The Moth Chase

SEASON 3 – EPISODE 1

Hey Kathryn,

I’ve been so excited for Dexter to start up again, and last night’s show did not disappoint.  Indeed, it reminded me of one of the key reasons I love this program: it’s so damn funny!  Of course, with the introduction of Harrison, Dexter and Rita’s new baby, much of the humour revolved around sleeplessness.  It’s a real problem for the new parent: how does one set up a meticulous, complicated kill-room and then carefully kill a man without making any silly errors or misjudgments on only 2 hours sleep? 

But more than providing that new-parent humour, the relationship drawn between sleeping and killing – a normal human impulse, and Dexter’s human impulse – revealed something deeper.  Even with the show’s title, “Living the Dream,” Rita’s achievement of the suburban life for which she’s long dreamed is held in tension with the surrealist, dreamlike or, rather, nightmare-like sequences of Dexter’s kills.  Each lives their dream, their deepest desire, but with Rita’s glorious daytime light pit against Dexter’s horrific nighttime darkness.

And yet Dexter’s deepest desire is being recast. In the opening sequence, Dexter describes his “primal, sacred need” interjected with shots of the brilliant John Lithgow performing what is possibly the most brutal, disturbing murder we’ve seen on the show so far (which is saying a lot!).  We think what we see is Dexter stalking Lithgow, but it’s actually Lithgow stalking a young woman and Dexter wishing, praying for sleep.  The desire to kill is still there for Dexter, but like any new parent, the desire for sleep might just trump all others!

And the effects of this sleep deprivation become most clear in the fantastic parody of the opening credits.  As the credits have always offered a visual representation of Dexter’s internal world – his careful and detailed preparation for his day mimics his careful and detailed preparation for his kills – his tired, shoe-lace-snapping, messy attempt to ease into the day reveals a harbinger of what is about to befall his secret professional life.

I think what I found most interesting in the episode, though, was the way in which the links drawn between his tiredness and his killing also attached themselves to the objects that Dexter’s vigilantism seeks to replace: the state and God.  In one scene, Dexter works on kill-prep while singing ‘America the Beautiful’ over the phone to Harrison.  In multiple others he describes his desire for both sleep and murder with the religious language of a priestly call: it is ‘sacred’, and a ‘calling that can’t be ignored or denied’.  We’ve already seen Dexter shift the hinge of his moral code from his father to himself, with both good and disastrous effects.  And now the season opener reminds us that with his code unhinged from responsibility to his father, the law or God and, with the diminished capacity caused by lack of sleep, possibly unhinged from himself, Dexter might be in danger this season…a danger that will surely prove to be exciting and soul-wrenching as he is inevitably pitted against the animalistic, naked, sobbing inhuman wonder of this genius character being crafted by Lithgow.

I just can’t wait!
- Natalie

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Dear N,

I agree: one of my favorite parts of the episode was the tongue-in-cheek parody of the opening credits as a visual representation of Dexter’s orderly life falling to pieces in the twilight sleep of new parenthood (and let’s just say, watching Dexter’s sleep-deprived nightmare rivaled the terror I felt watching Betty give birth in a different kind of twilight sleep a few weeks ago on Mad Men).

Not only were the failed credit sequences a fantastic visual rendering of Dexter’s inner state, they set up the season’s great internal drama, the question Dexter keeps asking himself throughout the episode: can he have it all? Each season is a progression of Dexter learning more about his “abnormality” and the limitations it places on his integration into normal life. But each season has also found Dexter testing the limits of his father’s advice to remain detached and fake involvement only to avoid suspicion. Part of his problem now is that not only has he potentially bitten off more than he can chew, he has bought into the suburban dream in a way that actually takes his time and energy.

As Dexter’s unique proclivities have always done, this season promises to show us through Dexter’s outsider lens, all that is screwed up with “the dream” to begin with: the inhumanity and insanity of the demands it places on those who serve it. You don’t have to be a loner serial killer to see the toll of “carpools and swimming pools.”

Let me conclude by saying that, while I loved the fact that we were watching a father bear the brunt of sleepless parenting, didn’t Rita seem more than a little demanding and clueless when, bounding with the energy of the well-rested, she jumped on Dexter with a basket full of sex toys? I used to love the parallel between Rita and Dexter’s wounded sadness, but it looks like Rita’s healing process has turning her into a spoiled bitch. Though Dexter’s constant acquiescence is proof positive that, regardless of his new attachments, he is still the master of faking it.

Living the dream indeed,

K

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EPISODE 2

Dear N,

If Dexter doesn’t get some sleep soon, I am going to go crazy! I get physically uncomfortable watching him reel from exhaustion and I was just about ready to scream at Rita for not offering to take over Harrison night duty for a few days. But like last week his sheer exhaustion is providing him (and us) with some very fun access to his uncontrolled consciousness. Maybe I’m forgetting a pivotal scene in an earlier episode, but last night was one of the first time’s I remember Dexter actually admitting that his Harry illusions are some part of himself: some (sub)conscious part of his ego, half-self-protection, half-conscience, keeping him on the straight and narrow of Harry’s Code.

