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Dexter 2.10
Best episode of the season y/y?
Firstly, the choice to do a lot of this episode as essentially a two people in a room drama paid off in spades. Doakes had sympathetic scenes before, most of them in season 1 with LaGuerta and Deb, but here they pull all the stops to make him not just a worthy opponent but someone you root for to stay alive, prove his innocence and make it out of that cage. Not that Daokes didn't show intelligence before, but his impulsiveness, obsessive fixation and need to bring down Dexter himself (as opposed to doing the cop thing and sharing the evidence so others could do it, as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
abigail_n pointed out) were stronger. But here, backed against the wall, he's actually at his best and for the first time uses insight and empathy trying to stay alive, and he's not half bad at it. Dexter realizes what Doakes is trying to do, but by the end of the episode, he identifies him with Harry anyway
Sidenote: I was wondering why in the "you're also a killer" - "no, I'm not" arguments Dexter points out Doakes' shootings on duty in general but not the one instance where we know Doakes had the intention to kill and nothing else in particular until I recalled he didn't have the particulars on that case, notably not that it was Doakes going after the Haitian war criminal (i.e. really doing the vigilante thing), as this was something only LaGuerta figured out at the time).
And just when you think there's nothing more about the tale of Harry Morgan to be added, the show comes up with yet a new twist without compromising the previously established backstory. The difference between the idea of vigilante justice and the messy reality of having created a serial killer as a reason for Harry to discreetly commit suicide (i.e. in a way that wouldn't be realized by Deb and Dexter) just works, and juxtapositioning it with Doakes' reactions to Dexter before and after Dexter kills was genius. Because the audience, too, has basically at that point gotten adjusted to Dexter Doing His Thing, and because the victims are all murderers, we don't think that much about the method of their demise anymore. The Harry flashback coupled with Doakes' present day reaction serves to bring back and home the sheer insanity and horror of it. And to push Dexter's messed-up ness one step further. Harry, despite Dexter's anger with him over the last months' Brian-and-affair-with-mom-revelations, remains one of the very few people Dexter loved, and is of course the one who gave him the parameter's of his existence. And then he gets gobsmacked with the realization that Harry died because he couldn't bear what he had made Dexter into. I was wondering how they could possibly come up with something as painful for Dexter as last season's decision to kill his brother was; restrospectively realizing "I killed my father" would do the trick, because Harry beats Brian every time in the affection stakes, much as Deb did.
Speaking of Deb: the flashback offers another example of Deb the neglected because Dad is busy teaching Dexter, and just in case we missed it, the previouslies make the connection to her affair with Lundy explicit, but the interesting thing is that this actually seems to work out for her. When Lundy lets it slip he doesn't expect their relationship to last beyond the end of this case (and his inevitable reassignment), she's hurt, but she's not the little girl who sits back and sulks anymore. She may never have talked to Harry about how his behavior affected her, but she does talk to Lundy, he talks to her, and lo and behold, we get a far more mature Deb in a relationship scene than with either poor Gabriel or Rudy/Brian (discounting the fact the later was playing her; I mean, from Deb's pov). It also doesn't result in disaster, and for the first time I wonder whether instead of a dead Lundy at the end of this season, we'll actually get a peaceful separation with a hope for the future. This is one amazingly balanced Freudian relationship so far.
Otoh, my old suspicion that Deb will figure out the truth and will have to choose looks more likely than ever, because her scene with LaGuerta was a pretty obvious foreshadowing of Deb being in LaGuerta's situation (with Dex in Doakes') soon. So was LaGuerta's scene with Lundy. For a moment I was afraid they'd make Lundy another jerk like Matthews (last season, when LaGuerta told him Neil Perry wasn't the ITK) and let him wilfully ignore new evidence in favour of the easy solution, but then they let him give a reasoned response AND tell LaGuerta she could be right about Doakes. This, again, points to Lundy gettting at least close to the actual truth instead of settling for Doakes in the season finale.
The subplot with Lila is sadly shallow "evil woman" by comparison (so she's setting Angel up and will probably claim he used the roofie on her), but at least there is a direct parallel to the main plot, as Dexter also works to frame an innocent, Doakes, through the episode, and a seasonal plot point, as seeing parallels between Lila and himself was what drew him originally to her.
It's easy to overlook with everything else going on, but the beach scene with Rita was a breakthrough. Previously when Dexter told Rita the truth about something, he deliberately phrased it in a way that made her place it in a different context. "I have a dark side." "I don't hurt innocent people." "I have an addiction". This time, however, he actually tells her what is troubling him, just that, and not paraphrased or in a way that's designed to make her misunderstand, when he talks to her about having discovered Harry killed himself. (And because this show loves its Freud, he gets called "baby" immediately after.)
We end with a great tragic and ironic cliffhanger - having spent the episode creating false evidence to lead the FBI towards Doakes, Dexter as mentioned ends with identifying him consciously with Harry, and blaming himself for Harry's death. If he found it difficult to either kill Doakes or let him be killed before, this should make it impossible. And yet he also made it impossible for Doakes to remain free. Bring on the finale!
