posted
Friends at work have asked me not to talk about the trailer, if that makes a difference. And the trailer does give a fairly definite idea of the direction this season will take, at least in the beginning.
The new Dexter book was pretty good Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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The trailer definitely gives stuff away, but it was all stuff I was pretty positive was going to happen anyway.
I think I've just excluded myself from any conversation here for the next week, since all of my "speculation" has been confirmed as fact.
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The end of season four was so AUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH #@$$&#$!@#$#@ It frustrated me deeply. I think he should have gotten that fellow when he had the chance because he was such an... #$@$&
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: The end of season four was so AUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH #@$$&#$!@#$#@ It frustrated me deeply. I think he should have gotten that fellow when he had the chance because he was such an... #$@$&
It is a grave mistake to watch TV drama if things going well for sympathetic characters is important to your emotional well being.
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Dexter is totally hosed, though. I mean, Trinity walked into the station asking for Dexter Morgan. Everyone saw that. And Trinity killed Rita. Everyone knows that. So there's clearly a connection between them, and Dexter hasn't said so, and everyone can see that as well.
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As I said a few months ago, the only way I can possibly see Dexter getting out of this is with help. I'm guess he tells Debbie, and relatively soon.
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I hope he tells Debra. It opens the door for more interesting twists and turns this season. And since it happened in the first book, I think it's likely to occur. :-D
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: The end of season four was so AUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH #@$$&#$!@#$#@ It frustrated me deeply. I think he should have gotten that fellow when he had the chance because he was such an... #$@$&
It is a grave mistake to watch TV drama if things going well for sympathetic characters is important to your emotional well being.
I couldn't help it... I feel so bad for Dexter... I may have to wait until Monday to watch this as I want to see Inception on Imax for free.
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I thought it was hilarious how both Deb and Quinn quickly forgot their relationships from last season. Lundy for Deb and Christine for Quinn. Then, I remembered, "Oh yeah! This is on Showtime."
Otherwise, I thought it was a very good start to the season. Michael C. Hall is amazing.
It did make me think. If my world irrevocably changed, would I delay telling the people I loved, people who would also be directly affected by that change, giving them one more day of blissful ignorance, or would I tell them the truth immediately?
Posts: 339 | Registered: Apr 2008
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I was like, wait, WHAT? When they were smooching. How does that happen? Also, Dexter beat the living daylights out of that guy. Which is why dudes shouldn't be jerks ever, or chicks for that matter because you never know. Still, it was a good episode.
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I understood the sex scene -- exposure to violent death, especially someone you know, can have powerful effects on people.
Two things that impressed me:
The beating death, because you know this will come back on him somehow.
The lack of the easy out. Any other show, he would have broken down during the eulogy, enough to assuage the concerns of the people watching that he didn't care enough. It's what I expected to happen. And he didn't do it, because he still isn't really human, and because this show doesn't do anything the easy way.
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quote: and because this show doesn't do anything the easy way.
What, really? From it's ridiculous overuse of exposition, to the cuddly-fying of Dexter himself, to the end of season 2 - which was the biggest cop out I've ever seen on a non-network show - this show is constantly doing things the easy way.
I haven't been this flummoxed by the popularity of a pop culture artifact since Harry Potter.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Have you kept watching since season 2, Foust? If so, tell me again why you can't understand the popularity. If not, I'm not sure how much sense this will make:
The TV series has, in my opinion, tried to walk a very fine line with Dexter's character. He's meant to be as *thinly* sympathetic as possible. We're meant to constantly question whether he's human, and want him to be, and hope that he will decide to be. And to constantly be frustrated, and occasionally horrified/revolted, without closing the question entirely. I do not think there is ANY easy way to do this.
Cuddly-fying him to the extent that we might root for a serial killer was probably the ONLY way to make this a popular show. Season 5 significantly de-cuddly-fies him as he brutally murders a random dude [and his dark passenger claps him on the back for it]. In a previous season he killed an innocent guy through error. They're trying to narrow the margin. He's getting harder to root for. I think this is probably what Chris was calling out as not doing it the easy way.
The exposition is probably the only reliable way to keep us clued in to Dexter's motivations in a way that keeps milking the sympathy. Glowing Ghost Harry is waaay overused, I'll give you that.
I can't disagree with you about the ending to season 2.
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I was so sad when they brought him back at the end of the episode. I do not believe I've ever hated a narrative device more than dead Harry.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
To me the show is basically Death Note in live action, hence why its awesome.
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If you notice, Michael C. Hall as Dexter barely shows any emotional response to anything. His main facial expressions are 1) utterly and worryingly blank, 2) overly cheery, 3) honestly confused, 4) cold and calculating, and 5) starkly menacing. If he's not murdering someone, he's almost not there unless he thinks to put on what he supposes is the appropriate mask.
We need the voiceover precisely because you can't tell what he's thinking.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Have you kept watching since season 2, Foust?
I skipped season three and watched season four.
quote:He's meant to be as *thinly* sympathetic as possible. We're meant to constantly question whether he's human, and want him to be, and hope that he will decide to be. And to constantly be frustrated, and occasionally horrified/revolted, without closing the question entirely. I do not think there is ANY easy way to do this.
