Dearly Devoted

Caught the season finale of Dexter at the weekend, which is only big news to people who

a)     Didn’t watch it when it aired the best part of a year ago in  North America

b)     Are in Britain, but didn’t download/stream it online

c)      Are still watching the show five seasons in

But I’m one of those people, so I’ve only just finished.

All-in-all, it was an OK season. Julia Stiles got mildly less annoying throughout the season (before her annoyance factor cranked itself all the way back up to 11 in the final episode). Johnny Lee Millar was an OK antagonist, but suffered for having to follow in the extraordinary large shoes left by the outstanding John Lithgoe in season four. Quinn continued to annoy me. Angel and Masuka didn’t really do anything. The LaGuerta/Deb feud fizzled out too quickly, but Deb did have some hilarious sweary lines (as always). Dexter is uncomfortably too human now, not nearly as psychopathic as he was in season one. I know that’s character development, but he’s far too emotional now.

Much like Johnny Lee Millar, the whole season suffered from the absence of John Lythgoe. Not only did he make season four the best season since the first, but he added a whole other dimension to the series. Without him, the show feels like it’s missing something.

That said, it’s still good enough that I’ll watch season six.

I just hope FX can pull their fingers out and follow in Sky’s footsteps and air the show without leaving such a huge gap between now and it finishing in the US. I’d never advocate downloading shows illegally, but when there’s such a ridiculous gap between it airing in the States and it airing over here, I can understand why people do it.

Darkly dreaming

The problem with this series of "Dexter" is that it doesn't have John Lithgow. 


Which makes sense as he came to a sticky end in the finale of season 4, but still his character brought a new life to a show that had seriously started flagging in season 3. Having Julia Stiles instead just doesn't have the same punch. 


I've not finished the season yet, so it could still pick up, and to be fair so far it has been better than season 3. Although I'm not sure if I like the direction it's heading in. Chalk it up to intended character development (is Dexter finally devolving) or lazy writing, but Dexter seems to actively be going against his code now, and the code was key to establishing him as a likeable anti-hero. Of course we're going to cheer for the guy who murders child killers. But the code originally dictated that Dexter was only going to kill people who the police knew were guilty but they couldn't put away. Now he seems to be actively stopping the police from arresting the right people so he can kill them himself. I hope this is character development and we're heading in to something special.


Also, if memory serves he killed an innocent person last season - a storyline which seems to be all but forgotten. 


That said, I'm quite enjoying watching the master/apprentice storyline develop...I always said Dexter needed a "Robin". In fact, I never said that, as it somewhat defeats the original concept, however I guess it was a natural evolution from the theme of season 4.


Still loving the Deborah one liners though, the highlight of this season has to be "Shit a brick and fuck me with it". Classy.


Still if I've only learned one thing from this season of Dexter, it's that "Lumin" is a brick shittingly stupid name.