So I'm finally caught up watching Dexter... any other fans here? [Open Spoilers]

We spent this spring watching via Netflix, then got Showtime specifically so we could watch the last season On Demand…

I really enjoy the show. What do you think of it?

I’m a big fan but I think it’s getting a little long in the tooth. For an ubersecret serial killer he sure manages to gather a lot of enemies and co-conspirators.

There are some other threads about the series you might want to look at. One thing many of us seem to agree about – the Miami homicide squad must be the most incompetent investigators in the whole world.

We were speculating last year whether Dex might get exposed and make a run for it. I think that would make a great final season (or two).

I like it, but it kinda bugs me that they backed away from the premise after the first season (or even before). For a serial killer that supposedly cares about almost no one, Dexter is ends up as angsty and as hung up on his relationships with other people as the average 16 year-old girl, and spends most of his time killing people for revenge/justice/protect other people rather then any ammoral “need to kill”.

So he’s basically a vigilante killer now, rather then what he was presented as at the beginning of the series, an immoral serial killer who happens to kill criminals because thats the way he was taught. I guess the original idea was too dark even for subscrition cable.

Also agree its probably time to bring the series into some kind of endgame. Its starting to repeat itself.

Also its kinda hard to watch John Lithgow as a suburban dad in How I Met Your Mother without seeing him as his character in the last Dexter season.

I love it.

Yeah, I agree with this too. They really worked at the “inhuman” part in Season 1, and he started the whole relationship with Rita as a kind of camouflage. But the writers, or the director or Michael C. Hall decided he had to “grow”. I like my serial killers like I like my tea – unsweetened and icy.

I love this show too but it has some unlikable characters. Angel Batista is fucking annoying. Matsuka is extremely annoying. A real one-trick pony with his one-liners. And Japanese-American men must be cringing at this character, too - a very unflattering portrayal.

Laguerda is very irritating to me too. I wish they would seriously tone down the drama in the lives of these other people on the homicide squad. I’m also not crazy about Deborah. She’s unbelievably grating and overdramatic.

Quinn was a great character at first, but he gradually became more and more annoying. The actor who plays him is undergoing a strange physical transformation.He has lost a seemingly unhealthy amount of weight. I wish they’d acknowledge this on the show and write it into the story somehow.

Harry Morgan, played by the great James Remar, is a great character. The trouble is in the implementation of him. The “talking to Dexter” scenes, accompanied by jacked-up brightness, get tiresome. I would be more interested in seeing standard flashbacks with Harry rather than having him appear talking to Dexter in his head.

I’m really not a big fan of young kids so I’d like to see less of the kids on the show.

I really hope the next season of Dexter is an improvement.

I’m looking forward to Dexter v. Deb in an explosive finale where Dexter meets his demise. That’s the only acceptable way to end the series.

Um… what’s left to love?

Also, Desmond Harrington is on my Celebrity Death Pool list this year because I’m thinking the weight loss might be some fatal disease.

I think the problem is that they have to write the whole cast into each episode, even in seasons where they aren’t really necessary to the main “Dexter” plot. So the folks at the police station end up having a bunch of wacky side-adventures on their own that aren’t tied meaningfully to the main plot arc, and end up as annoying filler.

I like all the sub-characters - well, not necessarily ‘like,’ but enjoy watching. Deb is one of my favourite characters ever; her grief at Lundy’s death hit me much more than anything similar usually does. Weird to think that in real life she’s married to Michael C. Hall.

Dexter has grown a bit more angsty, but it would be difficult for him not to, really. As a TV character, I mean. Watching someone go through all this and remain entirely unaffected would be rather dull. He hasn’t changed hugely, though; even in the first season he was quite emotional sometimes while claiming not to be.

It’s not as if he’s turned into a blubbering wreck; he was more stunned than anything else by Rita’s death, and felt guilty (he’s always had morals) and was terribly inconvenienced.

I do hope they do the sensible thing and plan for a series ending after season 6 or 7. Each individual season is very tightly-planned, it seems to me, so I reckon they will actually do so. I have no idea how, though. Dex in jail or dead? Just carrying on killing people forever? Growing out of it? That last one would be terrible.

Maybe they could flash-forward to 30 years in the future or something, at Dexter’s graveside. He died while trying to take down yet another serial killer, but clearly nobody knows that he was himself a serial killer - just another unlucky victim. Well, perhaps his son knows as is carrying on the family business, hinted at by him opening a cupboard filled with numerous boxes of blood slides and adding his own, slightly different, box to the collection.

I don’t know if it’s be finalized, but she filed for divorce in Dec '10 (they married in Dec '08).

Oh dear. Hope that doesn’t make it so difficult for them to work together that it affects filming.

