Dexter 2.01 and 2.02
Oct. 9th, 2007 06:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenak(Reposted unlocked.)
A great start of the new season and emotional continuation of the first. I spent the whole time going, oh, Morgans (Deb and Dexter both), oh, Rita, Maria La Guerta, I love you, Angel, buddy, good to see you again, mmmm, Harry flashback (and yay, we're not done with those!), and hey, it'sBill Keith Carradine.
Only on this show: the symptom of a traumatized and mourning serial killer is that he finds himself unable to kill. The episodes got Dexter from thinking it's all an outward impediment (Doakes) to realizing it's himself to overcoming this, and the great thing is, the show doesn't lose sight of the fact that his eventual return to normal, his normal, is very abnormal indeed. Hence the final announcement to Little Chino that no, he doesn't care about Chino's victims. Not entirely true as he obviously identifies with the little girl, but true enough for the rest of them. Dexter's problem earlier, I think, aside from Rudy/Brian grief and guilt, was that he started to see the people as people, not trophies. Whereas in the end, even the anger towards Chino was gone; back to trophy again.
Dexter and Deb mirror each other in their unresolved grief, anger and fears, and so do Deb and Rita with their affection for men who damaged them. Loved the conversation between Deb and Rita, especially since it managed not to fall into the obvious trap of making the two look weak or like helpless victims for having those issues; as Deb says to Rita, the guys in question - Paul and Rudy - might have never been real (in the way they saw them), but the feelings they had for them were real enough. Neat continuity with the reminder that Deb was the one who took that domestic violence call and thus saw first hand what Paul had done to Rita while they were still together. Rita not budging from her position of not helping Paul, that he deserved to be in jail, shoe or no shoe, was of course what the audience wants her to do, so the twist, Paul managing to get himself killed, thus guilt-tripping Rita, was an especially mean one. Everyone brought their A-game with the acting this episode anyway; for Julie Benz, the scene afterwards with her smoking and crying was especially outstanding, because those weren't victim tears, and they were as much about Rita's realisation she's in yet another relationship with someone who isn't completely what she thought he was as about her guilt about the Paul situation, and the changing expressions at her face when she regarded Dexter were wonderful.
BTW, and speaking of continuity: as with the "everyone has a dark side" conversation back in s1, Dexter manages to tell Rita the truth and yet not to tell her; now it's "I have an addiction" and Rita of course drawing the wrong conclusion.
Deb's big outstanding moments - and Jennifer Carpenter was so great - were when the crime scene spectators gossiped about her and the Ice Truck Killer, that vulnerability and horror changing immediately into a smile when she turned around, the scene when she lost it with the kid and pulled her gun on him (truly frightening), and her last scene with Dexter, so sibling-esque that it hurts, their own return to normal as she tells him she's ready to find her own place again. And how much do I love that La Guerta immediately deduces Deb is far from fine and shouldn't be on duty by the fact Deb hugged her? (Seriously, that "Morgan shouldn't be on duty - she hugged me!" was the most priceless moment of the episode.)
Can't decide yet whether La Guerta is collecting blackmail material or is being genuinenly sympathetic with her boss, but either way, it looks interesting. Her looking out for Doakes' career promises the continuation of the friendship between her and Doakes which I loved in s1. Am I ever glad the show developed her as they did!
If you've watched Six Feet Under, it's impossible not to have a few flashbacks of your own as Dexter converses with a Brian/Rudy of his imagination here, and his dead brother fulfills much the same function as the SFU ghosts, embodying unresolved issues. All the more to Michael C. Hall's credit that he still never reminds one of David Fisher here, with Dexter's grieving and loss-of-self coming across very differently from David's. And Harry Morgan remains gloriously ambiguous as remembered by Dexter, with both the return of the moment-of-separation flashback (Harry picking one child but not the other), and Harry the understanding father/mentor/saviour, with the shooting incident. That moment of young Dexter pressing his hand against Harry's heart was incredibly intense.
