Pajiba

We've been re-watching the 2nd season. Last night, we saw the episode where he finally breaks up with The Gross Titty Vampire, Lila, and tells her to stay away from him and Rita-and-the-kids. He's pretty scary in that scene.

It think that's what's missing from this season (and maybe even last season, although it was spectacularly acted). Dexter's not scary anymore. He doesn't let out his Dark Passenger. All the lovey-dovey looks he was throwing at Lumen were kind of off for me.

Is that character development? Don't serial killers become more psychopathic, not less? Are we to believe that he is "healing" and will eventually stop, like Lumen?

I agree that the lack of carry over is odd. And Cindy is right - LaGuerta has to be more suspicious of Dexter after Doakes and Quinn.

The last episode sets us up for the Quinn/Dexter relationship to go back to normal. So Quinn suspected Dexter of killing his own wife, was getting reports from the fired cop (name??) that Dexter was up to no good, has pictures of Dexter and Lumen tossing garbage bags into the sea, and was "helped" by Dexter to get out of murder suspicion in the killing of the fired cop (name?)... but we're even and I'm banging your sister so I'll just forget all that.

For me this season was disappointing. After the incredible end to last year, the first couple of episodes were painful and dull as he dealt with the aftermath of Rita (i agree less kids is good until they can act). It recovered in the middle as Lumen got involved. But the last episode was a huge let down. As much as you don;t want to have to wait 9 months after a cliff hanger - we got nothing. And Jordan's death was boring and too easy. One minute Dexter and Lumen are tied up and the next Jordan has a knife in his foot and they are free. Too easy. And if you are Deb don't you want to look behind the plastic sheet?? Just for reference it might be a good idea to see who you're dealing with.

I'll watch assuming there is a season next year but this time I can wait.

Bring back Lithgow! (Trinity's twin?)

It think that's what's missing from this season (and maybe even last season, although it was spectacularly acted). Dexter's not scary anymore. He doesn't let out his Dark Passenger. All the lovey-dovey looks he was throwing at Lumen were kind of off for me.

He was pretty scary when Lumen told him she was leaving. Girl was half a badly phrased comforting word from getting her head staved in. He's a different kind of scary for me these days. Now, he's unpredictable. Old school, seasons one and two Dexter would've just put Trinity the fuck down, but now Dexter seems to be getting emotions, thinking he can be a better man or at least fake being a man better, and it leads him to mistakes that are increasingly putting his family in friends in dangerous situations. And now Deb's given him her secret approval and he can start thinking he might really be the hero.

It's freaking terrifying in its own special way.

So, Deb will find out.

But I am confused as to why they didn't just have her find out at the end of this season. It's really the only way she could find out and not have it turn into a shit storm, because she was already sympathetic to the vigilantes. If Deb finds out he's just your run of the mill psycho killer, i do not think she can let that go.

YMMV, but I believe Santa Muerte was ultimately just a way to get Deb into the file room and back on the Barrel Girls case. After the scene in the club, we're just supposed to believe that all the bad guys are dead or otherwise dealt with, and that's what LaGuerta threw Deb under the bus for.

@Paultera, thank you! I've asked everyone the same thing and no one else got that from the exchange between Deb and Dexter at the party. "You can relax now that this is all over too." She's a good detective...She met Lumen, who looks like every other girl and earlier on she thought it was someone from the inside helping her, as they were always one step ahead. So happy someone else picked up on that too!

Yeah, I think I'm on the brink of being finished with this show. What frustrates me about the writers on this show is that they seem so scared of changing the tried and true pattern of a Dexter season that it's made the show seem really stale at times. How many times are they going to have someone find out his secret, only to be gone by the end of the season? And how long can Deb believably be kept in the dark? Yet there are other times when I see a glimmer of what first drew me into this world (the suspense, the darkness, the great acting from Michael C. Hall) and I know they can do better.
The show's predictability has become its major, glaring flaw, and disspated much of the suspense that first hooked me. What would happen if they let one of the characters find out about his true nature and THEN stick around for more than a season? Who the eff knows, because the writers are too chicken to explore it. Instead, we're given lame-ass story lines like the Santa Muerte case and annoying episodes where we're expected to be interested in LaGuerta and Angel's marital problems. Those two are boring and obnoxious--if you're going to use secondary characters as filler for an episode, give me more Masuka. At least he's funny.
The acting by Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter on this show is top-notch, and I've loved some of the guest stars like Keith Carradine, John Lithgow and Peter Weller, but I'm starting to think that's not enough for me to overlook the ridiculousness of the writing.
Dexter, darling, you are officially on notice.