Nah, it just means when she calls him a fucking dickwad, she can really mean it.
Anyway, I was a little put off by the contrivances that kept the scene going, i.e. somebody says they have a witness, but conveniently never mention the witness’s name in the presence of someone who’ll say “Oh, I know that guy…” or when Quinn was really obsessed with the idea that Dexter was “Kyle Butler” but simultaneously obsessed with secrecy, making the process tense and impossible until the moment of truth, which was conveniently interrupted by another law enforcement officer, after which Quinn just shrugged off the whole thing.

Geez, even I could think of way for Quinn to get his answer with minimal risk - prepare a photo-array with one pic of Dexter and five men of similar appearance, but no names and pass it on through his FBI buddy with a question for Arthur’s kid: “Do you see Kyle Butler in this array?” If the answer comes back “Number Four” (i.e. Dexter) then you take it further, otherwise drop it. Instead Quinn hems and haws over secrecy then confronts the kid directly, creating problems for himself.

In some sense, the show is like a bedroom farce where characters miss seeing each other by seconds, over and over. Or Three’s Company where characters get half the story and jump to wild conclusions, which further coincidences only reinforce.

I don’t understand why they all but did away with the flashbacks; Harry is indeed a great character. I mean, Hall was looking more and more ridiculous as they tried to make him look early 20s in the flashbacks, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t still do the “Dexter as a kid” ones.

The guest stars next season look promising - Colin Hanks, Mos Def, and Edward James Olmos was been announced - but I hope they do something good with them. Jonny Lee Miller did an incredible job with his role when he could, but the writing wasn’t great at all. That character could have been Trinity-level; instead it was sort of all over the place.

The problem is (beyond the inevitable plot holes that arise every season they drag out) that while Michael C. Hall is always entertaining on screen, the side plots drag and suck the life out of everything. Especially LaGuerta and Batista.

And I think killing off Lundy was a huge mistake. Not only was he one of my favorite characters, but he’s one of the few intelligent enough to catch on to what Dexter’s doing. Deb has an idea now, but it would have been interesting to see Deb and Lundy reach the same conclusion, and then there would be tension over what to do about it.

I’m a big fan of the show. If you haven’t seen it already, you might find…

Zeldar’s Nielsen Ratings Help
06-24-2011, 03:32 PM

… interesting. I’d appreciate your vote there.

I LOVE Dexter. I never thought I could find a fictional serial killer to be so sexy.
I’ve really enjoyed the shows in general, though (not just the hot serial killer factor)…watched the first few seasons on DVD and couldn’t turn off the television while I had one more episode to go.
Then I got to the John Lithgow character. I love Lithgow and couldn’t wait to see that season, but it was too much for me. He creeped me right the hell out, to such a degree that I haven’t been able to complete that season.
Now I’m behind and I don’t know if I can get back into it.
It’s kind of a bummer, really. I want to watch it, but I’m just too…<shivers> must think of something else now.

Love the show and most of the characters. Can’t stand LaGuerta and I liked Batista until he got involved with LaGuerta. Masuka cracks me the hell up, especially his weird laugh. Can’t get enough of him and his off-color humor. I really didn’t like Deb the first season and I thought Jennifer Carpenter had limited range, but last season really made me appreciate the character and I’m in awe of smorgasbord of shit sandwiches she always ends up eating.

I hated Rita, but then I think I was being manipulated to hate her because then I could feel somewhat relieved and yet pained by her death…just like Dexter.

John Lithgow was brilliant and creepy and effective at keeping the show’s pace exciting. I felt quite meh about Jordan Chase in the aftermath of Trinity. I also don’t think Dexter needs a partner. I like him better on his own, but I enjoyed watching his frustration in dealing with Lumen.

Quinn’s an idiot and is starting to feel Doakes 2.0: it’s been done. What *is *up with that guy’s weight loss, though?

I love Harry Morgan, but I do wish they’d cut it out with the stupid lighting. To me, he really represents Dexter’s conscience and internal monologue, so it’s not necessary to make him appear heavenly. I don’t need to be reminded that Harry’s dead and just a figment of Dexter’s mind. I hope they keep Harry in the storyline.

We also love this show, and Lithgow fully deserved his Emmy for his performance! He was probably the best bad guy ever on that show.

I sort of like Dexter’s growth from pure serial killer to one with more of a code than a conscience. There is the vigilante aspect, but it still makes Dexter a creepy guy to like, as he really enjoys the process of killing people more than your average “shoot 'em and let 'em die” type of vigilante.

My guess is that in the last season, Deb might be more like Dexter than we thought - if you think about it, she has all the makings of a Dexter-in-training; just taking her a bit longer to let the inner-beast out.