Yeah, I really don’t like the romantic story between D&D and NOT because of the incest angle. It’s because I know in real life Michael C Hall and Jennifer Carpenter are divorced and this whole plot line puts two actors in a needlessly uncomfortable situation.
I see that Michael is a producer on the show so it’s possible that he had some input, but he’s not the showrunner and Jennifer isn’t anything but an actor so she probably got very little say in this development.
Maybe they’re cool with it. I’d like some evidence of that because it just makes me uncomfortable watching the whole thing.
In the books, I forget which one, Deb does learn about Dexter and more or less lives with it. No incest, thought that was truly distubing. Maybe it was a big insider thing for those who knew about the actor’s divorce.
I’m in the minority here, but count me as wholly unimpressed by the final reveal. The moment was clearly inevitable, so I would have expected the writers to have developed a much better lead-up to it. Instead, Deb’s newfound (and uncomfortable to watch) brotherly love was basically just a plot device to get her to the church at the right moment. Wasting this for the last ten seconds of a cliffhanger episode was incredibly lazy–almost as bad as killing Rita just for the shock value.
BTW the first book also included this moment near the end of the story, but handled it in a far more intriguing manner.
I’ve never read the books, but I was just saying to someone the other day that I wish Dexter would get found out already. The whole thing with all sorts of close calls almost every week, yet he never gets cold-busted, has been getting old.
My wish for the story line was that everybody finds out, and he is forced to live life on the run continuing his serial killing of bad guys, maybe with the occasional help of a sympathetic former coworker. It just seems like it would be more fun if he went underground. I dunno what he’d do about his son… Hmmm, maybe this last bad guy should have killed his son to get rid of that complication, provide motivation, and allow Dexter to truly embrace his dark passenger.
Yes, this has been bugging me, too – I feel like the first few seasons, Dexter relied on his wits and general wherewithal far more to juggle his job and hobby, while lately, he’s just been blindly lucky a lot. Like this episode, seeing the painting first and destroying it with a conveniently placed hammer, without anyone noticing.
Other than that, I liked the episode, and the reveal in the end – I’m also not too bothered by the brotherly love, though I could have done without it, it doesn’t seem to add much. Ultimately, I’m somewhat saddened by the whole ‘is Dexter redeemable’-storyline just kinda fizzling out, I feel they could’ve done more with that.
So, next season: all-out Deb’n’Dex romance-slash-killteam, or will she stay on the righteous path, trying to bring Dexter in?
Excellent ending.
My WAG is that Dexter will convince Deb this was a one-time revenge, due to his son being almost killed and Deb will believe him and help cover it up. The serial killer aspect will not be revealed.
Was glad to see Colin Hanks finally offed. I just find him a weak imitation of dad, and not particularly a gifted actor. If his last name weren’t Hanks, I highly doubt he would have gotten the part. John Lithgow was an excellent foe/villain - Hanks wasn’t.
That was just strange. Has there ever been another crime, ever, in Dexter history where they waited for him before they entered the crime scene..and then let him go in first, all by himself for a few minutes? Not only was that strange, that was the polar opposite of ‘securing the scene.’ As far as they knew the bad guy could have still been there.
Also, who called in the tip and did they see the painting?
ETA But I did like the look on Dexter’s face when he saw the the mural.
I totally agree. His “I’m really mad” face was particularly stupid. It could only have been made better if he would have been stomping his feet while he was doing it.
that amount of preperation, the knives, etc - could never be sold as a "one time only revenge, spur of the moment thing’ - not even to fuckin lt deb fucking sister thing.
The writing on Dexter has degenerated far past lazy, they are well into stupid territory. I’m not even bitching about the plot, merely the holes you could drive a truck through.
