Dexter: Variations on a theme

Spoilers for the "Dexter" season two finale coming up just as soon as I floss...

Well, that was... inevitable, wasn't it?

I would call the season two finale "predictable," but that doesn't seem fair. Unlike season one, which had a genuine mystery about the identity of the Ice Truck Killer, season two hasn't been a whodunnit -- it's been a character study. There was always the question of how Dexter would get out of this mess, but we all knew that he would. And I can't fault a series for delivering a payoff episode that builds off of everything that's come before and plays fair with the audience, can I?

And yet... after what had, for the most part, been a superb sophomore slump-avoiding season, I came to the end of "The British Invasion" saying to myself, "Huh. That seems about right, I suppose."

Where the season went wrong in the end -- and, before I continue, let me say once again that I consider the season as a whole to be outstanding, something that's easily going to be near the top of my Top 10 list for '07 -- was with the Lila character. There was so much potential in the idea of Dexter trying to take a slightly eccentric but not irreraparably damaged person under his wing, but making Lila out to be just as crazy as Dexter was the easy way out.

They already had Dexter confront his cracked mirror image with Rudy in season one, and at least there, they forced Dexter to make a choice between his own blood and the life (and Code) Harry had created for him. Here, Dexter did make a choice in the previous episode when he decided to continue the frame of Doakes, but Lila's actions then absolved him of having to deal with the consequences of his choice. Doakes died before Dexter had to tell him he had changed his mind, before he could loudly protest his innocence and argue for Dexter's guilt during a protracted trial, etc. Sure, it's Dexter's fault that Doakes is dead -- both for leaving him in the cage and for "creating" Lila -- but he still gets off pretty clean.

(This clean feeling was symbolized by the hilarious recreation of the opening title sequence -- which I'm thinking might have just been alternate angles of each shot, as opposed to something they filmed a second time.)

Also, with the death of Doakes -- the far more interesting character and dilemma for Dexter -- so early in the episode, we had to spend the bulk of the hour on more of Lila the kooky-crazy stalker. And for the second season in a row we had the villain (if you can call Lila that; more in a second) abduct and attempt to kill people Dexter cared about. The episode wasn't so much bad as anti-climactic. We spent so much of this season on Dexter (the true villain, a danger even to himself) wrestling with his confidence, his methods, his history, only to wind things up with him deciding everything's okay because the kooky vampire lady solved his Doakes/Butcher problem for him? It seems like one of the least imaginative destinations the creative team could have arrived at.

I'm glad the writers didn't sell out Lundy in the end, that Dexter escaped the noose without Lundy having to look the fool. (Even here, you could tell Lundy knew something wasn't right with the way he said the evidence against Doakes was "overwhelming, really.") Even his affair with Deb came to a better end than possible. Sure, Deb could get on another plane at some point, but she knows she won't, because Lundy is right about her needing to be a cop. Following him from city to city as his groupie isn't the life for her, even if he's a hell of a cook. Bye, Keith Carradine. Please bring your flinty goodness to another show I like, soon.

But back to Dexter. He and Deb both spent this season recovering from what Rudy did to each of them. Thanks to Lila, Doakes and Lundy, they're back to normal -- relatively -- and Dexter is already talking about "new rituals." His monologue at the end about no longer caring about the morality of his actions is an interesting approach for the character -- part of what's always made Dexter so vaguely sympathetic is his own awareness that what he's doing is wrong, and his attempt to be as good as possible given his condition -- and while I think I'm okay with an amoral Dexter moving forward, I don't want the series to let go of those questions.

I don't know what kind of story arc they can do for a third season -- Dexter's been hunted in different ways for the first two seasons -- but whenever this damn strike is over, I can't wait to see what it is.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Dexter: The Doakes stays in, the Doakes goes out...

Spoilers for the penultimate "Dexter" of the season coming up just as soon as I have the Showtime promo department killed...

First things first: given that the Showtime promo department, like their counterparts at every other channel at the moment, seem determined to give away all the fun surprises of their episodes, I want to remind people to not talk about anything in the promos for the finale. There was a kerfuffle last week when someone started talking about Lila going to the cabin, and other people complained that they had deliberately turned off the show before the promo aired to avoid stuff like that. Admittedly, this episode spent a good chunk of time preparing us for Lila's trip, what with her stealing the GPS unit, but even so... geez.

I was actually so annoyed to have the episode's climactic moment ruined that I wound up breaking my pledge to watch the final episodes at the same rate as the regular audience, and watched the finale as well. (Hey, I'm using all my willpower to watch "The Wire" as slowly as possible.) I won't say anything about the finale here -- not even whether I liked it -- but that means I'll have to be more delicate, and probably briefer, about "Left Turn Ahead" than I otherwise might. (I promise to go on at greater length about the finale to compensate.)

Sorry for that opening digression. Let's get to the core of the episode, which was the back-and-forth between Doakes and Dexter. We already saw last week that Doakes' approach to Dexter had changed from how he treated him before the Butcher discovery. How much of that was simply him playing his captor and how much was Doakes treating Dexter better because he finally understood him is unclear, but the bonding only deepened this week. It was beautiful -- albeit kind of sad, since you knew Doakes would go back in the cage -- to see them finally team up to take out the two drug soldiers. Even before Doakes talked Dexter into giving himself up, you could see him pushing Dexter closer and closer to that decision. Doakes has been a one-note character at times over the years, but Erik King has done some very nice work these last couple of weeks as Doakes has tried to talk his way out of this deathtrap.

