day 7: eight years and that's the best you could come up with?
I've adopted a bunch of new shows this season, but right now I just want to talk about one that's ended. I borrowed the first 4 seasons of "Dexter" from my friend Ingrid and blew through them in a few weeks. Season 5 is when I started watching live; a lot of fans refer to it as the point when the show started going downhill, but personally I really liked the Lumen storyline (and anyway, whatever they did was going to suffer in comparison to Trinity/John Lithgow and the mind-blowing finale of S4). S6 is where the shit really hit the fan. Aside from the criminal waste of Edward James Olmos and the terribad acting of Colin Hanks, that was when they dropped that ludicrous Deb-is-in-love-with-Dexter bomb. I'm still wondering who poor Jennifer Carpenter pissed off that they wrote that nonsense for her after the divorce. S7, while nowhere near the quality of the early seasons, did feature the wonderful Ray Stevenson and Yvonne Strahovski, both playing compelling characters. Maybe they threw too much stuff at the wall and not all of it stuck (NADIA), but the Deb-Dex drama was interesting at least.
Season 8 is just...well, the finale was the perfect ending for it, in the sense that S8 was awful and the finale is one of the worst I've ever seen. Here is a list of the reasons why, in no particular order. Most of it has to do with the baffling lack of attention to detail for what used to be such a smart show. There is a lot of capslock.
1. How the hell did Dexter survive that storm? He was on a BOAT (motherfucker don't you ever forget) in the middle of the OCEAN in the middle of a HURRICANE.
2. HOW the HELL did he just motor on up to a hospital pier, walk in and turn off life-support functions without setting off alarms, and WALK OUT with a shrouded body in his arms? I don't care if it was the storm of the century, that makes no fucking sense.
3. And he drops Deb's unweighted body off the boat, AND IT SINKS? NO. We've watched him do this eight thousand times. My disbelief, she will not be suspended.
4. While I liked Hannah flashing her claws again, did all that seriously happen on a crowded bus where anyone could hear and see it? Why couldn't they have stopped at a truck stop bathroom or something and knock him out there? Or better yet, KILL HIM. Leaving him alive is idiotic because he knows Hannah has Harrison (making her a kidnapper as well as a convicted murderer) AND he knows they're going to Argentina. More abstractly, let's not forget that last season established Hannah as someone who took pleasure in killing, even if most of her murders were committed to get her out of some tricky situation. This season turned her into a helpless victim who only killed out of necessity, which is totally out of character AND ruins Dexter's character as well, because if they don't both carry that dark passenger, what is the point of their connection?
5. So Harrison is just a missing person now? Nobody gives a shit that he's disappeared off the face of the earth, not Jamie or Batista or the entire Miami Metro unit who knew and cared about the Morgan family? To say nothing of his actual grandparents and half-siblings? Bullshit. It should've ended up with Deb as his guardian. BECAUSE KILLING DEB OFF WAS ALSO BULLSHIT. And the way it happened - seriously, did Carpenter kill the showrunner's puppy or something? What an ignoble end for an amazing character, and for an actress who gave so much to her.
6. So many dropped plot threads that you think will turn out to be Chekov's ___ but were really just red herrings (if the writers were even smart enough to make them that). Vogel's mysterious husband, the return of Matthews and his general air of sketchiness, Matsuka's daughter (he wasn't even IN the finale!), those drinks Elway kept feeding Deb...And really no closure for any of the supporting cast. At least Batista made it out alive and a decent person.
7. The whole Deb/Quinn thing was so clumsy and came out of nowhere. They were back together for what, an episode and a half after two seasons of nothing (I honestly forgot they were ever engaged), and we're supposed to care about Desmond Harrington's skeletal cheekbones seriously what is wrong with him Quinn's manpain?
8. If they were going to go the whole "Dexter fakes his own death to protect his loved ones" thing, they should've given some indication that he's then gone back to his old killing-killers way. The question at the end of the series was always going to be if Dexter got caught or if he got away with everything; remember that dream sequence from S1 where everybody is hailing him as a hero? I wanted to see the real world version of that reveal, whether or not he lived. Making him a lumberjack who is presumably haunted by his previous life just isn't satisfying.
9. And if it was all supposed to be a dream in this random logger's twisted mind? 1. Unoriginal 2. TOTALLY STUPID.
Just about the only thing I liked was Dexter killing the Brain Surgeon. It was like seeing the old Dex again: he adopts his non-threatening mask, commits a justifiable murder, and has an easy excuse even though it was caught on camera (I also liked that Batista was obviously disturbed watching it and knew it wasn't self-defense, but that he wasn't about to call Dexter on it). MCH has been phoning it in for at least a full season (not that I blame him, with that writing), but in that scene I remembered what a brilliant actor he is and why I used to love the show. And the last shot gave me chills, that look on his face... So, y'know, at least there was that.
And stupid as it is, I'm amusing myself by imagining Harrison's next 15 years with Hannah as his guardian. God help any teachers who give him bad grades or schoolyard bullies or girls who break his heart, because all she has to do is invite them over for tea.
