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Dexter 3.10
In which the gloves are off, and Miguel turns out to be a lot smarter than Lila.
First of all, despite having predicted myself there would be pay-off for Miguel getting Angel & Co. to shut off the camera so he could chat with King undisturbed in the form of Miguel sending King after someone, I was so caught up by ongoing events that the phonecall still took me by surprise. Well done, writers! Also, I guess we have our answer as to how the writers are going to avoid just replaying the previous finale. Or the one before. And whether or not the Skinner storyline and Dexter's would remain entirely separate. While "will Dexter get caught" is a suspense theme I expected them to play with, putting Dexter in serious physical danger was not. We're just too used on Dexter being the most dangerous guy around, able to take out other killers if he wants to, no question who wins. And yet we should have expected that one day, we'd play out the scenario where Dexter is in the hands and at the mercy of another serial killer, and not one who has a reason to play nice like Brian/Rudy did.
Miguel is scary and arrogant as hell, but you have to give him props for being neither so stupid nor so hopelessly deluded not to figure out that his dear buddy, the man with an obvious experience in killing, was a serious danger as soon as he couldn't be manipulated any longer, and for not taking on Dexter himself but getting someone with experience to do it for him. (Someone who, moreover, has a distinct mode of killing so Dexter's death would not be traced back to Miguel.) There were two guys full of hubris on that roof, but while Dexter is now able to see that "apprenticing" Miguel was a mistake and that he has been played in the past, it obviously didn't occur to him an experienced schemer like Miguel might have come to the same conclusion Dexter did, just a whole lot earlier, and could have already started with the death arrangements.
I was on edge re: Maria LaGuerta, afraid she'd be presented as a gullible damsel, which I would have hated, but I'm very satisfied that the pay-off for Miguel trying to play her was that Maria now was in a position to hear that crucial bit of information from Sylvia, that Miguel had not been at home on Thursday night. You could see a suspicion start in her eyes when she watched Miguel's car, looking exactly like the one the hapless bartender described. I really hope she'll be the one to catch Miguel, legally. They'll probably still find a way for Miguel to be killed by Dexter at the end, because of the hero of the show versus villain of the season structure, but I so hope before that LaGuerta will bring Miguel down as a cop by getting him for Ellen's murder.
The little Angel subplot this week reminded me of Dexter stating that Angel is the best man he knows last season. The suspense here worked on two levels - for the audience, because Angel really is the character you don't, under any circumstances, want to see dark or corrupted, and for Dexter, because it's not just about having learned his lesson through Miguel about making other people into vigilantes, but mainly about not wanting to see Angel go down that path. It's a reaffirmation of his own ethics, too. Best of all, the show treated Angel as a character living his own story by letting him make that decision - to arrest, not to kill or beat up the man who had beaten up his girlfriend - himself, without being physically stopped by Dexter or anyone else.
Lastly: Deb having second thoughts about Anton not just because of the investigating officer/informant and key witness problem but because she's not sure anymore they're right for each other in general makes me feel torn: by itself, I think it's a valid storytelling choice (confounding the cliché about getting together after life saving), but I suspect it's a way to set her up with Quinn, and as I don't find him to be a very interesting character, I hope I'm wrong there.
First of all, despite having predicted myself there would be pay-off for Miguel getting Angel & Co. to shut off the camera so he could chat with King undisturbed in the form of Miguel sending King after someone, I was so caught up by ongoing events that the phonecall still took me by surprise. Well done, writers! Also, I guess we have our answer as to how the writers are going to avoid just replaying the previous finale. Or the one before. And whether or not the Skinner storyline and Dexter's would remain entirely separate. While "will Dexter get caught" is a suspense theme I expected them to play with, putting Dexter in serious physical danger was not. We're just too used on Dexter being the most dangerous guy around, able to take out other killers if he wants to, no question who wins. And yet we should have expected that one day, we'd play out the scenario where Dexter is in the hands and at the mercy of another serial killer, and not one who has a reason to play nice like Brian/Rudy did.
Miguel is scary and arrogant as hell, but you have to give him props for being neither so stupid nor so hopelessly deluded not to figure out that his dear buddy, the man with an obvious experience in killing, was a serious danger as soon as he couldn't be manipulated any longer, and for not taking on Dexter himself but getting someone with experience to do it for him. (Someone who, moreover, has a distinct mode of killing so Dexter's death would not be traced back to Miguel.) There were two guys full of hubris on that roof, but while Dexter is now able to see that "apprenticing" Miguel was a mistake and that he has been played in the past, it obviously didn't occur to him an experienced schemer like Miguel might have come to the same conclusion Dexter did, just a whole lot earlier, and could have already started with the death arrangements.
I was on edge re: Maria LaGuerta, afraid she'd be presented as a gullible damsel, which I would have hated, but I'm very satisfied that the pay-off for Miguel trying to play her was that Maria now was in a position to hear that crucial bit of information from Sylvia, that Miguel had not been at home on Thursday night. You could see a suspicion start in her eyes when she watched Miguel's car, looking exactly like the one the hapless bartender described. I really hope she'll be the one to catch Miguel, legally. They'll probably still find a way for Miguel to be killed by Dexter at the end, because of the hero of the show versus villain of the season structure, but I so hope before that LaGuerta will bring Miguel down as a cop by getting him for Ellen's murder.
The little Angel subplot this week reminded me of Dexter stating that Angel is the best man he knows last season. The suspense here worked on two levels - for the audience, because Angel really is the character you don't, under any circumstances, want to see dark or corrupted, and for Dexter, because it's not just about having learned his lesson through Miguel about making other people into vigilantes, but mainly about not wanting to see Angel go down that path. It's a reaffirmation of his own ethics, too. Best of all, the show treated Angel as a character living his own story by letting him make that decision - to arrest, not to kill or beat up the man who had beaten up his girlfriend - himself, without being physically stopped by Dexter or anyone else.
Lastly: Deb having second thoughts about Anton not just because of the investigating officer/informant and key witness problem but because she's not sure anymore they're right for each other in general makes me feel torn: by itself, I think it's a valid storytelling choice (confounding the cliché about getting together after life saving), but I suspect it's a way to set her up with Quinn, and as I don't find him to be a very interesting character, I hope I'm wrong there.
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