(Also a nice touch to have Dexter thank Doakes for giving him someone to talk to about his work. Harry's been gone a long time, and Rudy died not long after Dexter discovered who he really was. Gotta be hard being a monster with no one to discuss it with.)

And at the same time, did anyone really think Dexter's decision was going to stick? Even without the knowledge that he's the star of the show and therefore has to remain free to kill, we've seen how in flux Dexter's been this season -- "flying without a code" and all that -- and it was only a matter of time before he'd find some excuse to justify his continued freedom. The only real question was whether it would be Rita (my guess) or Deb (the correct answer) who would inadvertently talk him into betraying Doakes.

Unfortunately, I continue to to be unhappy with the Lila storyline. She was a lot more interesting before she became unambiguously crazy and eeevil. The idea of Dexter trying to turn a slightly eccentric woman into his sidekick had a lot of potential; this, on the other hand, is just frustrating. (I was amused, though, after all of Deb's mockery of Lila's skinniness -- really a pot-kettle situation, come to think of it -- that Lila was able to take advantage of that to steal the GPS unit.)

Since I know where this is all going, I'll cut things short here and open it up to you. What do you think? And remember, no talk of the promos, or of the obnoxious finale spoilers floating around the Interwebs; just this episode. Click here to read the full post

Dexter: Man goes in the cage, cage goes in the plastic sheeting...

Spoilers for "Dexter" coming up just as soon as I sign up for a SCUBA class...

I'm going to be briefer than I would otherwise like. I got to see this episode on a getaway Friday as I was packing for a weekend trip, and I wanted to finish writing something before the vacation began, so you're going to have to carry the conversation on this one for a week. I've got faith.

After being concerned about a lot of the contrivances in last week's episode, there weren't many moments here that had me asking, "Why would he do that?" Just when I was starting to worry that Lundy was acting willfully ignorant in his conversation with Laguerta about the stakeout logs, for instance, he went and acknowledged that she was probably right, but that her being right was of no use to him with tainted evidence.

Harry's return to prominence continued with the revelation of how/why he really died. (Though am I losing my memory, or did season one feature a flashback or two of Harry near the end of his life looking far more sickly -- maybe even bedridden -- than he appeared when he found Dexter cutting up that body?) I was never clear on when exactly Dexter's active serial killing career began relative to when Harry died, and Dexter's recognition that Harry supported The Code on paper but not in reality was a very important insight into both men.

(Dexter realizing that he inadvertently stole Deb's childhood by forcing Harry to spend so much time channeling Dexter's violent energy was another interesting one, and one that played into Deb's abandonment issues with Lundy.)

I enjoyed the cat and mouse game in the cabin between Dexter and Doakes, and how being exposed to the true face of Dexter -- even hidden behind opaque plastic sheeting -- shattered Doakes. If a hard man with blood on his hands like Doakes would react that way, how badly would Deb and Rita and the kids be hurt by discovering Dexter's true face? And how good a job do the writers do of making me want to root for the serial killer to get away with it, even if it means sacrificing an honest cop in the process?

If there was one part of the episode that frustrated me, it was the continued presence of Lila, who appears to be framing Angel as part of some convoluted plot to get revenge on Dexter and/or win him back. As Dexter's new emotional guru, a woman with some dark impulses but a relatively pure motivation, Lila was interesting. As a nutbar manipulator who resorts to arson, assault and now drug-aided mindgames to get her way, I'm tired of her. I hate this kind of character whenever it pops up on a show I like, and post-breakup Lila has been no exception to that.

That's it for me. Talk amongst yourselves. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Dexter: Doakes, docks, Dex

Spoilers for "Dexter" coming up just as soon as I change my shirt...

"Don't get caught."

Last night's episode, "Resistance Is Futile," asks the audience to take a lot of things on faith, but maybe none moreso than the idea that Harry Morgan would make that the first rule of his Code.
Harry (making his first appearance in a couple of episodes) is still something of a mystery to the audience, and this season has made him even moreso, with the revelation of his relationship with Dexter's mom and the mechanics (but not explanation) of him adopting Dexter but not his brother. There's certainly a chance that he could have decided that Dexter's continued life and freedom were worth risking the lives of innocents, but doesn't track for me with what we know of the guy. The Code of Harry always seemed to be about channeling Dexter's bloodlust in a useful direction first, self-preservation second.

If Dexter were a more normal character -- as normal as any serial killer could be -- than Dexter's willingness to frame and/or kill Doakes in order to evade Lundy's task force wouldn't be an issue. A normal person, even a mass murderer, would be capable of independent thought in ways that Dexter simply isn't. He needs The Code to function, not only as a killer, but as a man. Even when he seemed to be abandoning The Code for selfish reasons in the middle portion of the season, it wasn't an independent act; it was him being manipulated by Lila, who briefly succeeded in replacing Harry's Code with her own.

Even Dexter admits to being torn about Doakes; if it were up to him, he might actually give himself up to protect Doakes, even though Doakes hates him, but he makes it clear that he's turning the decision-making back over to Harry. And I see Harry's priorities here -- as well as several other actions taken throughout the episode -- as less true to character than a contrivance to keep the story going. "Dexter" is usually so well-crafted that I don't see the hands of the writers pushing the characters around; last night, I did.