It is not like we didn’t already know this – I mean, what else is Harry supposed to be, showing up at all hours in a slightly ethereal halo of light? But Dexter actually names Harry as himself as he stares up at the boxing ring lights and realizes his subconscious has been giving him a clue all day. Maybe Dexter’s already admitted this out loud before and I’m just forgetting it in my own sleepiness, but drawing attention to the fact seems important somehow, especially since Harry’s musings are growing increasingly skeptical/critical of Dexter’s perfect suburban set-up. When Harry has been critical before – of Lila, of Miguel – he has always been right. Those attempts at integration were failures, betrayals of the Code. So what does this nagging inner voice bode for Rita and the kids?

As you pointed out last week, Dexter has internalized the Code and internalized the voice of his father as a part of himself – a part he desperately needs, and a part he is trying to ignore. Is this season going to be a show down between Dexter and Dexter/Harry? If we think about the fact that Harry never even gave Dexter a shot at a “normal life” (what, not even a few sessions of therapy before you start building a serial killer out of your psychologically broken son?) maybe holding on to suburban normality is Dexter’s way of showing Harry what a mistake he made not to even give him a chance.

Other thoughts: oh my goodness, how creepy is the Trinity killer?! His pitch perfect friendly neighbor routine masking homicidal tendencies – deliciously scary and underplayed. What is going on with Deb? I get her humiliation at exposing herself to Lundy only to be rebuffed by his true professional intentions, but didn’t her reaction seem a bit extreme? And speaking of extreme reactions, my do I hate Rita in this season so much? We should have a longer discussion about how the achievement of the capitalist dream turns women characters into conniving, snotty children and how much that portrayal sucks.

I wish someone would just slip Dex some ambien…

K

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Hey Kathryn,

I think you’re right –I don’t remember Dexter ever naming Harry as his own subconscious so explicitly before either.  Of course, it’s always been a little more complicated than a delusion, though, too.  I’ve never thought Dexter really thinks Harry is there – we’ve always had the sense that Dexter knows he’s inventing Harry (kind of like how David invents his father illusions in Six Feet Under), but yes, to name it so explicitly, that was a surprise!

So what does that mean?  Well, while I agree that Harry always ends up being right with his caution, it’s also the case that with both Lila and Miguel, Dexter was right too.  Sure, both end up causing problems, and sure Dexter has to kill them both – but it’s also true that Lila helps Dexter open up sexually, feel real emotions and get in better touch with himself.  Miguel, while the friendship is flawed, begins to teach Dexter the joys of male bonding.  And so the sexual desire, the emotion, the self-knowledge and the patterns of friendship – these all get integrated into Dexter’s life after he kills the ones who gifted them to him.

Which makes me wonder – while Dexter has struggled with ‘The Code’ all along, perhaps his struggle this season will not be with Rita and the kids (because, really, it never is), but rather will be in a more explicit way with his father.  Perhaps this out-loud naming is the first step down his own little Freudian path to slay ‘The Father’ in order to properly integrate ‘The Code’ into his life in a more healthy (!?!) way.

So Rita, yes – argh, she is driving me crazy!  To be honest, I really stopped liking Rita in the first episode of season 2.  Her breathy, throw her head into Dexter’s neck every time she sees him, stiff upper lip surviving drama annoys the piss out of me.  If she squints her eyes to say something she thinks is profound one more time, I might lose it.  I’m with you – for pity’s sake, don’t yell at your husband for hiding the extent of his car-crash injuries because you’re supposedly worried about him and then not let him sleep!  I’m actually quite intrigued to see where they’re going to take this bratty teenage Astor plot and if her growing up will give Rita a chance to grow up.

To be clear re: the women of this show, though – I *love* Deb! She can do no wrong in my book – over-reactions or not, her foul-mouthed, unlucky-in-love, over-working obsessive attitude is one of my favourite parts of the show.  If she over-reacted to Lundy, I think it’s because he was such a father figure for her.  Maybe they were trying to tie her experience into Dexter’s for us – both doing their own attempt at escaping their Dad’s shadow.

Last thing – I’m a sucker for boxing imagery, and so I’ve loved seeing these last couple of episodes in the space of the gym.  The worn walls, the loud lights, the broken equipment, all permeated with this pale green colour that aesthetically captivates me.  I hope we get to go back there at some point in the season – it’s a space I think we need to explore a little more!

