In case anyone missed the promos - the new season of Dexter starts on Sunday.
According to this Hollywood Reporter article, Dexter gets religion this season - and looks like a few seasons more are planned as well.
BTW, the new series “Homeland” starts immediately after the premier of Dexter, but that might be now thread worthy.
Presumably it’s one of the really old religions that require human sacrifice?
Believe it or not, that was a key point in one of the books. It was so unpopular with readers that in later books the author basically ignored it.
Hooray! Something to watch once Breaking Bad ends its season.
So, how was it? I dumped HBO in favor of Showtime, hoping that this season will be better than the last.
I can give a writeup when I get home, but basically it was more of the same. Dexter is cool, side plots drag it down, and a lot will depend on how good the villains are.
I thought the opening was awesome!
Spoiler:
I really truly thought Dexter was stabbed by a potential victim and not that he was luring paramedics into a trap.
I really like Edward James Olmos and what I have seen of Colin Hanks I like as well. I have always been impressed by the quality of seasonal guests (Lithgow, Smits, etc) and the roles they are given.
Also, they really got the ball rolling quickly. So much action in the first episode.
Hits:
Dexter being Dexter. The combination of social awkwardness and popularity at the reunion was amusing. Reminded me of the funeral home scene.
Olmos and Hanks are creepy and show promise as villains.
Misses:
All the religious stuff. It’s all been done before and it’s not interesting.
Batista and his sister. Ugh. What a painful scene to watch.
Are they just dropping Quinn’s suspicions of Dexter all together? He didn’t see Robocop biting it as suspicious?
And WTF was up with the shootout in the restaurant? Why was there a random gunman in there shooting randomly and wearing a bulletproof vest? Was he just some random nutjob? I think they could have taken a little bit of time to set that up so it didn’t look like it came out of nowhere.
Like with the other seasons I think its success will largely depend on the main plot arch and villains. I can tolerate the side plots if Dexter’s story is cool.
Olmos and Hanks as “Pinky and the Brain: Religious Zealot Serial Killers*” will have to be given more screentime before I decide if they’re worthy. Gotta give them originality points for the baby snakes at least.
How many times did they talk about religion last night? There were the pre-school bit, Dexter with Angel, Dexter with Deb, the murderers, etc…
I wonder if it’s an awkward set when Dexter-Deb scenes are filmed. I suppose it depends on whether it was a friendly divorce.
*‘What are we gonna do tomorrow, Brother Brain?’
‘The same thing we do everyday- try and bring about the End of the World.’
The ambulance drivers thing was kinda sloppy if you think about it. You abduct two on duty EMS workers and off them in their ambulance? Wouldn’t the dispatcher notice they were missing pretty quick? Then there’s the issue of the ambulance itself, assuming he didn’t chop it to pieces and toss it off his boat, someone will find it and wonder “where’d those paramedics go?” which is a lot harder to write off than if they’d just not shown up for work some day because Dex offed them in another way.
It was a fun scene on the surface, but didn’t really make sense for someone who plans his kills like Dex (not that everything always goes according to plan or that he can’t improvise).
Did that actually happen right then? It seemed like some of the stuff was supposed to have happened over the past few months and we were seeing it flashback style, but I could be misremembering. Presumably he took all necessary cautions, we just didn’t see it. The writers assumed we were up to speed on his methods and didn’t waste time spelling it out.
Also regarding Quinn, they didn’t drop it, it was just barely mentioned…“I’m okay with Quinn being my sister’s boyfriend, but my son’s uncle…over my dead body” or something like that. So clearly the writers haven’t forgotten about it. It was only the first episode, I think they did a good job considering they hit the ground running. I don’t think anyone will say ‘boy, this season really started off slow’ about this show.
Dexter’s murder of the jock seemed even less secure than the paramedics. On a school campus? Really? I’m curious how he got all the body parts and bloody sheeting out of the groundskeeper’s shack and in to his car…
That was all the way at the other end of the football field. I think it’s safe to say there was no one anywhere nearby. Maybe he locked it from the inside to make sure no one walked in on him. Also there was probably a parking lot over there. But if we go there we could start playing that game with a lot of his kill rooms.
I can’t say I’m happy about the introduction of religious shit into the show. I think that will introduce a lot of tired cliches and I’m really not happy about it. Religion-related storylines on TV shows always turn me off. And it has nothing to do with my own feelings about religion - it’s because it almost always results in boring stock characters and plots. How many religion-motivated psychos have we already seen in a million movies and shows? I’m sick of it. When religion can be worked into a plot in an interesting way, I’m all for it, but this is so rarely the case.
But Trinity was heavily religious.
I wonder about that as well. A few weeks back, the facebook feed was a Dexter quote:
I will not kill my sister, I will not kill my sister.
I was amused. I love the show.
The actor who plays Quinn looks healthier this season. In the last season he looked really gaunt.
Fair enough. I didn’t notice that it was on the far side of the field.
They did a good job with that because the religious part of him was mostly about him blending in. This time the psycho’s main impetus seems to be religion, and we’re also treated to annoying dialogue about whether or not God exists.
It’s too early to tell how good the villains will be. I am curious wtf they’re doing, though. Seems very elaborate and ritualistic…
And I’ve often wondered what it’s like working together for Dexter and Deb. They seem the same on-screen, at least.