We all knew Doakes would be framed sooner or later -- the reference last week to his dad being a butcher was the final giveaway (though that's not the damning evidence that Lundy and the Captain tried to make it out to be; after all, the Bay Harbor Butcher didn't name himself) -- but few of his actions in this episode made sense, even within the context of Doakes' hot-headedness and hatred of Dexter. What the hell is he doing leaving the blood slides in the trunk of his car? What was the value of the trip to Haiti, especially with the slides left behind in America? Doakes kept acting like he had some brilliant master plan, but other than planting the GPS on Dexter's boat and following him (without benefit of any kind of recording equipment he might use to prove he's the framee and not the framer), it seemed like he was just running around in ways designed (by the writers, not him) to raise the FBI's suspicions.

Meanwhile, on what planet does an FBI agent -- especially one as smart as Lundy has seemed until now -- place crucial evidence in the hands of a man whose life is being threatened by the prime suspect? I'll go with Lundy being tricked into thinking Doakes is the Butcher -- as I said last week, we have knowledge he doesn't -- but why not give the slides to Masuka? He works for the Miami PD and therefore meets the Captain's criteria, and he also doesn't have any kind of motive to make sure Doakes goes to prison. It just doesn't make sense except as a bit of plot mechanics.

I'm also bothered by Dexter's complete inability to protect Angel from whatever bit of emotional vampire voodoo Lila has planned for him. Yes, Dexter is an emotional cripple, but he's also capable of giving out just enough detail -- say, telling Angel she's a pyromaniac who once set fire to her apartment to keep Dexter from breaking up with her, or, even simpler, asking him friend to friend to stay away because the break-up was so painful -- to make even a hard-luck horndog like Angel run screaming from that pale wackjob. Again, I was watching the scenes and picturing the story meeting the whole time:

"Okay, so how do we keep Lila around now that Dexter's dumped her?"
"I know! We'll have her start dating Angel!"
"But wouldn't Dexter just tell Angel to stay the hell away from her?"
"Well, what if Dexter tries to tell him but Angel doesn't want to listen?"
"He'd have to be really vague -- like, idiotically vague -- for that to work."
"I think I can do that!"

And yet, all that said, Michael C. Hall is so wonderful and the production team casts such a spell that some of these objections (not all, but some) didn't occur to me until after the episode was over and I began thinking about the review. The moment when Doakes appeared on the dock with his gun drawn took me completely by surprise. I knew something bad was going to come of Dexter leaving Jimenez's body alone for so long, but I just assumed Lila would be involved, or that some of Jimenez's drug-dealing cohorts would have turned up, that the house would be completely empty, whatever. For whatever reason, Doakes' presence just didn't occur to me; I have one of those computer brains that's constantly trying to predict where stories are going to go, and it's rare that I have a "No way!" reaction the way I did there.

(And yet, even that scene required a leap of faith, as the hair-trigger Special Forces badass Doakes had previously been established as would never allow Dexter to take control of that situation. He would have at least kneecapped him and figure out a plan later.)

I wouldn't call "Resistance Is Futile" a bad episode; Hall alone all but prevents the show from having one of those. But it's the first time all series where I'm genuinely concerned about the plan going forward. Writers are supposed to pull strings; it's their job. We're just not supposed to see them as clearly as we could last night.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Dexter: Bloody business

Spoilers for “Dexter” coming up just as soon as I eat some toast...

“Stay away from Rita. Stay away from me."
"Or what?"
"Or you will see the monster."

Damn. But the big question is, which monster will Lila (and we) see?

There was the monster we met in season one, the neat and tidy one, as Dexter described himself at the time. The monster slavishly followed The Code of Harry, was meticulous about his targets and his methods, a danger to those who “deserved” it (c.f. William Munny) and a seeming prince to those who didn’t.

That monster appears to have died along with its brother, the Ice Truck Killer. The monster we met at the start of this year was a scared, clumsy creature, who tried to be the neat and tidy monster but never quite pulled it off.

After Dexter went to NA and fell under Lila’s sway, the monster was replaced by a seemingly smarter, more benign one, one who didn’t feel compelled to kill, who could channel his aggression and talents in more positive ways.

That was, of course, a mirage. New Dexter was, in some ways, an even bigger monster, selfish, arrogant and amoral. The stunt last week where he temporarily framed the innocent stepfather in order to snare Doakes was a complete repudiation of The Code, the first step down a slippery slope towards Dexter hurting whomever was necessary, whenever it was convenient to him. That monster got cocky and inadvertently put Lundy on his trail.

And now that Dexter’s seen Lila for who she truly is? What kind of monster is he now? Based on his apparent willingness to kill Lila for being an inconvenience to him (and, in fairness, a potential threat to Rita), the return of the familiar urge to kill but also the panic and sloppiness with which he left Santos Jimenez’s body alone in his Everglades shack (which may or may not come back to bite him), it feels like the current incarnation of Dexter combines all the monsters of the past. He’s bloodthirsty and amoral, calculated at times and clumsy at others. This Dexter is very bad news -- for Lila and for everyone else around him.

We’re nearing the home stretch of season two. I’ve occasionally complained about the silliness of these stories where Dexter narrowly evades discovery by Lundy or the other cops, because of course we know Dexter won’t get caught, because otherwise there’s no show. But there’s a different kind of suspense at work here. We know Dexter will stay free, but which Dexter will he be?

