Dexter 2.03
Oct. 16th, 2007 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAnd then there are shows which are just right. I love the ensemble, the writing, the acting, the story...
The killer of the week was actually the least important part of the episode, although making him a car salesman (who actually manages to sell Dexter a car, much as the psychiatrist last season managed to get him into therapy for a while) was a great example of how this show does black humour. But the emphasis of the story was elsewhere.
Firstly, Bay Harbor Butcher hunt: I appreciate that we're getting Carradine's character fleshed out a little. Though the way he's coming across as insightful and sympathetic with Deb makes me immediately suspect he might have another agenda. (I blame Brian/Rudy for this.) Beyond catching the killer, that is. Still, it was great to see Deb making the connection between Little Chino and Anonymous Missing Dead Bastard whose son wanted him to rot in hell. Aside from everything else, the whole Rudy disaster destroyed her confidence in her abilities as a cop, and now this gets restored. Which has us in the paradoxical situation of on the one hand rooting for Deb but on the other being afraid for Dexter, who is at the end of the line she has just started to see.
Matsouka and his "who's your daddy?" line, and him actually making Dexter say it: did I mention I *heart* this show?
I also love Maria La Guerta, but that's nothing new. I think most of us were expecting her to play some kind of double game with Pasquale (spelling?), trying to get her old job back, especially since Pasquale really is behaving unprofessionally right now. But when Matthews offered her the chance, she didn't take it, and go her. Maybe she did it because of female solidarity and because she remembered Pasquale not going for Matthew's game of playing them out against each other in last season's finale, when he brought Pasquale in - back then, Pasquale worked with her instead. Maybe La Guerta thinks long term and knows that if she gets her job back by backstabbing Pasquale and on Matthew's condition, she'll be just as easily displaced again as soon as he doesn't need her anymore. And maybe the patronizing bastard just pissed her off. But she refused to play his game, and the writers are continuing to refuse using the catfight between career women cliché. I'm all aglow.
In the A-plot, of course, we have Dexter. Dexter and Rita, Dexter and the anonymous addicts, Dexter and Doakes. And a new player. I'm intrigued by the show using the 12 steps program thing not just as a one time gag but as an ongoing plot, and that they let Dexter get to the point where he stops lying and actually tells the truth in it. Now of course if the program were to succeed with him, the premise of the show would be gone and the series would be over, which limits the directions this plot can be going to. For now, it's used for two purposes I can see: introduce our new character, and make Dexter realize something the audience realized last season when in the episode with the psychiatrist Dexter came to face the fact he didn't want Rita to go away, not because she's convenient cover but because she's Rita. Which implied that contrary to what he states and thought at the start of the show, he feels something for her and the children. In this episode, he admits that they matter, that he feels a connection. And Rita, of course, is by now anything but a convenient and comfortable girlfriend. She's also not an enabler. Yes, she doesn't have all the facts, but based on what she knows, the way she put her foot down was awesome to see. And she did it in her quiet Rita-way, without screaming or grand gestures, just making her point clear. Rita, I adore you, too.
And now for the newbie, Lilah, aka Mysterious Sexy Brunette. My current guess is that she'll be the one the Bay Harbor Butcher murders will end up being pinned on, either her or the FBI agent, but I think it's going to be her. Since I'm pretty sure we won't end with Dexter in prison, and the hunt for the Bay Harbor Butcher is obviously a seasonal arc, which means it has to be wrapped up at the end of the season. For this emotionally to work for the audience, she actually needs to have done something. If she's a fellow serial killer (just not of those victims, since that was Dexter), it would be too much like a repetition of last season's arc with the Ice Truck Killer. (Or not - who knows, the writing is so good that they might come up with a different enough twist, other than her not being Dexter's brother, obviously.) So I can't help but wonder whether she's not connected to one of Dexter's victims, and will take her revenge by trying to destroy his life in non-lethan ways?
The killer of the week was actually the least important part of the episode, although making him a car salesman (who actually manages to sell Dexter a car, much as the psychiatrist last season managed to get him into therapy for a while) was a great example of how this show does black humour. But the emphasis of the story was elsewhere.
Firstly, Bay Harbor Butcher hunt: I appreciate that we're getting Carradine's character fleshed out a little. Though the way he's coming across as insightful and sympathetic with Deb makes me immediately suspect he might have another agenda. (I blame Brian/Rudy for this.) Beyond catching the killer, that is. Still, it was great to see Deb making the connection between Little Chino and Anonymous Missing Dead Bastard whose son wanted him to rot in hell. Aside from everything else, the whole Rudy disaster destroyed her confidence in her abilities as a cop, and now this gets restored. Which has us in the paradoxical situation of on the one hand rooting for Deb but on the other being afraid for Dexter, who is at the end of the line she has just started to see.
Matsouka and his "who's your daddy?" line, and him actually making Dexter say it: did I mention I *heart* this show?
I also love Maria La Guerta, but that's nothing new. I think most of us were expecting her to play some kind of double game with Pasquale (spelling?), trying to get her old job back, especially since Pasquale really is behaving unprofessionally right now. But when Matthews offered her the chance, she didn't take it, and go her. Maybe she did it because of female solidarity and because she remembered Pasquale not going for Matthew's game of playing them out against each other in last season's finale, when he brought Pasquale in - back then, Pasquale worked with her instead. Maybe La Guerta thinks long term and knows that if she gets her job back by backstabbing Pasquale and on Matthew's condition, she'll be just as easily displaced again as soon as he doesn't need her anymore. And maybe the patronizing bastard just pissed her off. But she refused to play his game, and the writers are continuing to refuse using the catfight between career women cliché. I'm all aglow.
In the A-plot, of course, we have Dexter. Dexter and Rita, Dexter and the anonymous addicts, Dexter and Doakes. And a new player. I'm intrigued by the show using the 12 steps program thing not just as a one time gag but as an ongoing plot, and that they let Dexter get to the point where he stops lying and actually tells the truth in it. Now of course if the program were to succeed with him, the premise of the show would be gone and the series would be over, which limits the directions this plot can be going to. For now, it's used for two purposes I can see: introduce our new character, and make Dexter realize something the audience realized last season when in the episode with the psychiatrist Dexter came to face the fact he didn't want Rita to go away, not because she's convenient cover but because she's Rita. Which implied that contrary to what he states and thought at the start of the show, he feels something for her and the children. In this episode, he admits that they matter, that he feels a connection. And Rita, of course, is by now anything but a convenient and comfortable girlfriend. She's also not an enabler. Yes, she doesn't have all the facts, but based on what she knows, the way she put her foot down was awesome to see. And she did it in her quiet Rita-way, without screaming or grand gestures, just making her point clear. Rita, I adore you, too.
And now for the newbie, Lilah, aka Mysterious Sexy Brunette. My current guess is that she'll be the one the Bay Harbor Butcher murders will end up being pinned on, either her or the FBI agent, but I think it's going to be her. Since I'm pretty sure we won't end with Dexter in prison, and the hunt for the Bay Harbor Butcher is obviously a seasonal arc, which means it has to be wrapped up at the end of the season. For this emotionally to work for the audience, she actually needs to have done something. If she's a fellow serial killer (just not of those victims, since that was Dexter), it would be too much like a repetition of last season's arc with the Ice Truck Killer. (Or not - who knows, the writing is so good that they might come up with a different enough twist, other than her not being Dexter's brother, obviously.) So I can't help but wonder whether she's not connected to one of Dexter's victims, and will take her revenge by trying to destroy his life in non-lethan ways?