I know this is the intent, but I don't understand why people think the show pulls this off, except in the occasional isolated scene. To make my point: when was the last time anyone was even vaguely horrified or revolted by anything Dexter did? He's only killing people that no one in the audience has any sympathy for. When was the last time Dexter ever did anything that the audience could not accept, with the exception of capturing Doakes? And even then, Dexter got away with essentially clean hands.
quote:Season 5 significantly de-cuddly-fies him as he brutally murders a random dude [and his dark passenger claps him on the back for it].
Ah, I haven't seen anything from season five yet. This does sound like a step in the right direction.
quote:We need the voiceover precisely because you can't tell what he's thinking.
Even if this was all the voiceover was used for, it isn't. It constantly points out things we already know, and it's used for exposition.
If the show really had guts, they would drop the voice over and let Dexter be as alien to the audience as he is to himself and the other characters. That is the fundamental problem: the show does not trust Dexter enough to let him fly on his own. Too many crutches.
To put it another way, if the writers really wanted to test the limits of audience sympathy, Dexter would be more like Vic Mackey from the Shield or Tony Soprano. Instead, we get a safe, nice guy who occasionally does stuff that provides tiny little shocks.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I think Ghost Harry shows what an abusive f*** Harry was. Rather than try and help Dexter learn to emote normally, he assumed from the start that Dexter was a psychopath and basically fostered that.
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The TV series has, in my opinion, tried to walk a very fine line with Dexter's character. He's meant to be as *thinly* sympathetic as possible. We're meant to constantly question whether he's human, and want him to be, and hope that he will decide to be. And to constantly be frustrated, and occasionally horrified/revolted, without closing the question entirely. I do not think there is ANY easy way to do this.
I find Dexter to be incredibly sympathetic. But that's probably because I see a lot of myself in him. Not that I've ever killed anyone, but the alienation and the feeling of complying with social strictures because they're social strictures.
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I just got caught up. I watched Six Feet Under and seeing Dexter at the funeral home just struck me as... funny. The set looked really similar to me. Does anyone know if they used that set? Or it could just be that all funeral homes look pretty similar. I still felt that there was a slight homage happening.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I was looking forward to the whole raising his own kids as serial murderers thing from the book
I like analyzing Dexter of a Nietzschean PoV of the ubermensch, his collegues and the people around him are "The Last Man" people completely content with their lot in life and society's structure, Dexter rejects traditional conventional morality and society and implements within himself a new rigid set of ideals to live by.
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I'm still annoyed that Season 5 is basically ignoring the huge ramifications of Season 4 so far, but I'm finally liking the plot that we're getting on its own merits. I'm liking that Dexter may finally get a friend (romantic interest?) that knows what he is and is (at least sorta) okay with it, but isn't a raging psychopath.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I agree on all accounts. I love Julia Styles and I think that this is a great plot for the show. If nothing substantial happens on the Kyle Butler front though, I'll be pretty disgusted by the complete cowardice of the writers.
I also really wish that "Harry" would go away. He doesn't even make sense now. He used to be a reminder of Dexter's code, but now he just seems to be there to annoy me.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I'm 70% sure (I'd say 99%, except I've heard that people who say that are only right 70% of the time) that Harry is specifically intended to represent Dexter's "Dark Passenger" now. In the books I think it eventually turned out literally to be a demon, I suspect here they're gonna have him just be some subconscious dark side, but anyway he's going to end up being the final "big bad" that Dexter must face when the show nears its end.
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Apologies. In general, the show seems to be going in very different directions than the books so I wouldn't be to worried. I also felt that knowing Harry is probably an actual antagonist with motivations instead of a random lame plot device made him more interesting or at least tolerable.
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Well, I've read the first book and plan to read the others so it's the books I'm worried about being spoiled. I understand knowledge of the book plots can add to the discussion about the show, but warnings would be nice.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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Man I hope Lumin doesn't die by the end of this season.
I do still feel like ditching Aster and Cody was lazy of the writers, although there's plenty going on without them.
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I think this is the first episode where things really felt as awesome as they did in Season 4.
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Completely agree. I wish she could become a permanent part of the show. Knowing that there's likely a cap on how many episodes Julia Styles is interested in doing though really limits the possibilities for her character.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I actually think there's a better than 50% chance that she'll stay on for at least the next season. I'm basing this off the whole "Take It" subtheme. I could see that culminating in an end-of-season decision where Dexter/Lumen are at a crossroads, with her leaning towards leaving, but with Dexter's internal monologue echoing the various statements that the motivational guy has been making about how he needs to find something to make him whole again. And he ends up saying to himself "know what? Screw it, I want this" and taking the leap in asking her to stay.
The guest star usually doesn't stay on for more than a season, but this season also wrote off one major character (Rita) so replacing her with another is a little more likely. And since there's only 12 episodes a year, it's not like Julia Styles is locked completely into the show without having time for anything else.
On a similar note... how wrong is it me (presumably all of us) to be GLAD to Lumen is so emotionally scarred that Dexter actually looks like a decent guy?
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BTW, Raymond, I think you are right to be annoyed that Season 4 was essentially treated like ancient history. Shouldn't Deb be obsessed with finding Trinity?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:how wrong is it me (presumably all of us) to be GLAD to Lumen is so emotionally scarred that Dexter actually looks like a decent guy?
Ha ha! I'm in total agreement. And I hope you're right about Lumen staying around another season.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Well ima bit mixed with la Guerta, yes shes still a bitch but then again she's come along way and does seem good at the job and much better alternative than her boss whose even more of a careerist.
She deserves a good slap and a lesson in humility but nothing so drastic that it forces some unfortunate unforseen consequences.
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