Besides Dexter’s ongoing identity crisis (which even he doesn’t appreciate the depths of, because he’s not on the outside looking in as we are), episode eight had some other vedddy interesting things going on.

We all assumed after last week that Dexter’s unmasking and subsequent head butt in front of Doakes would backfire – that, unfettered by the rule of law and more aware than ever of what Dexter really is, Doakes would become relentless in pursuit. For a little while here, that seemed not to be the case. Doakes seemed at peace when he first met with Laguerta, and it wasn’t until Lundy mentioned the faulty blood evidence in the Rodrigo case that Doakes finally decided to go after Dexter.

So here’s the question: is there any way Doakes isn’t, even briefly, wrongfully accused of being the Butcher? He has a history of obsessive, violent behavior and that mind-warping Special Forces background. He walked out on Lundy in mid-interview, and now may be in possession of Dexter’s damning blood smear collection. (Assuming he doesn’t do something smart like put it back where he found it and place an anonymous 911 call.) And, of course, he knows too much about Dexter to be allowed to remain free, if not alive. (It’s like how, in the early days of “Smallville,” the Kryptonite Freak of the Weaks always died so that the writers could keep Clark’s powers a secret.)

Doakes’ only hope is that Lundy is as smart as he’s seemed up until now. Dexter made the right move in falling on his sword and blaming the Rodrigo screw-up on overwork and distraction, but he was still producing Albert Brooks in “Broadcast News” levels of flop sweat during that interview, and while Doakes has a history of violence, he doesn’t really fit the profile of a meticulous, twisted killer like the Butcher. Once again, we have knowledge that the characters don't, and it could be completely reasonable that Lundy would just interpret Dexter as being nervous for having screwed up a case through inattention. But I hope this storyline doesn't get resolved by the writers selling out Lundy as not nearly as clever as he's seemed to this point.

As it is, I'm having a hard time scrubbing my brain of the scene where Lundy spanked Deb and Deb got off on it. I'm not saying a healthy sexual relationship can't have a little bit of rough-housing, but we've been beat over the head with the idea that Lundy is a Harry surrogate for Deb. Lundy even proceeds the smack with a comment about their age difference that's really a veiled father-daughter suggestion. The guy is a profiler whose speciality (other than picking the right music) is figuring out how people think and why they do what they do. Even if his intentions with Deb are entirely pure, I don't think it's a coincidence that he's playing into her Elektra complex.

Some other thoughts:

• The final scene of last week's episode implied that Dexter had made the connection between Lila smashing the landlord's lightbulb to get her own fixed and Lila burning her apartment to get him back, and yet here when he first contemplates the possibility, he thinks, "I can't imagine why." Maybe Michael C. Hall played that earlier scene a little too well, you know?
• Another familiar face from cop shows past, with Bruce Weitz (perp-biting Mick Belker from "Hill Street Blues") as Lenny Asher, Rodrigo's pack rat neighbor.
• I'm glad the writers haven't felt compelled to delve into Angel's personal life again this year, because I like him much better when I'm not being force-fed boring material unrelated to Dexter or Deb. A nice moment where he produces the case file and Deb realizes he's been busting balls the entire time.
• "That's how Hitler walked." Sad as I am to lose C.S. Lee from "Chuck," Masuka's awfully funny by himself.
• Also funny: Deb's reaction to Dexter accusing her of sleeping her way to the top, followed by her comparison of Lila to a vampire.

What did everybody else think? Predictions on where all of this is going now? Click here to read the full post

Dexter: Burnin' down the house

Spoilers for the “Dexter” episode “That Night, a Forest Grew” coming up just as soon as I practice my head-butting technique...

Despite my tremendous enjoyment of “Dexter,” I only blogged about it occasionally during its first season, and episodes like this one are the reason why.

I actually have no complaints about “That Night, a Forest Grew” (a “Where the Wild Things Are” reference). It’s a very strong episode. Many interesting things happen plotwise, as Dexter gets a little too cute in trying to manipulate Lundy and achieves the right amount of cuteness in discrediting and banishing Doakes (though it’ll still come back to bite him, I’m sure). And many interesting things happen characterwise, as Dexter struggles to choose between the pretty angel on one shoulder (Rita) and the sexy devil on the other (Lila), and as Deb declares her intentions for more than a father/daughter-type relationship with Lundy. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end.

But here’s why my “Dexter” posts last year were so few and far between, and why this post is going to be relatively short: between Dexter’s introspective narration and all the overtly psychological dialogue (between Dexter and Lila, Deb and Lundy, Rita and her mom, etc.), I’m not sure what’s left to say. The series often does such a good job of analyzing itself that it renders further criticism redundant, you know?