One of the things that really has annoyed me about this season is how the writers toy around with plotlines before giving up and finding something else to do. The whole religion theme, for example, seemed to raise a few interesting possibilities early on, but petered out in the second half of the season as Travis basically turned into a comic-book super-villain (if the whole point of the theme was for Dexter to utter the ridiculous line “I’m a father, son, and serial killer”, it’s was hardly worth it). Even on a smaller scale, things like Matsuka’s budding romance (silly, but something new at least), Batista’s mid-life crisis, Quinn’s irresponsibility, LaGuerta’s manipulations, and creepy-intern Louis’s interest in Dexter all fizzled in this last episode of the season. Of course we haven’t seen the last of Louis, but if you ask me I don’t think the writers have any clue what his role will be–his entire plotline is just a seed they hope to harvest in the future.
So yeah, I felt like I was being jerked aound most of the season. And given the discomfort and potential explosiveness of Deb’s newfound feelings for her brother, the fact that it was explored for all of an episode and a half and was essentially used merely to justify her just-in-time arrival at the church, I felt the writers were being incredibly manipulative with the audience.
I mentioned this an episode or two ago that I think Lewis (Louis?) is going to be the Villain next season. What bugs me is that I don’t think this show has ever had a cliff hanger so I was (when I said it) nervous that they were worried about future viewership, maybe due to a weak season (we all still remember Trinity) and that’s why they were planning to set up a cliffhanger. OTOH, my hope was that they had so much in store for Lewis they just wanted to get the setup/backstory out of the way this year so they could hit the ground running next season essentially having one episode out of the way.
I also didn’t like they way they shoehorned the mannequin hand into this episode.
Turns out they used Deb finding out about Dex as a cliffhanger.
What are people talking about when they say Deb’s incest angle was only a convenient excuse to show up at the church? How do they relate? Did she have some reason to believe she’d find Dexter there? Seems it could be more easily explained by having her say she wanted to double check the scene for clues or something.
I thought the Dexter mural on the wall was going to turn into something interesting. There’d be dramatic possibilities in allowing the police to discover it, and have Dexter need to explain it - maybe putting more focus on Dexter and justifying some suspicious or extra observation next season as one of the dangers he faces.
Instead they just decide to discard it with an utterly baffling handwave. Hey, we heard there might be some dead bodies in here, so we’re gonna wait for the blood guy to show up to enter the place - a place that might have the perp still laying in wait, or people who could be dying in the meantime? And then we’re gonna send him in alone while we casually stroll around out here? What the fuck is that? A high school screenplay writing project would be failed for shit like that.
Yeah, I had a problem with the wall thing too. The cops would have been all over that place already, if nothing else but to make sure no one else was in there. Deb had told Dexter to go back tot he church earlier in the episode and he told her he’d do it after the kid’s play. The whole time he was walking around the table talking I kept saying to the screen, “Hurry the fuck up, Deb’s on the way!” And sure enough, there she was.
This is an example of one of the many things that’s caused me to lose interest in the series. I still keep watching but I expect so little.
At first one of the appeals of the show was the anxiety they could develop on behalf of Dexter with the audience being genuinely fearfully of Dexter being caught. If you thought about it logically you’d still understand it wouldn’t be the case, such as by thinking well the season has 4 more episodes no way he gets caught yet. Now it’s not even something you need to think about to understand he’s not going to get caught, it’s the expectation that no matter how bad he fucks up there is no chance he’ll be exposed.
In short expecting Dexter to be caught is like expecting someone to identify Clark Kent as Superman. Now you just watch it like a Marvel comic with Dexter as a dark Superhero that works only in a comic based world. Not the type of series I signed up for.
I’m very disappointed that they used Olmos so poorly and then ditched him for Hanks lite - Olmos has the acting chops that Hanks completely lacked and had their roles been reversed, with perhaps an elderly sister or daughter to stand in for Hanks’ sister, the season could have been so significantly much better. And they could have taken it to much darker places. (Like when Hanks’ character kills his sister - a deeply morbid and traumatizing scene which they made absolutely nothing of whatsoever.)
