Actually, the officer’s M-4 was equipped with a reflex sightof some sort, which is designed for close to medium range combat. All cutting-edge military weapons carry either those or small telescopic sights - regular iron sights are essentially a thing of the past.
I admit I didn’t get a great look at it, and claim no expertise, but is this the kind of weapon that would be practical on a rooftop, shooting at someone else who is also on the rooftop? The building’s footprint doesn’t look that big - 200 meters on a side (this may be generous, in some back-and-forth shots we can see both edge of the rooftop and it doesn’t look that large) and the lines of sight are broken up by lots of pipes, air-conditioning units, struts… in fact, there’s so much stuff to hide behind that it’s dumb to send a single officer to cover it all, regardless of what he’s packing, because of the obvious ease with which Travis sneaks up behind him. I just rewatched it and the cop’s footsteps are audible (presumably as he crunches across some kind of gravel-ish roofing material) but the music dramatically builds so the audience (and presumably the cop, too) cannot hear Travis’s footsteps. How convenient.
This site lists shooting locations for Dexter’s 6th season (albeit with some annoying nonmutable ads, so turn your speakers down) and the “Rooftop of Transcorp Building” is “coming soon”. It doesn’t really matter, of course , it’s clearly not an actual Miami building, but this is sadly becoming typical of plotlines that feature Dexter in a race with the Miami police - he wins because the cops are dumb and/or show up at exactly the time most convenient to him and/or never watch a building’s exterior so he can effortlessly sneak past them, sometimes while carrying a body.
Gotta wonder how Dex juggled Harrison and Travis in that situation. Take the kid downstairs first, belt him into a booster seat, leave him there alone while returning to the rooftop, carry Travis down, toss him into the back of the SUV… Good thing nobody else in the building needed to use that elevator in the middle of the afternoon. It musta been a Sunday or something.
Even worse, I just noticed - the first time we see the unlucky cop, he’s casually walking to the roof’s rail, looking out over the city. He hasn’t even secured the rooftop yet, done a walkaround during which he should have spotted Travis, Harrison, and/or Travis’s improvised altar.
They’ve shown Harrison toddle along without his hand held outside of the house a couple of times this season, so maybe he just stuck close to Dexter while going to his car.
Yeah, I guess he won’t have any disturbing memories of riding in an elevator next to Daddy who was carrying a body over his shoulder, at least until the high-school guidance counselor draws them out.
I noted this first season and it still drives me nuts: No one ever says good bye on the damn phone! They just abruptly hangup without so much as a “see ya later”, or ok, talk to ya later."
It’s just click and the line is dead.
Movies and tv series do this a lot but Dexter is the worst.
I use something I learned in high school English class while watching “Dexter”: Willing Suspension of Disbelief. The storylines now are just too much.
How the hell did nobody hear Dexter smashing that wall with a hammer?
All the other plot holes and details that previous posters have mentioned - yeah the writers are just phoning it in now.
Plus the “Deb is in love with her brother” angle…WTF.
Went back and had another look at it - to me it looks like a EOTech holographic sight from the profile at least. Which would make it completely appropriate for that kind of close-to-mid range engagements.
And yes, it’s complete idiocy to not secure the perimeter in that kind of overwatch situation. In real life, I’d count on the PO being at least smart enough to radio back to command and let them know he was investigating something strange (an unaccompanied three-year-old on a skyscraper roof?) before following him.
That said, with regards to the footsteps, this bothered me too. So I went back and rewatched it - turns out the officer walks only three or four steps past a door left slightly ajar and onto a surface covered by a tarp/stone plating. (You see Dexter Jr. running onto it.) So Marshall only has to make one or two steps on the gravel - and that’s why the officer looks over his shoulder and sees the knife coming the other way. They obviously did a really bad communicating it, but it’s there.
I dunno… suppose he find Travis on the rooftop? Does he then have to put the rifle down or shoulder it to cuff him? I can see it being useful if the officer is not alone, but because he is alone and has to periodically check in with his radio, a two-handed weapon wouldn’t be my first choice.
Anyway, not to get too bogged down, it looks like the writers just wanted more tension in the scene, so the cops were in direct ‘competition’ with Dexter to find Travis, so a cop has to be there, but also critically incompetent so as not to cramp Dex’s style.
