sparing Trinity, which is a hell of a thing to live with. I didn’t find his interaction with Trinity all that compelling this season though, for some reason — maybe because I watch with the lights on and a notepad in my lap and that might undermine some immersion. I freely admit my take may be as much about personal taste and, hate to say it, mood, than it is any critical assessment.
I do hope the new season doesn’t start with a pristine slate, like the rest. As you say, Dex should be investigated for Rita’s murder, and the consequences for the whole thing need to be heavily underlined. We’ll see.