Dexter 1.09 "Dad Knows Best"
Nov. 27th, 2006 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakA few days break from the Christmas mail writing slavery, until next weekend, and naturally I used it to watch more sociopaths played by excellent actors. And their family problems.
But let me say something about the Angel-Doakes subplot first. I continue to love the way this show uses its ensemble, not just because three dimensional characters are more interesting but because in a show where the leading man is a serial killer (no matter his targets), it would be easy to become glib about human life and/or not to fall into a kind of reverse black and white. Not on this show. Except for Rita, all the regular characters are cops, and the show takes that seriously about them; as different as they are from each other, they're all dedicated, and they believe in what they're doing. This week, the spotlight was on Angel, wo previously mostly got the lighthearted scenes, with a touch of poignant when it came to his broken-up marriage, and now has the dilemma of having either to lie for a collegue and friend despite knowing said man almost certainly committed at the very least manslaughter, if not murder, or to tell the truth and risk all his remaining relationships at once. His struggle with this felt very real, the attempt to try and find out something that excuses Doakes from Doakes first, and then finally when Doakes wouldn't talk to him the decision to say the truth.
(Sidenote: I had an not entirely inappropriate flashback to the TNG episode The First Duty here. None-Trek-watchers, that's because the central dilemma there was similar.)
Meanwhile, you had more on La Guerta's former partnership with Doakes, her deep familiarity with him, which enables her to make a correct guess as to what has happened, and the way she got him to (circumstantially) talk about it. La Guerta's decision to go with the cover-up was the reverse from Angel's, and felt equally real. And yet there is a chilling parallel none of them are aware of, when she tells Doakes essentially that the shot man (and former war criminal on Haiti) deserved to die. Deciding that other killers deserve to die and following suite? Is exactly what Dexter does.
Of course, Dexter had other things on his mind this week. Rudy the ITK continues rapidly to become the most creepy villain I've seen on tv in a big long while. As good main villains should be, he's smart and for the moment completely in control. (As opposed to Dexter, who spent the two recent episodes growing more careless and in this one gets even more so.) Dexter not killing Tucci and all those going through family photos plus what childhood stories poor Deb entrusts him with must have given him a clue as to why Dexter picks the victims he does, and in a move both clever and repulsive, he decides to remove the code by discrediting the source, or at least destroy Dexter's attachment to it: the late Harry. It changes the odds with the whole nature versus nurture competition going on in Dexter; we'll see how much he has internalized the code and how much it depends on the image of Harry as the infallible source of wisdom - of Harry as God, essentially.
Deb freaking out about the whole Harry-kept-Dexter's-biological-father-a-secret thing was, imo, not just because of her similar idolizing of Harry but because Dexter is her only remaining family. So far, boyfriends came and went but her brother stuck around. So reminders that he's not biologically speaking her brother and might have other people claiming him have to disturb. Strangely, I'm far more worried about what learning the truth would do to Deb than it would to Rita; Rita, for all her past damage, has shown herself a survivor, whereas we don't know yet about Deb.
Speaking of Rita's survivorness: I shall indulge in some Julie Benz praise now. Both in her previous scenes with Paul and in the ones this weak, she makes it clear, both by body language and facial expression, that Rita had a history of violence with this man and is scared of him - the way she stood there when he threw the whatever-it-was from the table - AND that at the same time, she has found the strength to handle him and not be his victim anymore. Okay, opening the door at all at the end was a big mistake, but then she was great, and Rita having a weapon, or rather, a baseball bat under her bed and using it didn't surprise me at all.
Back to Rudy the ITK: I wonder how much the whole stalking/toying with Dexter is meant to have homoerotic undertones. Last week we had the Ken-and-Barbie peudonyms, that was one thing, but this week it was a lot more, from the initial embrace to manoeuvring a situation where he gets to sleep in the same house to picking Dexter up in his car at night. Which reminds me, aside from getting his faith in Harry threatened, Dexter is also in for a major challenge into something else he believed absolutely: his ability to spot other serial killers when confronted with them. Unless they'll surprise us with a "of course I knew all along" scene next week, he was entirely oblivious to Rudy's true identity. In which case it says something about Dexter's not quite understanding of human emotion that he doesn't wonder about Deb's boyfriend's behaviour towards him anyway...
But let me say something about the Angel-Doakes subplot first. I continue to love the way this show uses its ensemble, not just because three dimensional characters are more interesting but because in a show where the leading man is a serial killer (no matter his targets), it would be easy to become glib about human life and/or not to fall into a kind of reverse black and white. Not on this show. Except for Rita, all the regular characters are cops, and the show takes that seriously about them; as different as they are from each other, they're all dedicated, and they believe in what they're doing. This week, the spotlight was on Angel, wo previously mostly got the lighthearted scenes, with a touch of poignant when it came to his broken-up marriage, and now has the dilemma of having either to lie for a collegue and friend despite knowing said man almost certainly committed at the very least manslaughter, if not murder, or to tell the truth and risk all his remaining relationships at once. His struggle with this felt very real, the attempt to try and find out something that excuses Doakes from Doakes first, and then finally when Doakes wouldn't talk to him the decision to say the truth.
(Sidenote: I had an not entirely inappropriate flashback to the TNG episode The First Duty here. None-Trek-watchers, that's because the central dilemma there was similar.)
