Dexter 5.06 Everything Is Illuminated
In which yours truly feels maybe unreasonably gloomy (and blames November, but not completely).
Reasons not November delated for my depression.
1) Deb developing "real feelings" for Quinn. Because what Deb really, really doesn't need is yet another romantic disappointment and/or tragedy. Couldn't they have stayed fuckbuddies which would have made the inevitable let down easier? And can't Deb have a main subplot per season which is unrelated to her love life? Seriously, the only Deb romance that didn't end in tragedy (excluding short term one night stands) of some sort was the one with the musician, and I'd much rather have retained him on the show than Quinn.
2) Angel being something of a male idiot with Maria and Maria being the one to apologize later. Do not want. Even if he apologized first, but still. I don't see what she did wrong.
3) Though she was around in the background, no scene with Deb and Sierra this week. I miss that, especially if I have to endure a declaration of "true feelings" for Quinn.
Story elements I am uncertain about (i.e. don't know whether they're good or bad, they could be either, depending on how they plapy out):
The Lumen/Rita melding in Dexter's mind when he saw her in the bathtub. I mean, it makes sense and not just because of the visual which was powerful and gutpunching for the audience as well, but because when Dexter first met Rita, she, too, was a woman who had been sexually abused and beaten. The part where I'm uneasy where they're going with this is that I do not want it to end up romantically especially if Lumen - like Rudy, Lila, Miguel and Arthur - does not survive the season. Otoh, they're still keeping up the emphasis on the paternal in the way Dexter relates to Lumen as well - having her say "I know what you are in addition to your police work and your extracurricular activities - a father" was pretty pointed, as was Dexter internally adding Luman to Harrison and himself in the ranks of reborn-in-blood damaged children.
(No, Harrison, as the psychologist earlier this season pointed out, in all likelihood isn't damaged at all because he couldn't really see and grasp what was happening when Rita was murdered, as opposed to nearly three years old Dexter, but I completely buy that Dexter continues to be irrationally worried about this - it's just too personal for him not to be.)
On the bright side, Lumen so far still escapes being written as a villain as opposed to the four earlier examples. Nor is she written as stupid. She picks up on Dexter's expertise with a crime scene immediately and draws the right conclusions, and I don't think she'll take foreover to figure out he didn't just start killing after Rita died, either. The show took an element from Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden there with Lumen recognizing one of her rapists by scent and touch despite not having seen him, but the guy in question behaving so deceptively harmless that both the audience and Dexter are uncertain for a while whether or not she's wrong. Of course, Dexter isn't the husband in Death and the Maiden and thus kills the guy immediately after the inadvertant confession. The manner of which was awfully contrived, btw, but it plays into my suspicion the plot with the not-voodoo killings and the plot with the human trafficking/serial killing involving Lumen will turn out to be related and come together.
Dexter deciding to go the Dark Avenger route with Lumen after all wasn't surprising; note that while he kills twice in this episode, he doesn't get satisfied by either death, and he didn't by the earlier killings this season, either. The various stages of grief were brought up in the season opening; methinks he's now bargaining, believing if he kills not just any evildoers but those who hurt Lumen, he'll escape the post-Rita emptiness again.
Lastly: I continue to be absurdly charmed by the way Harrison is used in this show.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/623136.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Reasons not November delated for my depression.
1) Deb developing "real feelings" for Quinn. Because what Deb really, really doesn't need is yet another romantic disappointment and/or tragedy. Couldn't they have stayed fuckbuddies which would have made the inevitable let down easier? And can't Deb have a main subplot per season which is unrelated to her love life? Seriously, the only Deb romance that didn't end in tragedy (excluding short term one night stands) of some sort was the one with the musician, and I'd much rather have retained him on the show than Quinn.
2) Angel being something of a male idiot with Maria and Maria being the one to apologize later. Do not want. Even if he apologized first, but still. I don't see what she did wrong.
3) Though she was around in the background, no scene with Deb and Sierra this week. I miss that, especially if I have to endure a declaration of "true feelings" for Quinn.
Story elements I am uncertain about (i.e. don't know whether they're good or bad, they could be either, depending on how they plapy out):
The Lumen/Rita melding in Dexter's mind when he saw her in the bathtub. I mean, it makes sense and not just because of the visual which was powerful and gutpunching for the audience as well, but because when Dexter first met Rita, she, too, was a woman who had been sexually abused and beaten. The part where I'm uneasy where they're going with this is that I do not want it to end up romantically especially if Lumen - like Rudy, Lila, Miguel and Arthur - does not survive the season. Otoh, they're still keeping up the emphasis on the paternal in the way Dexter relates to Lumen as well - having her say "I know what you are in addition to your police work and your extracurricular activities - a father" was pretty pointed, as was Dexter internally adding Luman to Harrison and himself in the ranks of reborn-in-blood damaged children.
(No, Harrison, as the psychologist earlier this season pointed out, in all likelihood isn't damaged at all because he couldn't really see and grasp what was happening when Rita was murdered, as opposed to nearly three years old Dexter, but I completely buy that Dexter continues to be irrationally worried about this - it's just too personal for him not to be.)
On the bright side, Lumen so far still escapes being written as a villain as opposed to the four earlier examples. Nor is she written as stupid. She picks up on Dexter's expertise with a crime scene immediately and draws the right conclusions, and I don't think she'll take foreover to figure out he didn't just start killing after Rita died, either. The show took an element from Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden there with Lumen recognizing one of her rapists by scent and touch despite not having seen him, but the guy in question behaving so deceptively harmless that both the audience and Dexter are uncertain for a while whether or not she's wrong. Of course, Dexter isn't the husband in Death and the Maiden and thus kills the guy immediately after the inadvertant confession. The manner of which was awfully contrived, btw, but it plays into my suspicion the plot with the not-voodoo killings and the plot with the human trafficking/serial killing involving Lumen will turn out to be related and come together.
Dexter deciding to go the Dark Avenger route with Lumen after all wasn't surprising; note that while he kills twice in this episode, he doesn't get satisfied by either death, and he didn't by the earlier killings this season, either. The various stages of grief were brought up in the season opening; methinks he's now bargaining, believing if he kills not just any evildoers but those who hurt Lumen, he'll escape the post-Rita emptiness again.
Lastly: I continue to be absurdly charmed by the way Harrison is used in this show.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/623136.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.