Firstly, the choice to do a lot of this episode as essentially a two people in a room drama paid off in spades. Doakes had sympathetic scenes before, most of them in season 1 with LaGuerta and Deb, but here they pull all the stops to make him not just a worthy opponent but someone you root for to stay alive, prove his innocence and make it out of that cage. Not that Daokes didn't show intelligence before, but his impulsiveness, obsessive fixation and need to bring down Dexter himself (as opposed to doing the cop thing and sharing the evidence so others could do it, as
abigail_n pointed out) were stronger. But here, backed against the wall, he's actually at his best and for the first time uses insight and empathy trying to stay alive, and he's not half bad at it. Dexter realizes what Doakes is trying to do, but by the end of the episode, he identifies him with Harry anywaySidenote: I was wondering why in the "you're also a killer" - "no, I'm not" arguments Dexter points out Doakes' shootings on duty in general but not the one instance where we know Doakes had the intention to kill and nothing else in particular until I recalled he didn't have the particulars on that case, notably not that it was Doakes going after the Haitian war criminal (i.e. really doing the vigilante thing), as this was something only LaGuerta figured out at the time).
And just when you think there's nothing more about the tale of Harry Morgan to be added, the show comes up with yet a new twist without compromising the previously established backstory. The difference between the idea of vigilante justice and the messy reality of having created a serial killer as a reason for Harry to discreetly commit suicide (i.e. in a way that wouldn't be realized by Deb and Dexter) just works, and juxtapositioning it with Doakes' reactions to Dexter before and after Dexter kills was genius. Because the audience, too, has basically at that point gotten adjusted to Dexter Doing His Thing, and because the victims are all murderers, we don't think that much about the method of their demise anymore. The Harry flashback coupled with Doakes' present day reaction serves to bring back and home the sheer insanity and horror of it. And to push Dexter's messed-up ness one step further. Harry, despite Dexter's anger with him over the last months' Brian-and-affair-with-mom-revelations, remains one of the very few people Dexter loved, and is of course the one who gave him the parameter's of his existence. And then he gets gobsmacked with the realization that Harry died because he couldn't bear what he had made Dexter into. I was wondering how they could possibly come up with something as painful for Dexter as last season's decision to kill his brother was; restrospectively realizing "I killed my father" would do the trick, because Harry beats Brian every time in the affection stakes, much as Deb did.
Speaking of Deb: the flashback offers another example of Deb the neglected because Dad is busy teaching Dexter, and just in case we missed it, the previouslies make the connection to her affair with Lundy explicit, but the interesting thing is that this actually seems to work out for her. When Lundy lets it slip he doesn't expect their relationship to last beyond the end of this case (and his inevitable reassignment), she's hurt, but she's not the little girl who sits back and sulks anymore. She may never have talked to Harry about how his behavior affected her, but she does talk to Lundy, he talks to her, and lo and behold, we get a far more mature Deb in a relationship scene than with either poor Gabriel or Rudy/Brian (discounting the fact the later was playing her; I mean, from Deb's pov). It also doesn't result in disaster, and for the first time I wonder whether instead of a dead Lundy at the end of this season, we'll actually get a peaceful separation with a hope for the future. This is one amazingly balanced Freudian relationship so far.
Otoh, my old suspicion that Deb will figure out the truth and will have to choose looks more likely than ever, because her scene with LaGuerta was a pretty obvious foreshadowing of Deb being in LaGuerta's situation (with Dex in Doakes') soon. So was LaGuerta's scene with Lundy. For a moment I was afraid they'd make Lundy another jerk like Matthews (last season, when LaGuerta told him Neil Perry wasn't the ITK) and let him wilfully ignore new evidence in favour of the easy solution, but then they let him give a reasoned response AND tell LaGuerta she could be right about Doakes. This, again, points to Lundy gettting at least close to the actual truth instead of settling for Doakes in the season finale.
The subplot with Lila is sadly shallow "evil woman" by comparison (so she's setting Angel up and will probably claim he used the roofie on her), but at least there is a direct parallel to the main plot, as Dexter also works to frame an innocent, Doakes, through the episode, and a seasonal plot point, as seeing parallels between Lila and himself was what drew him originally to her.
It's easy to overlook with everything else going on, but the beach scene with Rita was a breakthrough. Previously when Dexter told Rita the truth about something, he deliberately phrased it in a way that made her place it in a different context. "I have a dark side." "I don't hurt innocent people." "I have an addiction". This time, however, he actually tells her what is troubling him, just that, and not paraphrased or in a way that's designed to make her misunderstand, when he talks to her about having discovered Harry killed himself. (And because this show loves its Freud, he gets called "baby" immediately after.)
We end with a great tragic and ironic cliffhanger - having spent the episode creating false evidence to lead the FBI towards Doakes, Dexter as mentioned ends with identifying him consciously with Harry, and blaming himself for Harry's death. If he found it difficult to either kill Doakes or let him be killed before, this should make it impossible. And yet he also made it impossible for Doakes to remain free. Bring on the finale!
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