Natalie

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EPISODE 3

This might just have been one of the creepiest episodes this season. I’m not sure what was scarier: the tortuous power Trinity had over his victim as she trembled on the ledge, watching Dexter bungle his way through multiple scenes of suburban camaraderie, or the disintegration of American masculinity when Dexter confronts Andy in his garage while wearing that terrifying scarecrow mask. Really, didn’t all these scenes belong together?

We first see Dexter offering one of his classic descriptions of contemporary American life: the pool party as some sad evolutionary hang-over of Ice Age communal hunts, where the “lone wolves” are left to fend for themselves and more likely to die. Dexter feels hemmed in by these neighborly shenanigans and we need not suffer anti-social tendencies to feel their suffocating power. We cut from the pool party scene – leaving Dex alone on the side of the pool having misread the social cues once again – to Trinity with the victim we watched him stalk last episode. Given that the last time we saw Trinity was during his own little neighborly act as he susses out his quarry’s house, this deadly conclusion is a pretty blatant scene of revenge of the lone wolf on the sweet little communal pack.

Maybe this is always what Dexter is about, but this season is ratcheting up the stakes in the battle between suburban dream and loner fantasy. The real showdown is obviously going to come between Trinity’s complete isolationist model and Dexter’s blending in subterfuge, but we saw the battle waged on several more minor fronts this episode. Andy’s despairing, helpless rage as his years of playing by the rules leaves him wifeless, jobless, soon-to-be homeless, and with an angry, distant son. Even Debra and Lundy’s rekindling sparks are more around their similarity as loners – single-minded pursuers on the edge of social integration – than pure sexual attraction.

Speaking of Deb and her father figure – as creepy as that relationship can be and as much as she is clearly projecting her own angsty relationships with her dad onto Lundy – I kind of want them to get back together. Maybe precisely because Lundy makes Deb more assertive, more independent, more fully sure of herself than anyone else she has been with. And it is precisely because they recognize in each other their devotion to their work in a way that is clearly potentially dangerous and also sort of enthralling.

So, Natalie is on vacation this week and I am in total need of respondents – who else am I writing this for? If you have thoughts about the episode, responding to my ramblings or totally unrelated, leave a comment or send an email to themothchase@gmail.com and I’ll compile a post with whatever worthy tidbits I receive. Make sure to specify if you want me to use your name in the post.

it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood -
Kathryn

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EPISODE 4

How can one write about this episode without starting at the end? The look on Frank Lundy’s face as he catches sight of Trinity over his shoulder just before the bullet hits Deb’s gut was as surprised and horrified as I felt. As much as Lundy could sometimes annoy me and as much as I did not want a repeat of season 2′s cat-and-mouse with the resident serial killer and serial killer catcher, I did not want to see Lundy go, especially not helpless on the pavement, the supposed victim of some random robbery.Still, Lundy’s passing seems necessary to allow Dex to regain the focus he has been lacking this season. Which is really what this episode seemed to be about. It is a testament to how well the show has conveyed the trapped, exhausted, harried quality of Dexter’s family life that I could almost physically feel the exhilaration of his freedom when he was finally given 72 hours to pursue his dark hobby. The heavy-handedness of his choice of prey aside (thanks, Harry/Dexter’s conscience, for pointing out to us the parallels between Kruger’s violent escapism and Dexter’s suburban blues), I loved watching him back in action – especially taking Kruger down in his own kitchen with a pent up adrenaline that bordered on cocky. For the first few episodes I was intrigued by the Trinity killer, but couldn’t really imagine him as a proper nemesis for Dexter, mostly because I worried Dexter wasn’t up to the task. His return to his home away from home seemed to do the job of realigning his priorities and setting him up for the showdown that is to come.

Best of all, I loved that this new sense of focus came, as it so often does for Dexter, in the kill room as he realizes for himself just how much he values his family. I was beginning to worry that the whole season would revolve around the “can Dexter have a family?” debate and I was relieved and pleasantly surprised that Dexter finally seemed to put some of those voices behind him: as he said to Harry “You didn’t raise a loner.” Dexter’s increased certainty that he both wants and needs his family, even with the possibility that it makes his life more complicated, also means that those family relations can start being real and complicated themselves, and not just stereotypical fill-in for the woes of modern family life in general. If the preview for next week is any indicator, Rita might just get a bit more interesting and Dexter might actually have to start fighting for the relationships he’s just realized he wants.

Perhaps this is another theme, what with Deb watching Lundy die just as they have confessed their love and desire to stay together: you lose what you have just as soon as you realize you want it.

Posted by Kathryn.

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Episode 5: Dirty Harry

Two real gasp-worthy moments in this episode: first, Deb’s breakdown in the parking lot.  Never have a I seen that type of crying performed so perfectly on screen; that deep in the chest, hysterical sobbing that most of us only manage once or twice in a lifetime outside of our hormonal teenage years. My chest actually ached just watching her, and I was reminded of how deeply scarred both Dexter and Deb are by their father’s attention and lack thereof. Both in their own way are broken.  Both in their own way cause brokenness around them as they both seek to emotionally make up for their father’s failings. And in this moment, amidst uncontrollable weeping, both in their own way faced up to the pain they inflict on others. It was a powerful scene.