A great start of the new season and emotional continuation of the first. I spent the whole time going, oh, Morgans (Deb and Dexter both), oh, Rita, Maria La Guerta, I love you, Angel, buddy, good to see you again, mmmm, Harry flashback (and yay, we're not done with those!), and hey, it's
Only on this show: the symptom of a traumatized and mourning serial killer is that he finds himself unable to kill. The episodes got Dexter from thinking it's all an outward impediment (Doakes) to realizing it's himself to overcoming this, and the great thing is, the show doesn't lose sight of the fact that his eventual return to normal, his normal, is very abnormal indeed. Hence the final announcement to Little Chino that no, he doesn't care about Chino's victims. Not entirely true as he obviously identifies with the little girl, but true enough for the rest of them. Dexter's problem earlier, I think, aside from Rudy/Brian grief and guilt, was that he started to see the people as people, not trophies. Whereas in the end, even the anger towards Chino was gone; back to trophy again.
Dexter and Deb mirror each other in their unresolved grief, anger and fears, and so do Deb and Rita with their affection for men who damaged them. Loved the conversation between Deb and Rita, especially since it managed not to fall into the obvious trap of making the two look weak or like helpless victims for having those issues; as Deb says to Rita, the guys in question - Paul and Rudy - might have never been real (in the way they saw them), but the feelings they had for them were real enough. Neat continuity with the reminder that Deb was the one who took that domestic violence call and thus saw first hand what Paul had done to Rita while they were still together. Rita not budging from her position of not helping Paul, that he deserved to be in jail, shoe or no shoe, was of course what the audience wants her to do, so the twist, Paul managing to get himself killed, thus guilt-tripping Rita, was an especially mean one. Everyone brought their A-game with the acting this episode anyway; for Julie Benz, the scene afterwards with her smoking and crying was especially outstanding, because those weren't victim tears, and they were as much about Rita's realisation she's in yet another relationship with someone who isn't completely what she thought he was as about her guilt about the Paul situation, and the changing expressions at her face when she regarded Dexter were wonderful.
BTW, and speaking of continuity: as with the "everyone has a dark side" conversation back in s1, Dexter manages to tell Rita the truth and yet not to tell her; now it's "I have an addiction" and Rita of course drawing the wrong conclusion.
Deb's big outstanding moments - and Jennifer Carpenter was so great - were when the crime scene spectators gossiped about her and the Ice Truck Killer, that vulnerability and horror changing immediately into a smile when she turned around, the scene when she lost it with the kid and pulled her gun on him (truly frightening), and her last scene with Dexter, so sibling-esque that it hurts, their own return to normal as she tells him she's ready to find her own place again. And how much do I love that La Guerta immediately deduces Deb is far from fine and shouldn't be on duty by the fact Deb hugged her? (Seriously, that "Morgan shouldn't be on duty - she hugged me!" was the most priceless moment of the episode.)
Can't decide yet whether La Guerta is collecting blackmail material or is being genuinenly sympathetic with her boss, but either way, it looks interesting. Her looking out for Doakes' career promises the continuation of the friendship between her and Doakes which I loved in s1. Am I ever glad the show developed her as they did!
If you've watched Six Feet Under, it's impossible not to have a few flashbacks of your own as Dexter converses with a Brian/Rudy of his imagination here, and his dead brother fulfills much the same function as the SFU ghosts, embodying unresolved issues. All the more to Michael C. Hall's credit that he still never reminds one of David Fisher here, with Dexter's grieving and loss-of-self coming across very differently from David's. And Harry Morgan remains gloriously ambiguous as remembered by Dexter, with both the return of the moment-of-separation flashback (Harry picking one child but not the other), and Harry the understanding father/mentor/saviour, with the shooting incident. That moment of young Dexter pressing his hand against Harry's heart was incredibly intense.
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Date: 2007-10-09 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-09 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-16 07:17 pm (UTC)