We can question some things along the way -- Did Dexter’s glance at the repaired light bulb at the end clue him in to the fact that Lila engages in destructive behavior to get what she wants? Was Dexter smart or stupid to show his hand so overtly to Doakes? Is Lundy really as straightforward as he seems, or has he been manipulating Deb to get her to this point? -- but for the most part, this episode (and this series as a whole) operates on a What You See Is What You Get level. Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all, but as a critic/blogger, I’m rendered kind of speechless by it. And since the comments for this show generally tend to be vastly more insightful than my reviews of same, I’m going to keep this brief, hit a few bullet points, and then open it up to the crowd. So:

• Can someone please, for the love of all that is good and right, tell me the name of the jazz piece Lundy was playing in the first discussion of music scene? I know it’s a number that I have in my collection, and on my iPod, for that matter, and I know my father the jazz buff could name that tune in three or four notes if he were still around, but I haven’t been able to track it down, and I obviously can’t Google the lyrics. A little help, please?
• That said, I really love the notion of Lundy needing to find the right piece of music to use to figure out his target. As a writer who always needs to work to music and often can only write certain kinds of things to certain kinds of music (all of my final season “Sopranos” columns, for instance, had to be composed to The Hold Steady’s “Boys and Girls in America,” and if I tried anything else, I was blocked), I can get behind that concept. It makes sense as Lundy described it, and it’s an investigative quirk I don’t think I’ve come across before in the thousands of hours of TV crime drama produced each year.
• Another lovely case of familiar idea/unfamiliar execution: Lundy explaining the age discrepancy with “I know the lyrics to elevator music.” Never heard that variation before.
• Loved the Mark Twain/”Deep Space Nine”/”Next Generation” exchange between Angel, Masuka and the apparently very geeky female member of Lundy’s team.
• In the role of the wrongly-accused Mr. Wilson, hey, it’s that guy Dale Midkiff! There was a period in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s where Midkiff seemed on the verge of becoming something big, TV-wise, and while he’s worked steadily and had several regular series jobs, it never quite happened for him.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Dexter: The power of truthiness

Spoilers for "Dexter" coming up just as soon as I take a drive in the rain...

Before we get to discussing the meat of the episode -- Dexter pulling another Houdini act, the Dexter/Rita/Lila triangle, Dexter and Doakes' rivalry heating up, etc. -- I want to say a few words about Vince Masuka, and about actor C.S. Lee. Masuka was an amusing enough character in season one, but I didn't really start paying attention to him until Lee turned up on "Chuck" as Harry Tang, another very funny, but very different, recurring role. In both cases, he's playing something of a rival to the main character in his day job, but comic and irrelevant to the star's night job. The difference is that where Harry Tang is an angry tight-ass, Masuka is an obnoxious horndog -- and, as we discover in this episode, kind of a deviant. One man, one face, two unique performances. When Masuka put on his stupid fire marshall hat, he could have come across like Harry dressed as a cowboy (I think; it's been a few days) in the "Chuck" Halloween episode, but he didn't. I probably shouldn't make too big a deal of an actor managing to differentiate two different characters he plays, but given how many actors make a career out of being the same guy in every single project, I wanted to give Lee some dap. This is probably the closest he'll ever get to a "Dexter" showcase episode, and everytime he appeared, I laughed.

Maybe I'm also focusing on Masuka because "Dex, Lies and Videotape" as a whole seemed, as Scott Tobias pointed out already, like more of a plot-mover episode. Not a bad hour, but not a dazzler like last week's road trip.

Even more than Dexter melting all the bodies in the temporary morgue two weeks ago, the simple erasure of the blood-cleaning footage has me worried about the Vic Mackey factor, where Dexter keeps being put into narrative traps that he has to immediately escape from to keep the series from ending. Unless the series is ending with this season (which I don't think is anyone's plan), we know Dexter is somehow going to avoid capture; at worst, Deb or Rita or someone else he cares about will find out but refuse to turn him in. I know lots of cat-and-mouse stories like this rely on the same kind of artificial tension, but it distracts me more here because I'm so enthralled by the psychological portrait aspects of the show. I continue to like the presence of Lundy and his relationship with Deb, and some of the sidelines to this hunt for the Butcher -- namely, the sensational Dexter/Doakes confrontation in Dexter's office, the first time we've seen him lose his cool that badly while in his cover identity -- are great, but I'd be fine without another '40s serial-style cliffhanger between now and the last episode or two of the season.

Lila's inopportune answering machine message was a bit of a writer's cheat -- given the prevalance of voicemail these days, would someone as secretive and savvy as Dexter use a blabby, unsecure technology like an answering machine anyway? -- but this evolution of the New Dexter (not to be confused with New Larry from "Curb") is fascinating. I still think, like any good sociopath, he vastly overestimates Lila's tolerance for his dark side, but this change (or potential change) in his character is the kind of thing the show could legitimately sustain, as opposed to him getting caught by the task force. You can do a show where Dexter is more in touch with his emotions; you can't do one where he's a fugitive or behind bars. (I mean, you could, but it would be so different as to become a different series.)

Still not sure what vibe I'm picking up off Lundy vis-a-vis Deb. Is he really just as guileless and straightforward as he appears -- which would make him the perfect nemesis for a play-actor Dexter -- or is his interest in Deb more than just a bit of fatherly mentoring?

I have the next two episodes on DVD but am forcing myself to watch only one a week so my reviews aren't colored by knowledge of what's coming. with a show this good (even after a slightly off episode), my patience is really hard to maintain.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Hello. My name is Dexter Morgan. You killed my mother. Prepare to die.

Spoilers for "Dexter" coming right up (and, yes, I know I did the "Princess Bride" homage with a "Lost" post last spring, but it was too apropos to not recycle)...

Two different perspectives on the same situation: Dexter and Lila both believe that she’s helping him, but Lila thinks she’s helping Dexter beat his “addiction,” while Dexter thinks Lila’s on the verge of becoming his sidekick and confidante in serial killing. I don’t know if Dexter’s right, but considering the premise of the show, I don’t think Lila is, even though both of them came to these conclusions after she talked Dexter out of committing the most justified murder of his life.