I'm convinced that Deb knows, or at the very least has a strong suspicion, that Dexter was one of her vigilantes. I've gone over it and "I am. I am happy. You must be, too. Now that this is all over I mean" line/knowing glance couldn't really be referencing anything else. Would Dex be especially happy that she broke a case? Nope, lots more where that came from. Or what, that Quinn is cleared? Or that Harrison's having a great party? No. Annnd no.

"I don't want him busted, but holy jesus in a rickshaw, how long is it going to take for Deb to put the Laura Mosier/CI/Ice Truck Brother together?!"

Uhh...put it together further than talking with Dexter in the final episode last season at Trinity's house while Rita was being murdered about how she knows who his mom was/his mom's affair with her father/who is brother was?

I'm not sure what adjective to use. I admired this season. This season made me feel really uncomfortable and deviant.

Every season up until now, Dexter is basically a really nice and loyal guy, who happens to be a vigilante, killing the scum of the earth. his problem is he sees himself as a monster and thinks he is a sociopath, all the while entertaining us with his wry observations and sensitivities that clearly betray the fact that he is not emotionless, but is actually deeply empathetic and sensitive. he's an easy character to be fond of and support. it's clever, entertaining, amusing.

The same way a stage magician distracts with sleight of hand, we are distracted from the central tenet that he is driven by the need to kill, and this hero business is a compromise that creepy ghosty dad taught him.

This season makes no bones about the fact that he is an emotional and needy person or the fact that he is desperately driven to kill. now that we are really uncomfortable in being made aware of how we have been loving and rooting for a lusty killer, they introduce a grossly violated, vulnerable victim, who rather than being rescued, is taken in by another monster and introduced to his world of obsessive killing. We watch their sick romance bloom in a bed of blood and dependence.

Lumen was created by people like Dexter and refined by Dexter himself. And Dexter's eyes, to me, didn't look so much prideful as lustful as he began to feel he could have a partner in his unquenchable need to kill. Gone is the sitcom-like antics of balancing suburban tribulations with night-time batman vigilantism, replaced by the all too intimate and perverse incarnation of mickey and mallory plus baby.

I almost stopped watching because I felt so dirty and voyeuristic, and betrayed by own manipulated sympathy for their beauty and the beast romance.

I like the complications they have built between Quinn and Dexter. I think Quinn stopped paying any attention to what Liddy was saying when he was crushed with guilt for pursuing the brother of a woman he has realised he loves desperately. This is mirrored by Deb's acceptance of Quinn after her own moral roller coaster. Quinn doesn't know what Dexter is up to, but has accepted it for Deb. Deb doesn't know what Quinn has been up to, but accepts it for Quinn after empathizing with serial killers.

In previous seasons, Dexter would constantly torment himself with the question of whether his monstrosity was a cancer on other people, and we could all plainly see it wasn't. he was loyal and helpful and not responsible for the bad things. This season, he is. Everyone around him becomes infected, compromised, twisted with darkness, and it is his fault. The people he touches would not be in their respective boats if not for him. he's no longer the bemused self-chastising hero, he's a well disguised monster that the good people can't rid themselves of. seriously creepy stuff.

the whatever muerte case. . .maybe i was drunk somewhere, but i thought they wrapped it up. they found the people responsible, and deb killed one of them, no?

and i agree with the author, and many commenters, it would have been nice to know more about who and what and why Chase was. but I can live with him just being sadistic and megalomaniacal and having been born in the realization of how easy it was to manipulate people to do really bad things.

oh, and i didn't see/read the idea that Deb thought Dexter was part of the serial killer avenger couple.

