Dexter 5x08 - Take It! (and seasons 1 through 5)

I love "Dexter."

I've loved it from episode one. A friend shoved the DVDs at me three-odd years ago, made me watch the pilot, and I didn't stop for eight hours. For this I am forever in Josh's debt. And he knows it.

There's something about Michael C. Hall (aside from my raging infatuation with him) that makes it impossible for me to look away when he's onscreen. (Admittedly, the crush helps with this.) Whether he's playing David Fisher on "Six Feet Under" (an amazing show that I'm slowly making my way through - and will be writing a ton about once I finish up), an utter psycho in what I maintain is the stupidest movie ever made, "Gamer,"or a serial killer with a heart of gold, I'm riveted by how well he can inhabit a role and make me care about the character. Especially impressive as Dexter Morgan, a man who has to kill in order to satisfy his 'dark passenger.' After all, it's no easy task to make someone feel compassion for a man whose past-time is to systematically slaughter people. Which is sort of the point. The question we, and Dexter, are forced to grapple with throughout all of the first season of the show is whether or not a murderer has to be a monster. (The exploration of this topic is one of the many areas in which the source material - Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter series - and the show depart paths. But I digress...)

It's a good question, and it's a credit to Hall that he can bring enough humanity to the role that we don't dismiss it immediately upon seeing him kill his first victim of the series - all of three minutes into the pilot.

To be fair, "Dexter" has changed a lot since season one. I'm glad the excessive melodrama has been replaced with a wry, sarcastic wit, and I'm happy that the voice-over from the days of olde has ceased to be a crutch for the writers and has become an enjoyable story-telling device, truly a character all its own.

That being said, not all of the show has been good. I hated season two, was bored to tears by season three, and was suspicious of season four until John Lithgow proved just how much of an acting bad ass he was and jumped up to my favorite series guest star in the history of ever. (I would have never guessed how brilliant he is just from watching "3rd Rock From the Sun." Go figure.) Good characters (and actors) were squandered, stupid characters were expanded upon in far too much detail, story arcs were plain idiotic, and many a filler episode was to be had.

But dammit, I haven't been able to stop watching.

And thank goodness, because season five and the role Julia Stiles's character is playing in Dexter's life would have been a shame to miss.

(Spoilers for the whole series. Back, yee who do not watch!)




First, a confession - I adore Julia Stiles. I'm half convinced she only has one tone of voice and that her sad face is an imitation of a puppy that's just been kicked, but she makes my heart happy. I suspect it's because of "10 Things I Hate About You" and how much I wanted to be Kat Stratford in high school. (I wasn't. Alas. But at least I've read The Bell Jar now.)

That established, I was still kinda pissed when I found out she was going to be the guest star for series five. Because I knew, whatever role she ended up playing, she would ultimately end up being the Rita-replacement.

And I loved Rita.

Now don't mistake me - I didn't like the 'ball and chain' number the writers did on her, or the idiotic fact that she didn't get suspicious when her husband kept coming home with blood stains all over his clothes and a few too many machetes for comfort... But I liked the idea of her. Someone so damaged that she was able to be with Dexter. Someone good enough to make him want to be good as well, for her sake. It takes either a very strong person or a very dumb one to love a monster, and I'd like to think that Rita was (when the writers were being good) far more of the former than the latter.

And then they killed her.

And I damned them to hell and back and called them geniuses, the jerks.

Could Dexter maintain his humanity without the person anchoring him to it? When left to his own devices in the wake of tragedy, how would a killer react? What would he do?

And then another blond got cast, and I assumed the worst. Rather than exploring the possibilities Rita's death allowed to reveal Dexter's evil passenger in a way we haven't really been granted access to since the series began, we were going to get a wife stand-in to hold him and love him and make him all better.

I was pissed. Because we've already heard that story, and yes, it was great, but I was ready to move on. (I'm a fickle, demanding viewer. What can I say?)

I was not encouraged when Lumen turned out to be a victim of one of Dexter's marks. Another damaged woman in a sea of damaged/dead women on this show (another major point of irritation, btw). Goody. But then something surprising happened. Dexter, in the face of great loss, was forced to deal with himself. A trauma victim who can't confront her tormentors, someone broken by circumstance and the evil things people do, made worse because she has no way (no skills, no experience) to confront them herself.

And suddenly Dexter's dark hobby becomes the most humane, cathartic, and reasonable response to pain available.

I wasn't really buying the whole thing until the scene in the bathroom at the end of the sixth episode. See, I was expecting that Lumen would have some sort of breakdown after returning from helping to kill one of her rapists. That she had thought she wanted them all dead, but when met with the reality of what killing someone meant, she would back off.

Instead, when faced with the reality of losing someone he loved, the serial killer collapsed on the floor, undone by a bathtub. It was a very human thing for a monster to do.

And it was freaking awesome.

"Dexter" has a bit of a formula. (Aside from the whole 'Dexter kills people' thing, anyway.) With a few exceptions, every fourth episode acts as a game changer. Usually, these episodes have been a lot more grandiose than this year's offerings, but I like them regardless. Episode four we meet Lumen, the victimized girl. Now, episode eight, Lumen meets Dexter. Not the Dexter who is helping her get revenge, but the Dexter who kills because he can't not, who lost his mother and his wife and who can't deal with loss in any other way.

And I'm eating it up.

Granted, not everything this season has me jumping for joy. I love Deb, but she hasn't had an interesting storyline in a while, and while the political pettiness revealed this episode is a big step up from the usual, 'Ooo, Deb has another new love interest this season!,' I still think Jennifer Carpenter deserves more to work with. Plus, we can't leave Deb without a lover so she and Quinn (who bores me to death - although he wouldn't, if the writers could just remember that his girlfriend killed herself last season. Think, people! Ripe, rich angst to mine in there! Every character gets better with angst!*) finally jumped in the sack, which I've been waiting for since he was added as a regular. Yay? And what's with the random police case that keeps getting shoved to the side? It had the potential to be interesting before it was reduced to a convenient way to progress an entirely different plot-line. And what's this? Dexter is almost going to get caught again? By the guy who replaced Doaks after he almost found out Dexter's secret? Whoa. And the Irish nanny? Where's that going??

*But not really.

As always, there are issues.

And as always, it doesn't matter. I'm going to keep watching this damn show regardless, because the stuff it does well it does very, very well.

Is it Sunday yet?