Great episode, even if the red lighting in the bar and use of “Gimme Shelter” wasn’t so much a Scorsese homage as a bit of cheap shorthand. This is the most off the rails we’ve ever seen Dexter; even when he was screwing things up with Little Chino, he was at least sticking to the parts of The Code of Harry about preparation, concealing his identity, etc. Here, he just lost it, and it’s a mark of how well this show makes me both empathize with Dexter and understand his methods that, as he was in the middle of beating on and preparing to kill the man who killed his mother, all I could think was, “Man, you’re leaving fingerprints everywhere!”

(Of course, being methodical winds up potentially screwing him over in the end, as he goes to clean his boat of blood unaware of the surveillance camera Lundy installed at the marina. How exactly is Dexter going to slip out of that noose?)

If there was going to be a Scorsese-endorsed Stones song on the soundtrack, maybe it should have been “Sympathy for the Devil,” given the sales pitch on justifiable homicide that Dexter seems to be beginning with Lila. The question is how willing she’s going to be to buy into it. On the one hand, so much of Lila seems in synch with Dexter: the addiction, the use of mannequin parts the way Rudy used human bodies, the fascination with dead bodies, and now the news that she killed a man who did her wrong (albeit accidentally). On the other hand, Dexter is a badly-damaged individual, warped by an experience far more horrific than I imagine Lila has ever witnessed. Where he sees a potential sidekick, I see (or want to see) a woman who’s going to be dismayed if/when she finds out what Dexter really is.

Meanwhile, I’m curious to find out whether Frank Lundy’s anything other than the man he’s presented himself as so far. I admire the writers’ willingness to depict the man hunting Dexter as such a decent guy, not just a good investigator but an attentive father figure to Deb, who’s trying to teach her how to be a better cop and person while getting over her Ice Truck Killer trauma. The parallels between Deb with Lundy and Dexter with Harry are so strong, though, that this episode’s revelations about Harry’s secret relationship with Dexter’s mom makes me wonder what skeletons Lundy has in his closet. Is his interest in Deb entirely paternal, or will there (God, I hope not) be a moment where he reveals himself to be just another creep in her life? Does he, like every other character on this show, have some hidden kink, or is his role entirely to show what a fully functional human being looks like when thrown into Dexter’s sick world?

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Dexter: Spoiled rotten

Spoilers for the latest episode of "Dexter" coming up just as soon as I have a meltdown in front of the entire office...

I want to start off by talking about the traditional weak points of any "Dexter" episode: the police storylines not directly involving Dexter himself. And, sure enough, we get more dead weight with Pascal having a meltdown and losing her command back to Laguerta, followed by the not very interesting revelation that the other woman Pascal was losing her mind over was Laguerta.

But on the other hand, the Doakes subplot was a nice bit of shading for both the character and the universe. We knew Doakes had been in Special Forces and had done some unpleasant things there, but this is the bluntest the show's been about how badly that stuff scarred him. Dexter asked way back in the series premiere why Doakes was the only cop in Miami who can smell the monster on him; it's because Doakes is part monster, himself, just better at holding onto his own leash.

As for the Bay Harbor Butcher arc, we're entering potentially interesting, potentially dangerous territory for the series. I continue to like everything they've done with the story thus far, and thought the twist of Masuka finding the algae on the stones and not the corpses was brilliant. Dexter's such a blood maven that the rocks probably never occurred to him as anything but a utility for weighing down the bodies.

That said, Dexter scrambling around trying to sabotage the case against himself reminded me more than a little of middle-period "The Shield," where we'd see Vic Mackey be an episode and a half away from going to jail forever, only to wriggle out of the trap again and again. I love "The Shield" dearly, but feel like the series has definitely been diminished by its longevity and the number of Houdini escapes Vic's pulled. I don't know how many great seasons there are in the "Dexter" concept, but within that, I think I want this season to be the only one (other than a planned final one) where Dexter himself is the target of a manhunt. I'm assuming in the end he's going to escape Lundy's task force somehow, someway, and I'm fine with that -- the cost of doing business in series TV is accepting that certain parts of the status quo can never be changed -- but if I'm feeling itchy in the fourth episode of the season (and one in which Dexter really doesn't accomplish much of anything with his dumpster/refrigeration unit stunt), I worry how played out the concept might seem by the end of the year.

Or maybe I'm just crabby because I first saw this episode nearly a month ago (though that was my reaction at the time) and have been waiting ever since to see episode five.

A few other brief thoughts:

• I'm undecided about Lyla. On the one hand, Jaime Murray's certainly not unpleasant to look at, and I'm enjoying the concept of Dexter co-opting the 12-step world so he can finally unburden whatever soul he has without getting into trouble for it, but there's something a little too calculated in the writers' conception of Lyla the bohemian artist who makes Dexter want to throw caution to the wind.
• JoBeth Williams as Rita's mom! Does JoBeth Williams ever not give a good performance?
• I'm really intrigued by Deb's story so far this year. She and Dexter don't share the same genes, and what Rudy put her through came at a far more advanced age than Dexter's own childhood trauma, but what are the chances that she could become a monster herself?

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Chair masters

Pay cable round-up time, with spoilers for, in order, "Tell Me You Love Me," "Dexter" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" coming up just as soon as I sanitize my reading chair...