Personally, I’d’ve tried to write it so the whole building-as-mountain idea doesn’t occur to Deb until later, and the officer arrives after the Dex/Travis/Harrison scene to find Travis’s altar and a mystery. Having the cops be this bad at their jobs while Dexter is so masterful at his is wearing thin.
On reflection it worked better in the earlier seasons, when Dex was going after criminals after the cops had had their shot and couldn’t make the charges stick. It might make a little more sense if Dex liked racing the cops to get the killer, because it gave him an extra thrill that he was beginning to find lacking in just grabbing and killing people. Thus, Dex would be “escalating” in his crimes.
I don’t know why people are so surprised by this. I predicted that they’d go there in a thread from last season, though I can’t recall what Deb did or said back then to make me think so.
Would the cops really just send one guy to the top of the building?
If they knew where Travis would be, then no. But if you have, what, several dozen tall buildings in Miami (I really don’t know how many there are there, if it’s 10 or 100)? Then yeah, you only have so many officers to cover those buildings.
ISTM that in theory they could send two to secure the rooftop and then, if there is only one way up to the top, leave the lone officer up there guarding the door. Maybe perch him near a corner where he can see the door as well as a good area of the rest of the rooftop in case Travis found some other way up.* Of course, I’d want them to have shoot to kill orders if they did this since it would take so long to get backup.
Of course I wouldn’t trust this incompetent department to do this at this point anyways. Vince called them an all-star team when they’re anything but. A few years ago I mentioned that without Dexter screwing anything up I think they would have had a lot of these cases wrapped up rather quickly since they seemed pretty on top of things. This week they waited around outside a house until the lab geek showed up and then sent him in to an unsecured crime scene all by himself and let him wander around for a few minutes. That was…stupid. That seemed like a perfect example of deus ex machina. I think the writers sloppily backed themselves into a corner and instead of straightening it out just said 'hmmm, we’ll just have everyone wait outside"
It seemed like they had an ‘out’ as well. Travis mentioned the smell from the bodies. He could have attempted to drag them outside to get rid of the smell. That could have been what tipped off the neighbors, that could have kept the cops outside and that could have given Dexter a chance to notice the painting through a window or something (at which point he grabs his lockpicking set, enters, deals with the painting, exits and then walks around to the backyard and says “So, what do we have?”)
Yep. I don’t recall them ever waiting for Dexter to show up.
I also wonder as you do how incompetent this department must be. They have all sorts of resources but Dexter all by himself is able to track down the killer all by himself way before they do.
To be fair, Dexter has the advantage of breaking and entering without a warrant, and he’s started actively sabotaging investigations from within. Its tough to catch murders when the guy that represents 50% of your forensics dept. actively hides evidence.
Less surprised than “eww gross”. That Dex is adopted doesn’t make it any less so. That the actors used to be married makes it very much more so, though.
For comparably amusing wierdness, I submit Deep Space Nine seasons 4-5, in which Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) administers prenatal care to a pregnant Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) who is carrying a child for Miles and Keiko O’Brien. Thing is, Visitor really was pregnant and Siddig was the father, so when their son (born in 1996) watches old reruns of his parents, he gets to see his father pretending to be a doctor, treating his mother who is pretending to be a reluctant (and occasionally resentful) surrogate.
Yes and when he transports the baby into her she breaks the fourth wall and says “you did this to me!”
That was quite a situation. Why they couldn’t have just had Kira get pregnant the old fashioned way if they had to write it into the storylines, that’s a question for the ages. I mean sure, she was single, but writing in a marriage would’ve been easier than Kira the O’Brien incubator.
Maybe the writers just had some interesting substances in their systems, lol
The O’Brians could hide the baby away with Keiko and not substantially change the show. It might add a bit of weight to Miles & Keiko’s relationship, but there seemed to be a lot of drama there already (they certainly went into their relationship more than I wanted them to.) If Kira had a child, they’d probably have to add a partner for her or have scenes with her handing the baby off to some sitter/daycare, and it would change Kira’s character. O’Brian was kind of a family man already, although one who enjoyed his nights out with Bashir. The baby just gave Miles and Keiko something different to fuss about.
They (substantially) avoided the trap of adding a baby to the show. That’s a use of technobabble I can get behind.
Interesting point.