Dexter: Final Season On Showtime (SPOILERS!)

Cafe Society
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So the final season of DEXTER started yesterday on Showtime.

We have been big fans of this show and have watched every episode. Sorry to see it ending, but very glad this has been planned and designed to be a real final season, with what we fully expect to be quite a grand finale. The lead actor and current executive producer, Michael C. Hall (Dexter) was also in Six Feet Under - which had perhaps the grandest series finale of all time - so if anybody knows how to wrap up a series, it will be him!

The first episode started off with a bang!

Looks like Dex had a nice relaxing summer - too bad his sister Debb didn’t quite have the same. She has fallen off the rails and things don’t look good for her right now.

A new character, Dr. Vogel, has entered the picture and she seems to know more than just a tiny bit about the double life of our favorite serial killer! What is her connection and what is her ulterior motive?

BTW: I read in an interview that the other actors have no idea how this show (and their characters) are going to end this final season - only a few people know and they have kept it a secret to everyone else - even Debb (ex-wife in real life of Dexter - Michael C. Hall) has no idea what is going to happen yet.

All in all, a nice leap into the final season - and I have no idea who is going to survive or who is going to die this season!

If you had told me way back when that I would like a series about a serial killer, and actually root for his success, I would have be dubious to say the least. But as regular viewers know, Dexter has his “code” and it does sort of set him apart from your average serial killer…although I am not sure most juries would agree.

At any rate - looking forward to this final ride. I fully expect there will be a season finale episode that will get great ratings and be worthy of a few comments at the conclusion!

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FWIW - During Dr. Vogel’s first scene I turned to my wife and said, “I bet she knew Harry too. I bet she helped him come up with the code.” :cool:

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Is no one else watching this?

I enjoyed it.

I am really curious how they deal with Harrison since he’s getting too old not to notice things and Angel’s sister has established more boundaries.
It seems like Quinn is going to be more suspicious of Dexter again now that he’ll have inside information as to his schedule.

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D’oh! :smack: It’s been driving me crazy all night. Harry must have consulted with her when Dex was a child to see if medical intervention would have helped his pathology.

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Good episode. Good start to final season. I’ve been a fan since season 1, but I’ve felt that it’s been on a steady decline since the first year or two. They’ve gone too much away from the thrill of the kill the past couple of seasons, and trying to make him more “human” has hurt the show’s appeal. Last night’s episode has lifted my hope’s that this last season may be entertaining.

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I’ve watched Dexter since the beginning and was a huge fan of the first few seasons. The last two seasons have really put a strain on my ability to continue to suspend disbelief.
I know it’s just a TV show but, jeez, some of the stuff that Dexter does just seems so implausible. Killing the guy in the airport last season was an example. Oh well, I’ve watched the entire series so no point in stopping now. :wink:
But, a few things about the first episode:
-Why didn’t Dexter just send Deb a text message?
-Dexter figured out Deb’s password in about six seconds and it was “fucking password?”
-Why would Dexter take Harrison with him when he was going to rescue Deb from a mob hitman?

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I didn’t catch her name was Dr Vogel. That doesn’t bode well for the season, as that was very similar to the evil Vogler from the early seasons of House. He nearly ruined the show for me, despite being played by the otherwise-awesome Chi McBride.

Anyway, I didn’t like the episode. I haven’t loved it in a while and it didn’t win me back. I will continue to watch, as there are so few left, but if it wasn’t being canceled, I think I’d not bother.

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I don’t know if there was any logic-of-the-story reason, but there’s certainly* a logic-of-the-showrunners reason: Harrison needs to be pushed closer to the forefront of the viewers’ awareness. The character must be prominent in our minds, in order to create the emotional impact of the series finale.

I bet.

*Well, “probably,” anyway. I’m just guessing.

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Yeah, he’s pretty much been AWOL for a while but he was all over this episode.

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I thought LaGuerta’s ceremony was a little cringeworthy, especially in how much exposition was being done standing by the bench, in the little conversation between Matsuka, Quinn, Angel, Dexter, and the random new character that they’ve felt the need to introduce. You’d really think that they should have been able to introduce us to a few more people in Miami Metro over the course of seven seasons, so that they had a bit more to rely on. But no, they had to bring back Matthews from retirement, and Quinn’s balling Angel’s sister. Come on!

After that, things got a little bit more interesting, although I certainly did wonder whether texting for some reason does not exist in the Dexterverse. At least the graphic interfaces of the phone’s they use now look real, and not like something from the early 1990s.