So, remember all those snarky comments suggesting that "Tell Me You Love Me" front-loaded all the really graphic sex scenes in the first couple of episodes as a bait-and-switch? Episode six put the lie to that theory, between Jamie having another franks 'n beans tryst (this time with Boone from "Lost" ) and, especially, Dr. Foster and her husband proving that, yes, old people can have very loud, very happy, very naked sex in a cozy armchair. While I'm sure that most of the audience (what's left of it by this episode) is focusing on all that exposed, not so youthful flesh, what struck me about the scene was that it was the first time all season (other than that half-glimpsed oral sex scene -- also featuring May -- in the premiere) that any characters on this show actually seemed to be enjoying themselves while doing the deed. Even Caroline and Palek's pot-fueled make-up sex wasn't significantly less mechanical than all those times they've been trying to impregnate her. And with the scene where May goes to meet her old lover, I feel like we have enough backstory now to legitimately consider the Fosters our fourth couple, which means I can say that I like half of the couples on this show, instead of only one out of three.

Meanwhile, the stories of my most and least favorite couples played out in some parallel. Dr. Foster tells Dave and Katie to stop trying to have sex, which of course opens the dam for them to finally start talking, even a little, about their problem. And Caroline and Palek, having quit both their fertility plans and therapy, finally enjoy each other's company, however briefly (and however aided by marijuana). I have to say, by the way, that while I absolutely despise Caroline, Sonya Walger's doing a hell of a job playing this spoiled, controlling ice queen, and watching her rip apart the sandwich lady (after having made an ass of herself with a temper tantrum in front of her boss) made me hope that the "Lost" producers are watching and realize that Penny might be far more useful as a villain than as Desmond's long-lost love.

"Dexter," meanwhile, has a lot of fun with this Narcotics Anonymous development, as what seemed at first to be a big hassle for Dexter turned out to be very helpful. It has Doakes "understanding" what his suspicions about Dexter really meant, has Rita taking him back, and it gives him a place where he can talk semi-openly about his addiction to murder, so long as he couches it in vague terminology. Plus, Jaime Murray from "Hustle"! What's not to like?

One thing I found particularly interesting was Dexter's dilemma about whether to break his pattern to stop the car dealer from killing his next victim. The overt admission that he doesn't target other killers to save people -- that they just make good targets and allows him to keep his word to Harry -- isn't exactly a surprise. But spelling it out like that, at a time when Dexter is being chased by a seemingly decent cop in Lundy -- in an episode where Lundy rips apart the audience's rationale for liking a vigilante serial killer with his "The worst killers in history are the ones who think the murders were somehow just" speech -- is a choice I'm not sure a lot of writing staffs would make. The trend in most series with morally complex protagonists is to slowly sand off their edges over time (even "The Shield" did that for a while with Mackey), and I admire team "Dexter" in their willingness to embrace everything that's wrong about their main character.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is coming perilously close to falling off my radar. That's three absolute stinkers in a row now. When "The Anonymous Donor" aired, I wrote, "The genius of "Curb" so often is that you know where a joke is going (but) laugh anyway." Here, I saw almost every joke in advance -- the toaster preventing Larry from getting Loretta to the interview, the phone swap and the havoc it wreaked -- but they were so predictable even within the "Curb" formula that I didn't find any of them funny. And the one pay-off I didn't predict -- the exterminator trying to stomp the rat-dog -- was one of those moments, like McEnroe inviting Larry to the party last week, where the show sacrifices any semblance of real human behavior at the expense of a gag. The guy's an exterminator; why is he just trying to stomp on this thing? And how can he not tell a rat from a dog? This is a far cry from season three's "Club Soda and Salt," where they managed to make professional expertise itself the joke.

As I recall, last season had a similar trend -- a few good episodes at the start, followed by a long stretch of catastrophe -- and I don't know how much longer I can stick around to see if things improve. It's emotionally draining to watch this show even when it's funny. The last few weeks ahve just been painful.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Dexter: Six feet, seven inches under

Spoilers for "Dexter" episode two coming up just as soon as I repeat "I will not kill my sister, I will not kill my sister, I will not kill my sister"...

It took them one season plus one episode, but the "Dexter" writers finally put Michael C. Hall in a funeral home. Apparently, they think nobody's going to mistake Dexter Morgan for David Fisher anymore.

Episode two, "Waiting to Exhale," has Dexter dealing with blowback from his actions on multiple fronts. At work, ace FBI profiler Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine, continuing a late career renaissance on cable) is in town to track down "The Bay Harbor Butcher," the lurid nickname the media's hung on Dexter. At home, Dexter has to deal with the guilt -- if, in fact, he's capable of feeling that -- for setting in motion a chain of events that led to the death of Rita's ex-husband Paul. On his "night job" (or whatever you want to call it), Little Chino is still roaming free, and now has his gang buddies helping guard his giant body. And inside Dexter's own twisted psyche, the ghost of Rudy/Brian/The Ice Truck Killer sets up camp. (It's another "Six Feet Under" device, but again, this show and this character are so different that it's not distracting.)

Lundy's arrival gets more play in the coming weeks, and Dexter making peace with killing his brother was just this side of obligatory. (The writers needed to address it, but beyond that, I'm not interested in Rudy's effect on Dexter, though he's still haunting Deb, who's so far gone she's pulling guns on little kids.) Dexter finally taking out Little Chino after several clumsy failures was welcome -- if for no other reason than Hall's delivery of "I'm not so much doing it to you as I'm doing it for me." -- but what I really want to focus on this week is Paul's death and Rita's reaction to it.