Deb isn't painted as a subtle character. she doesn't hold her cards to her chest, and, doesn't strategise, she blurts things out, she's impulsive and emotional. She's the opposite of Dexter, always has been. If she now knows and simply winks at Dexter, it means they have suddenly written her way way out of character

I've also noticed how seasons of Dexter rarely reference each other, and agree that it is to the detriment of the show. What set off the alarm for me was the second Deb started throwing the word "vigilante" around, and (correct me if I'm wrong) not a freaking soul brought up the Bay Harbor Butcher. There are still people in the Department who think Doakes was the wrong guy, and I'm surprised the writers didn't take up that opportunity for the added suspense. (I mean, really, when does this show NOT go for the extra suspense??)

I agree with Katie, idleprimate, and other commentators about Deb: There is no way in hell she even has a clue that Dexter is as fucked up as he is. I think they are setting it up so that she doesn't have a predictable 'Deb' reaction once she does finally find out about Dexter (like, locking his ass up forever). She has a huge blind spot for her brother, and I don't find myself thinking that's unusual. I used to believe that once she found out, the show would be Over. Now, after five seasons and no signs of slowing down (highest rated season yet, new showrunners, Showtime's apparent need to hold onto shows past their prime) I think they are looking to really evolve, and maybe having Deb find out and explore her reaction is part of it.

Other thoughts: I am also surprised Lumen wasn't killed, and I think it's because they will try to bring her back at some point. I read that their relationship wasn't even really supposed to be romantic, but the writers played off of the chemistry between Hall and Stiles (which, to be honest, not seein' it).

As uneven as this season was, I am psyched for next year. Dexter seems to be at his most sociopathic, most unstable, most unpredictable - and that is really when this show is at its best.

Thanks, man. But what's this about Julia Stiles breaking up the marriage? Is this proven fact or idle speculation? Michael C. hall does seem to be a serial monogamizer.

Deb isn't painted as a subtle character. she doesn't hold her cards to her chest, and, doesn't strategise, she blurts things out, she's impulsive and emotional. She's the opposite of Dexter, always has been. If she now knows and simply winks at Dexter, it means they have suddenly written her way way out of character

I'd have to agree with that. I didn't see any indication from her that she knew. She'll just keep living in denial until the series finale.

As far as plot holes go, there was that guy that Dexter killed out of rage in the beginning of the season and just abandoned. It would have been interesting to see that come back to haunt him, though I'm sure it's forgotten.

It is a bit disappointing that they keep the seasons self-contained, but the thing that keeps me coming back will always be Michael C. Hall and the incredibly talented guest stars. I could do without the visions of Harry, but there's no way they would get rid of James Remar.

Oh, knowing they were married didn't affect my viewing experience at all, nor, I'm sure, will knowing they're divorced. I'm just a sucker for gossip. Sorry, idleprimate, I guess I was just born that way.

Yeah, his kids are staying with him FOR THE SUMMER. Thank god its all over!

Jesus Fucking Christ. Do any of the pajiba reviewers pay attention to and analyze facial reactions or small details? I swear people are retarded when it comes to predicting how a show will turn out or when they make dumbass moronic comments like "the seasons rarely reference one another." Bull shit. Quit trying to act like professionals when you're obviously not. Cause your opinions suck.

Your review came off misinformed and half-assed. I'm not making personal attacks on you. I may have came across too harsh and sort of dickish, and I apologize for that. Attacking my blog, however, is an entirely different offense. Pleased to see you taking comments so childishly.

Also "dumbass moronic" and "Bull shit" (typically spelled as one word, FYI). I don't think I've written anything nearly that offensive.

My comment was a very lazy one. I can't defend it. At the time, I didn't want to type out a mini counter-review or actually dispute your article with facts. I got angry instead and typed a mini rant (Why? Had nothing better to do, I guess.) Not proud of it, and deleting still wouldn't remove its existence. It happened. Thank you for at least fighting back and putting me in front of the mirror. I should think before I type, but that's not always easy with the instant gratification.

And how rarely do I look up a reviewer? Not often. I've perused this site for nearly two years and began commenting just recently. Your past articles I've enjoyed. Guess a fight was what I wanted, but I don't really want it now.

My comments were misdirected from reading others' opinions on this show. You deserved a better response.