Then Deborah Morgan was dead; her body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.
If it helps you can always think of Sarah Michelle Gellar 
Could just be an illegal hook up.
Yeah, as played out as it is to say this about anything I really do think Dexter has irrevocably jumped the shark.
Season 1/2 were great TV, Season 3/4 had serious weaknesses. They became bogged down with unnecessary side plots, the general suspension of disbelief had to become stronger and stronger, Dexter’s internal consistency and motivations became both more difficult to understand and to put it bluntly less compelling.
The only reason I look at Season 3 and 4 fondly is because both had very powerful main villains played by very good actors, and that aspect of both seasons was very good. Dexter was generally compelling in 3/4 as well, despite a few flaws in his character.
I thought Season 5 was a chance for a rebirth of sorts, where they could remove a lot of the extraneous side plots and return the show to its roots. Instead we get a pretty weak season (with some cheap thrills) and now Season 6 has basically resorted to tropes that are 10-15 years old or more (in some places this season has literally felt like a cheesy B horror movie from the 80s.)
The only thing compelling about Dexter was this: you had a main character who was intrinsically bad. There was no blunting that, he felt nothing for anyone aside from very minor attachment to his father and sister. His one passion was killing people, he would have gladly killed innocents along with bad people, the only reason he didn’t is because his foster father had essentially programmed him from a young age to direct those desires towards a certain class of person. But he was not an anti-hero, he remained a true villain. As they’ve softened Dexter and then added a bunch of random storylines that could be lifted out of NYPD Blue the show has lost what made it interesting.
I think the show was at its best when it was more episodic, with a general storyline only lightly being linked from episode to episode. Through Season 1-2 there were main storylines that unraveled throughout the season (Ice Truck Killer, the Bay Harbor Butcher investigation / Liza), but the real meat of the show was really about Dexter finding creative ways to hunt down and kill other killers.
I’m not saying the show should have stuck to a boring and repetitive format, but I am saying it basically should have remained true to what it was: a show about an unashamed, unrepentant serial killer that had some season long story arcs to keep things interesting. In truth that should have gone on for 3-4 season and culminated in Dexter being captured or killing himself to evade capture.
I think a lot of what has happened to this show is just that the writers quickly ran out of ways to keep this compelling idea from becoming monotonous and repetitive. On top of that they hired a bunch of costars who need air time and I honestly feel like characters like a lot of story lines only exist to give the actors in them something to do.
I will say this though, this problem isn’t so much with Dexter as a show but just as a concept. A story where there is a truly despicable serial killer as the protagonist is interesting, add the whole Harry’s code in because if he was just killing everyone it truly would lack any form of most people being able to empathize and care about the main character. By making all of the victims bad men by definition you tap into everyone’s latent desire to see justice done and vengeance rendered unto those who have it coming. I think the problem is this idea is really good for a few seasons of television and 1-2 novels. In both the book series (which becomes significantly worse than the TV show by book two and down right retarded after that) and the television show it has become obvious this concept just isn’t designed for some 85+ episodes or 7-8 books.
I echo one of the above posts: why did Dexter look in the basement when its door was blocked by the table? That’d be some trick on the part of Gellar. Stood and delivered, I guess.
Beyond all of that, I was baffled that Dexter — supposedly a man of such extreme canniness that he can kill scores (hundreds?) of people without raising suspicion — was so blasé about trotting around university offices wearing gloves, carrying an axe, in the company of someone known to be involved in a series of brutal murders. These places are generally not abandoned at night, there could easily have been grad students and other professors hanging around.
(That said, Code of Harry my ass. Dexter’s one lucky sumbitch plain and simple, and he has been since (oh) the second season or thereabouts. One of this show’s unfortunate broken promises.)
Didn’t he see that the tile was worn there from moving the altar?
At any rate, this episode was bad. I’m starting to think that the writers will just have Dexter do whatever they want in order to advance the plot. He was so sloppy with the entire ordeal with the university professor. And he durdled around in the church playing with his knives and talking to Harry, and he didn’t hear Travis talking to himself.
And how could it have possibly taken him that long to realize Gellar isn’t real? Isn’t he a serial killer fanatic? Wouldn’t he know of the countless killers who heard voices in their head? He wasn’t tipped off by Gellar vanishing out the window?
Another thought: why would Travis go through the ruse of having Dexter come back to the church (after killing the Professor) for the purpose of killing Dexter? couldn’t he simply have killed him in the hotel room?
Because I think Travis is one step further gone - multiple personalities perhaps.