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Because he is still going for the World’s Worst Father trophy.

Seriously, the guy pawns his kid off on the nanny 24/7. He better be paying her a shit-ton of money.

I actually liked the episode and the “new” Deb, as fucked up as she is. And I can’t stand Deb.

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I don’t remember where I read this last season but it was suggested that the producers are now stuck with a small child and don’t really know what to do with him. That was why he was with relatives through most of last season.

I was just thinking how much I hated the Deb falling in love with Dexter crap.

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Shouldna killed his mother, then.

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You are probably right…just a guess, but could be that little Harrison is also going to be sitting in a pool of blood at the end, just like daddy as a boy…the only question is who is going to be teaching him “the code”…Dex or Debb? Somehow I see Debb raising him and teaching him how to reign in the urges like daddy used to do.

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They already had the “Harrison sitting in a pool of blood” thing when Rita died. I think Harrison will die and it will be Dexter’s fault, that’s why they’re bringing him back into the foreground.

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Did you guys miss the five minutes of the episode where Dex was trying to find someone to take Harrison for him so he could get to Deb? In the past he had two options- Deb or the babysitter… now all he has is the babysitter–the babysitter who he couldn’t reach–because she was schtupping Quinn.
I half expected him to leave Harrison with Quinn when he showed up at his place.

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Is it cold to say I hope this happens in the second episode so the Harrison character can disappear, already, getting us back to all-adult storylines?

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Yeah, I know, but if my choices are:
A) Take my toddler into a situation where there might be a crazed killer.
or
B) Not
I’m probably going to go with not. :slight_smile:

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Nope. That’s the way it is with me. Except for all this lactating Dad persona Dex has developed will probably get worse. It was cute when “Harrison” (stupid name) was a baby, I guess, but it’s getting beyond retarded.

The only good thing about this episode was seeing James Remar get a little more involved re Deb. I just saw The Warriors a few days ago – props for longevity of that actor (BTW the best comic book movie I’ve ever seen – ridiculous, stupid, pedocentric, notwithstanding it was based on a print novel).

I’m feeling some of the same with Deb’s character as with Don Draper in Mad Men – supposedly they just all-of-a-sudden became ridiculous caricature’s of addicts. Deb has a good reason to be mentally psychotic, but her banal medicine cabinet is meant to be a harbinger of her coke-bogarting wastoid private dick self, just as Don’s morning cocktail is meant to indicate how low he’s gone.

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Spoiler for The Sopranos in this post:

I didn’t miss it, but I still say there was “logic-of-the-story” lacking because few parents of the professional class will have only ONE child-care option, as Dexter seems to have. It seems kind of implausible that he wouldn’t have some other options in his organizer–people or agencies he could call, or child-care locations he’s registered at, so that he wouldn’t have to have dragged Harrison along.

As for the showrunners returning Harrison to the background: I would be very surprised if that happened. I believe that character will be crucial to the series finale’s plot.
This show has something in common with The Sopranos, namely, a protagonist that we enjoy identifying with because he violates the usual rules of human society: if someone annoys him, he KILLS them. We find it fun and interesting to put ourselves imaginatively in that position, but at the same time we recognize that this sort of conduct would not work very well in the real world. In short, we’re intrigued by the ‘judge, jury, and executioner’ idea–but also feel strongly that if such a character rode into the sunset in the end, something important in the order of things would be violated.

We want the character to go on doing what he does, but at the same time we know he needs to be punished and stopped from doing what he does.

The solution to this “wanting it both ways” aspect of the ultimate fate of Tony Soprano that David Chase found was a work of plotting genius. He DID find a way to let us have it both ways. When we really want to believe that Tony got away with it, we can reflect that we never did see bullets riddling his body; when we need to believe in ultimate justice, we can remember that the abrupt black silence pretty much must have meant bullet-to-Tony’s-brain.

It was a brilliant choice.

The Dexter showrunners can’t copy this, obviously. Yet they will want to do what Chase did in letting us Have It Both Ways: to see Dexter stopped and punished, but also to know that the ‘kill annoying people and get away with it’ possibilities are still ours to imagine.

The solution will be to kill Dexter, but let it be clear that Harrison is just like Dexter–Harrison will grow up to Kill Righteously. Since Harrison is a child, either Deb or Dr. Vogel will be the one to teach him The Code. And to make it that much easier for fans to feel reconciled to the end of Dexter, very possibly we will see Harrison visualizing and talking to his dead father, just as Dexter did with Harry.