Everything I never wanted

[selenak]

abigail_n wrote a post that looks back on the second season of Homeland and the seventh season of Dexter, here, which I think manages to sum up the good and the bad of Homeland perfectly. Now I'd broken up with Dexter a season earlier, but through fannish osmosis as well as monanotlisa managed to hear roughly what happens in s7, most of all in the season finale, so I thought myself prepared, but reading about it in Abigail's post still managed to upset me a lot.

In a different way that Dexter did when I was still watching, by the day. In retrospect it seems clear that the quality went downhill ever since writer Melissa Rosenberg left the show after s4, and by the time s6 ended it had gone to a point where I couldn't bring myself to watch further. However, what upset me about the s7 developments isn't about quality (how could I judge that, not having watched the season?); it's about content, the content being the type of storyline I'd enjoy seeing explored in fanfiction but never, ever, wanted on the show itself.



Because letting a Deb-finds-out-tale turn not into "Deb helps Dexter quit" but "Deb becomes corrupted and ends up committing murder for Dexter" is actually something that, in a "five things..." scenario, or in general dark fic, I could see being written well. And good lord, I've been mainlining Breaking Bad, where the whole premise of the show is that the main character becomes worse and worse and worse. "Deb going dark side" is a valid story telling choice. But, again: not one I ever wanted to see on the actual show. Not least because Debra's growth as a person and a cop over the most of the season was a such good and necessary counterpoint to Dexter, who kept making the same mistakes all over again and after Rita's death did not even try any longer to change. Deb having a core integrity was a quintessential part of why I loved her; and back when I was still watching, the one thing I never wanted was for tv Deb to do what apparantly book Deb does from the end of the first book onwards, just accept Dexter's serial killng for greater justice (tm) and turn a blind eye to it. That would have been my personal worst case scenario. Carrying the corruption further - letting Deb actually commit murder (not killing in self defense or killing in a shootout to save Dexter's life, but point blank murder) on her brother's behalf is something I never even dreamt would happen.

On a more Doylist level, it also seems symbolic to me of what increasingly alienated me about the show. All the way back to s1, when I fell for it, I found Dexter himself compelling, absolutely, but what really charmed me was the care with which the entire ensemble was written and acted. Not just Dexter and Deb, but everyone. I especially loved Maria LaGuerta, who started out, in the pilot, as a boo-hiss figure, but quickly acquired layers and became a great shades of grey and often sympathetic character. An episode drawing its suspense from the fact that a Cuban boy had seen Dexter (would he talk?) with one of his victims would take the time to let the boy bond with LaGuerta, have Maria and Angel talk in Spanish as a show, not tell way to reference their own immigration-as-children background. An episode in which a fake confessed to the murders of the season's antagonist (in later seasons, this would all be Dexter's fault for planting wrong evidence because he wants the serial killer of the season for himself, thus making Dexter responsible for additional victims, but not in s1) could be resolved by LaGuerta confronting the fake and getting him to admit to his lies.

The person Deb murders in order to protect Dexter's secret is Maria LaGuerta.

In s2, when seasonal antagonist Lila murders regular Doakes to protect Dexter's secret, Dexter himself (after several episodes wrestling with his conscience because Doakes does not qualify as a victim by the rules of his code) already has decided to kill Doakes because he regards his life more valuable than Doakes' life, but there is no reason, at this point, to suppose the show endorses this view point. Dexter is a serial killer, and as opposed to his claim nobody cares for Doakes anyway, we see his sisters, mother and Maria LaGuerta mourn for him with desparate intensity. In retrospect, Doakes was merely the first regular sacrificed, in a Doylist and Watsonian sense, for Dexter. LaGuerta (literally) and Deb (in terms of her characterisation) are the latest. Now with Breaking Bad, I have the confidence of being on the same page with the show about the implication of its main character becoming the cancer that poisons those around him in addition to getting more rotten by the season. But given the state of Dexter when last I saw the show, I can't help but wonder whether the current writers actually think Dexter is worth this (both the show and the character), that Deb's choice to murder LaGuerta is darkly courageous instead of soul-destroying. Be that as it may, even if they're aware that what the show ended up being is the Dexter-destroys-everyone-including-Deb tale, that the desctruction of Debra Morgan was the ultimate intention - it's something I never, ever wanted to happen, and it's one of these storytelling choices which in retrospect colour everything even if I should manage, say, a s1 rewatch.

I'm trying to figure out just what makes it so unbearable, because, well, one of my Yuletide stories was for Sunset Boulevard, a film where the main female character ends up insane, and my backstory among other things describes how she got there from starting out as young and hopefull, bursting with determination and ambition. And a co-dependent relationship is certainly involved (in addition to many other factors). It's not like the breaking of a female character is something inherently off putting or an unacceptable storytelling choice for me. But, you know. Norma's larger-than-life-ness includes her final insanity. Whereas Debra Morgan had her feet on the ground and was blessedly life sized through much of the show; this, too, made her a counter point to Dexter himself. And: Norma's story, while a tragedy, was undeniably her story. Deb's story, on a Doylist and Watsonian level, became sacrificed for Dexter's story. From the beginning (Harry neglecting Deb because of Dexter) to the end (Deb losing all that made her Deb except for her love for Dexter). Yes, I think that's it. Deb gets destroyed - in the service of someone else's story.

And that hurts more than I thought possible in a show that I gave up a year ago.