Never mind that Paul was an abusive, manipulative SOB who so thoroughly battered Rita over the years that she had no sex drive when Dexter met her. He was her kids' father, and as we saw at the funeral, they loved the SOB -- and now he's gone, in part because of Dexter.

It's been really interesting to watch Dexter and Rita draw out aspects of their partners believed to be dormant or just plain gone. Rita's a sexual creature again, and someone capable of asserting herself. Dexter may pretend like Rita is just his beard, part of the easy cover identity that will keep people from suspecting him of hinky behavior, but he obviously has real affection for her and her kids. You can see him at that funeral recognizing what he did to this family (though in the long run, they're probably all better off without Paul), even if he refuses to cop to any remorse. Rita, meanwhile, confronts Dexter with far more strength and savvy than she would have been able to show when we first met her, and I like that she automatically makes the leap to Dexter being a heroin addict. After all, why on earth would she suspect something as outlandish as her boyfriend being the Bay Harbor Butcher, and why wouldn't she guess that he had a similar problem to the other love of her life?

Dexter admitting to an addiction (albeit not the one Rita thinks he has) is going to lead to a lot of fun in the coming weeks, so I'll turn it over to you. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Dexter: Return to normalcy

Spoilers for the "Dexter" season premiere coming up just as soon as I use more tape...

"Dexter" is a hard show for me to blog regularly. Obviously, as detailed in Friday's column, I love it, but Showtime PR also sends out the episodes in chunks (I've seen seen the first four of this season). Given that there are so many twists and turns to the main story arc -- even moreso than at this time last season, where the Ice Truck Killer case didn't really get bendy until Rudy started dating Deb -- I'm reluctant to write too much for fear of it being colored by what I know is to come.

But I'll try. Season two opens with Dexter -- the man who always insists he has no emotions -- suffering from ennui and performance anxiety. Doakes is now actively tailing him at night, making stalking and killing difficult activities to pull off. So instead, he tries being as agressively, boringly normal as possible -- which, of course, means he joins the precinct bowling team. (And because Dexter is always so good at faking the normal stuff, it means he's a heck of a bowler.) But even when he manages to elude Doakes long enough to get ahold of his first target, a blind voodoo priest who's either cursing or poisoning people to death, Dexter can't bring himself to close the deal and let's the scared man go.

And from there, it's all downhill. He can't get it up with Rita (a joke that was maybe too obvious, but saved -- as so much of the show's over the edge material is -- by Michael C. Hall's deadpan narration), and completely botches the hit on the ginormous gang assassin Little Chino. His oh-so-clever plan to send Rita's ex-husband Paul back to prison goes awry when Paul gets fatally shanked -- and after Paul had convinced Rita of Dexter's role in framing him.

Worst of all -- or maybe best, since Dexter seems to thrive most when his life is in danger (fear is the one emotion even he might admit that he still has) -- his nifty dumping site for the bodies of his many victims turns out to be not so nifty, as a pair of treasure hunters stumble across all those garbage bags while looking for a deep-sea wreck. This one kicks off the big arc of the season, and there's a lot of good stuff coming.

I like this glimpse of Dexter out of sorts. If he were the perfect killing machine all the time, that would get dull. And since we know he's capable of feelings, even if he denies it, he needed to be affected in some way by killing his brother to save Deb. Hall has a lot of fun playing a flawed Dexter, and he's going to have even more soon.

A few other brief thoughts:

• As was the case last year, I could not care less about the office politics of the Miami PD, and I can never decide whether the Laguerta stuff is there to relieve what I'm sure is a huge workload on Hall or whether it's there because someone in production feels the audience needs some more relatable material to counterbalance the mass-murdering title character. I think there's value in showing the ordinary human beings surrounding the inhuman Dexter, but only the ones who directly affect him: Deb, Rita, Doakes and even Angel (who's sort of Dexter's best friend). Laguerta and the captain and the new lieutenant essentially exist in a parallel narrative, and there's no need for all their constant maneuvering.
• In keeping with my above criteria, the scenes where Deb struggles to get over being engaged to a serial killer were good. I really fear for her sanity that this season will climax with her identifying Dexter as their new target.
• I remain enthralled by the opening titles, which are among my favorite credits sequences of all time. They look amazing (especially in high-def), and the idea of making regular morning activities all resemble acts of horrible violence is brilliant.
• Why was Max Gail there as the tour boat operator Deb interviewed? Usually, when you cast a recognizable TV face, he's going to turn out to be far more important to the plot, but Gail had only the one scene.
• The more we see of the flashbacks to Harry teaching his code to young Dexter, the more I realize how lacking the actor playing teen Dexter is.

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Dexter still a killer drama

Today's column previews the new season of "Dexter":

This time of year, I get a lot of "So what's good on TV?" chitchat when I'm at parties. I rattle off the usual suspects, both new ("Reaper," "Pushing Daisies," "Mad Men") and older ("The Office," "Friday Night Lights"), then inevitably make the mistake of bringing up "Dexter."

"Oh, what's that?" they'll ask.

"It's this drama on Showtime," I'll explain, "about a guy who works as a police scientist by day, and at night as a serial killer who only hunts other serial killers."

At this point, they'll start taking two steps back and looking frantically for someone -- anyone -- else to talk to, while I smile blandly and insist, "It's really good!"

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