So, yeah. I can't honestly say I would recommend "Dexter," at least not to anybody who needs to consume the whole story like I do. If you can quit in the middle of a series, go for it - watch up through S4 for sure and S5 if the first few eps work for you. Otherwise? Don't bother. That's how badly it ended.
On a positive note, I thought tonight's premiere eps of "Modern Family" showed a lot of improvement. And I really like The Mother on HIMYM, so maybe they can salvage that show somewhat before it ends.
Season 8 is just...well, the finale was the perfect ending for it, in the sense that S8 was awful and the finale is one of the worst I've ever seen. Here is a list of the reasons why, in no particular order. Most of it has to do with the baffling lack of attention to detail for what used to be such a smart show. There is a lot of capslock.
1. How the hell did Dexter survive that storm? He was on a BOAT (motherfucker don't you ever forget) in the middle of the OCEAN in the middle of a HURRICANE.
2. HOW the HELL did he just motor on up to a hospital pier, walk in and turn off life-support functions without setting off alarms, and WALK OUT with a shrouded body in his arms? I don't care if it was the storm of the century, that makes no fucking sense.
3. And he drops Deb's unweighted body off the boat, AND IT SINKS? NO. We've watched him do this eight thousand times. My disbelief, she will not be suspended.
4. While I liked Hannah flashing her claws again, did all that seriously happen on a crowded bus where anyone could hear and see it? Why couldn't they have stopped at a truck stop bathroom or something and knock him out there? Or better yet, KILL HIM. Leaving him alive is idiotic because he knows Hannah has Harrison (making her a kidnapper as well as a convicted murderer) AND he knows they're going to Argentina. More abstractly, let's not forget that last season established Hannah as someone who took pleasure in killing, even if most of her murders were committed to get her out of some tricky situation. This season turned her into a helpless victim who only killed out of necessity, which is totally out of character AND ruins Dexter's character as well, because if they don't both carry that dark passenger, what is the point of their connection?
5. So Harrison is just a missing person now? Nobody gives a shit that he's disappeared off the face of the earth, not Jamie or Batista or the entire Miami Metro unit who knew and cared about the Morgan family? To say nothing of his actual grandparents and half-siblings? Bullshit. It should've ended up with Deb as his guardian. BECAUSE KILLING DEB OFF WAS ALSO BULLSHIT. And the way it happened - seriously, did Carpenter kill the showrunner's puppy or something? What an ignoble end for an amazing character, and for an actress who gave so much to her.
6. So many dropped plot threads that you think will turn out to be Chekov's ___ but were really just red herrings (if the writers were even smart enough to make them that). Vogel's mysterious husband, the return of Matthews and his general air of sketchiness, Matsuka's daughter (he wasn't even IN the finale!), those drinks Elway kept feeding Deb...And really no closure for any of the supporting cast. At least Batista made it out alive and a decent person.
7. The whole Deb/Quinn thing was so clumsy and came out of nowhere. They were back together for what, an episode and a half after two seasons of nothing (I honestly forgot they were ever engaged), and we're supposed to care about Desmond Harrington's skeletal cheekbones seriously what is wrong with him Quinn's manpain?
8. If they were going to go the whole "Dexter fakes his own death to protect his loved ones" thing, they should've given some indication that he's then gone back to his old killing-killers way. The question at the end of the series was always going to be if Dexter got caught or if he got away with everything; remember that dream sequence from S1 where everybody is hailing him as a hero? I wanted to see the real world version of that reveal, whether or not he lived. Making him a lumberjack who is presumably haunted by his previous life just isn't satisfying.
9. And if it was all supposed to be a dream in this random logger's twisted mind? 1. Unoriginal 2. TOTALLY STUPID.
Just about the only thing I liked was Dexter killing the Brain Surgeon. It was like seeing the old Dex again: he adopts his non-threatening mask, commits a justifiable murder, and has an easy excuse even though it was caught on camera (I also liked that Batista was obviously disturbed watching it and knew it wasn't self-defense, but that he wasn't about to call Dexter on it). MCH has been phoning it in for at least a full season (not that I blame him, with that writing), but in that scene I remembered what a brilliant actor he is and why I used to love the show. And the last shot gave me chills, that look on his face... So, y'know, at least there was that.
And stupid as it is, I'm amusing myself by imagining Harrison's next 15 years with Hannah as his guardian. God help any teachers who give him bad grades or schoolyard bullies or girls who break his heart, because all she has to do is invite them over for tea.
So, yeah. I can't honestly say I would recommend "Dexter," at least not to anybody who needs to consume the whole story like I do. If you can quit in the middle of a series, go for it - watch up through S4 for sure and S5 if the first few eps work for you. Otherwise? Don't bother. That's how badly it ended.
On a positive note, I thought tonight's premiere eps of "Modern Family" showed a lot of improvement. And I really like The Mother on HIMYM, so maybe they can salvage that show somewhat before it ends.