Because Travis doesn’t want to kill Dexter, Gellar does. Travis seems to go in and out of Gellars control, presumably Travis was really at the helm while he was in the hotel.
Absolutely - he was genuinely shocked at the scene in the motel bathroom. Travis may have physically written the message, but Gellar was certainly in control when it was done.
I’d agree with you on your last two, as helpful suggestions. But I think the Dexter’s Brother was fine just where it was placed. First of all, you needed the death of Brother Sam (or something equally traumatic) to snap Dexter. That couldn’t have been built up by episode 2. Or, rather, had it occurred in episode 2, we the audience would have expected this season to be about Rudy showing up all the time as Dexter’s dark passenger.
Secondly, I think if you were blissfully unaware that Gellar wasn’t real, the entire episode with Rudy wouldn’t have triggered any ping on our radar. It would only be after the fact that you’d go “oh…hey, that makes sense.” But since we all had figured it out by then, of course we got the point of Rudy while it was airing.
So is watching Travis and how real he believes Gellar to be going to help Dexter to realize that he must also be as nuts, since he also sees other people as very real?
But he doesn’t. Dexter knows that Harry and Brian are not actually *there *there, I don’t think any of the scenes of him speaking to them are supposed to be out loud. It is just a visual representation of what he is thinking/feeling at the time.
While I admit I chuckled at that scene, I also thought it was kind of a hacky ploy for comic relief, and not particularly believable (come on, nobody gets THAT drunk).
At moments like that, it seems that the show is in danger of descending into cheap farce.
Not as nuts. Call Dexter’s dad a manifestation of his conscience. Dexter will talk to him (or most likely the entire conversation is taking place not out loud but in his mind) but he’s fully aware that his dad isn’t real. Travis probably has no recollection of killing Gellar. To him, Gellar is 100% completely real.
Why in the world would they have the trap door covered by a table? What plot purposes does that serve except to make Dexter seem incredibly stupid? “Maybe Gellar escaped down there and then telekinetically put the table back over it!”
Why not just have the trap door partially open, just enough to notice it? It would become plausible that Dexter would chase down Gellar in there, it’s exactly the sort of trap that Travis could plan out… it just seems incredibly stupid for no reason at all.
Anyway, when we were talking about the poll about who thought Gellar was real, I suspect a lot of the “Gellar was real” responses are actually “Gellar is so obviously fake that they must be misdirecting us, and the real surprise will be that Gellar was real” - there was nothing subtle about the way they treated Gellar.
In fact the only things that actually suggest Gellar is real are just plotholes. Like when Travis magically stops the elevator, and then climbs up all those stairs, kills the lecturer guy, then gets back to Dexter’s floor in about a minute, that’s evidence that Gellar was real because it’s so implausible for Travis to be able to do it. Oh, but nope, Travis has supernatural speed powers, so just bad writing again.
Man has this show gotten sloppy.
It was actually more awkward than that. At first he said he was going to track the “internet protocol address”, which no one actually says.. maybe a nerd trying to impress people with technobabble… but then when they were at the source of the wireless signal, he says “I tracked the IPA”… which no one has ever said in the history of mankind.
Oh, one more thing. The dead hooker. The idea that the ribs were cracked, therefore it should be treated as an open homicide case. Why? They clearly indicated that they know the cracked ribs indicate that someone found her and tried to give her CPR. If it was a homicide case, why would anyone do that?
Now they may want to hunt down the guy who was with her for not reporting it, or some other crime, but why would homicide be in play? She clearly overdosed, and there’s no indication of foul play.
Maybe God is on his side.
Is it homicide if you give someone illegal drugs and they die? I don’t know if it’s a homicide, but I’m relatively sure it’s a crime of some kind.
I caught the clunky “internet protocol address” but missed “I tracked the IPA.”
Maybe others were right and he’s going to turn out to be a complete fraud who just sort of Ferris Buellered himself into the system to get something…perhaps he just wants more Ice Truck Killer memorabilia. As I mentioned earlier he is sort of brown nosing Dexter and he’s been asking about doing more forensics stuff like he’s been trying to buddy up to him. If he wants to get his hands dirty, he should be asking Vince, not Dexter.
If it’s an accident, I believe it’s manslaughter.
ETA, I just looked at an old case from Milwaukee. The details are a bit fuzzy, but a high school minor (well known and liked) went out with some friends, one of them got her high, she OD’d. They dumped her on her parent’s front lawn (not sure if she was alive at that point) and they later found her dead.
Looks like at least one person pled guilty to second degree reckless homicide.