Meanwhile, you had more on La Guerta's former partnership with Doakes, her deep familiarity with him, which enables her to make a correct guess as to what has happened, and the way she got him to (circumstantially) talk about it. La Guerta's decision to go with the cover-up was the reverse from Angel's, and felt equally real. And yet there is a chilling parallel none of them are aware of, when she tells Doakes essentially that the shot man (and former war criminal on Haiti) deserved to die. Deciding that other killers deserve to die and following suite? Is exactly what Dexter does.
Of course, Dexter had other things on his mind this week. Rudy the ITK continues rapidly to become the most creepy villain I've seen on tv in a big long while. As good main villains should be, he's smart and for the moment completely in control. (As opposed to Dexter, who spent the two recent episodes growing more careless and in this one gets even more so.) Dexter not killing Tucci and all those going through family photos plus what childhood stories poor Deb entrusts him with must have given him a clue as to why Dexter picks the victims he does, and in a move both clever and repulsive, he decides to remove the code by discrediting the source, or at least destroy Dexter's attachment to it: the late Harry. It changes the odds with the whole nature versus nurture competition going on in Dexter; we'll see how much he has internalized the code and how much it depends on the image of Harry as the infallible source of wisdom - of Harry as God, essentially.
Deb freaking out about the whole Harry-kept-Dexter's-biological-father-a-secret thing was, imo, not just because of her similar idolizing of Harry but because Dexter is her only remaining family. So far, boyfriends came and went but her brother stuck around. So reminders that he's not biologically speaking her brother and might have other people claiming him have to disturb. Strangely, I'm far more worried about what learning the truth would do to Deb than it would to Rita; Rita, for all her past damage, has shown herself a survivor, whereas we don't know yet about Deb.
Speaking of Rita's survivorness: I shall indulge in some Julie Benz praise now. Both in her previous scenes with Paul and in the ones this weak, she makes it clear, both by body language and facial expression, that Rita had a history of violence with this man and is scared of him - the way she stood there when he threw the whatever-it-was from the table - AND that at the same time, she has found the strength to handle him and not be his victim anymore. Okay, opening the door at all at the end was a big mistake, but then she was great, and Rita having a weapon, or rather, a baseball bat under her bed and using it didn't surprise me at all.
Back to Rudy the ITK: I wonder how much the whole stalking/toying with Dexter is meant to have homoerotic undertones. Last week we had the Ken-and-Barbie peudonyms, that was one thing, but this week it was a lot more, from the initial embrace to manoeuvring a situation where he gets to sleep in the same house to picking Dexter up in his car at night. Which reminds me, aside from getting his faith in Harry threatened, Dexter is also in for a major challenge into something else he believed absolutely: his ability to spot other serial killers when confronted with them. Unless they'll surprise us with a "of course I knew all along" scene next week, he was entirely oblivious to Rudy's true identity. In which case it says something about Dexter's not quite understanding of human emotion that he doesn't wonder about Deb's boyfriend's behaviour towards him anyway...
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 05:37 pm (UTC)If so I sympathise, I'm only still watching out of fascination as to whether it can get worse and worry that it'll be necessary to understanding next year's Who.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 07:01 pm (UTC)Sources of information: well, he's been stalking Dexter for a good long while though, and I'm assuming if Harry did indeed find Dexter on a crime scene (presumably on the one which got the biological dad into prison), there'd be police reports filed, later adoption or no later adoption. Considering Neil Perry demonstrated how easy it was to get at La Guerta's file last episode if you can hack, it shouldn't be any harder to get at Harry's. Once he has that, he has the name of the biological dad...
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 07:16 pm (UTC)Interestingly, though, all signs point to the fact that he's definitely being set up to fulfill the same role as the Ice Truck Killer from the book. And I will say no more, even though I am literally tearing my fingers away from the keyboard to keep from saying too much! ;-)
no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-27 11:22 pm (UTC)His actions in this episode certainly reveal a whole new level of twistedness.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-28 08:37 pm (UTC)I was struck by how emotionally needy Deb is and how it doesn't even occur to her that Dexter may be having difficulty with the situation (which he wasn't but a normal person would). She is so used to not thinking about Dexter's emotional life. I can't really blame her. He's never demonstrated one. But I wondered what Rita thought as she watched that scene. What she thought of Deb and what she thought of Dexter ("I don't know what you want here").
That scene with Rita and Paul was very distrubing. We saw her placating him and I was afraid she was going to be a victim again. I was so happy to see the baseball bat. Love Julie Benz.
And Rudy, I guess he went to kill the old neighbor lady at the end. I wish we had a bit of a window into his thought process. How difficult is it for him to have this relationship with Deb (all for, dare I say, love of Dexter) That scene of him touching the scissors as she lay sleeping...etting his true impulses show, if just for a moment *creepy*. I have a theory who he is but I won't say it in case I'm right.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-29 09:46 am (UTC)We saw her placating him and I was afraid she was going to be a victim again. I was so happy to see the baseball bat.
I thought the placating was an act to get him somewhere where she had a weapon from the start, because right there, in the room, he had the upper hand - he's stronger than she is, and she certainly didn't want the kids to wake up to her lying there in pieces, either. But I'm sure Rita had thought long and hard about a lot of possible scenarios if Paul turns violent with no one else present again, hence both the luring him in the other room and the base ball bat in preparation!