Another Family-Man Serial Killer?
And of course, the second gasp moment: Trinity has a family! I did not see this one coming.  We’ve all assumed Trinity was a loner; that unlike Dexter, he had eschewed any normal human connections for the sake of bonding with his own dark passenger.  But now we learn that he’s not only a more successful serial killer than Dexter, he also seems to be a much more successful normal guy.  Not only does his family greet him with excitement and love, we know from previous episodes that he’s managed to keep a secret apartment secret – something Dex finally failed at in this episode – and that he is likely to have done so through countless moves around the country.  The name ‘Trinity’ itself is beginning to open up to refer to something so much more than sets of three killings.  Indeed, it’s beginning to refer also to the man’s own godlike abilities, and perhaps even the multiple sides of his own self…husband, father, teacher, deacon (ok, so who is as excited as me to see Lithgow in religious garb again? Cut loose, friends, footloose – kick off those Sunday shoes!).

An Eternal Return to the Same
Lundy was right. There is something in those eyes, and Lithgow has developed the emotion at that level perfectly since the first episode.  At first the eyes held detachment, something inhuman.  But they began to reveal sadness, a sense of desperation.  In this episode they almost communicated boredom: having completed the first loop of his own eternal return of the same, he’s slmost bored with his compulsive need to repeat the ritual again and again.  And so now we know how much like Dexter he really is, he reminds us of Dex’s own strange journey through emotion, through relationships and into moments of hope. And he offers a chilling image of where Dex might end up – after all, it’s Dexter’s struggle to fit in that makes him able to be likeable. Were he so slick as Trinity, we would find it much more difficult to empathize.

Interactions with the Everyday
Finally, I can’t sign off without mentioning the lovely plot arc that had us see Trinity engage three different normal, everyday activities and interact with three normal, everyday folks.  He is wretchedly rude to the waitress and, although it scares us a little, she’s never in any real danger.  He is just plain strange with the guy in the hardware store who, again while it’s chilling in its weirdness, doesn’t put him close to danger either.  The only time Trinity manages to connect smoothly with strangers, then, is when he’s touring the building with the security guard and meeting the coffee guy – both of whom are in extreme danger! We often think about how close we came to danger – had I left my house 5 minutes earlier, it might have been me in that collision, for example. But we rarely think about how close we might be to real danger that holds no danger for us.  Trinity opened up a whole new realm of fear last night!

Kathryn is on vacation until tomorrow, so I need comments! Please post your thoughts – what was your favourite moment? Where will Maria transfer Angel? What is going to happen to Dexter’s apartment?  Who else loved seeing Astor’s room decorated with posters of Twilight’s Edward and happy unicorns?

Posted by Natalie.

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EPISODE 6: If I Only Had a Hammer

Dear Natalie,

I really like where this season is going, even if it is kind of creeping me out. Starting with the magnificent opening scene with Arthur Mitchell/Trinity Killer leading his unspecified Christian congregation in a rousing verion of “Washed in the Blood.” One doesn’t have to be a theologian to see the overlapping layers of irony in that choice of hymn, especially given that the “previously on” focused intimately on Trinity’s brutal bludgeoning kill and the episode featured Dexter’s recreation of it: both sequences ending with copious amounts of blood (or fake blood) spattered on both men.

Even more creepy is the developing theme of Trinity as family-man mentor for an increasingly overwhelmed and confused family-man Dexter. The whole season so far has emphasized Dexter’s relationship to his new family, playing with, highlighting, and challenging various middle class nuclear family tropes. By making Trinity a family man, the show effectively ended the somewhat tedious repetition of the lone wolf vs. social blender dichotomy. How much better – and more complicated – to watch a flabbergasted Dexter unable to kill Trinty until he learns more about him, and from him. Did you notice that we didn’t get a single Harry flashback or Harry projection this episode? Trinity is definitely offering Dexter insight into a different kind of code, that is both intriguing and potentially horrifying. I mean, after all, Trinity got his start as a ritualistic serial killer not from trauma inflicted upon him, but from killing his entire family, one after the other. No doubt we will learn some dark secrets about Trinity’s family (his repeated insistence that the man whose head he is bashing in with a hammer in place of his father “made him do it” speaks of some kind of abuse, real or imagined in his past).

But what really intrigued me was Dexter and Rita’s counseling sessions. Though they didn’t do much to warm my heart for Rita, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She wants what she takes to be normal patterns of intimacy – a husband who doesn’t hide a secret life from her, normal conversation at the end of day – and Dexter can’t even fake it well enough to come up with a non-controversial topic of conversation. It was the first time I’ve really believed that Dexter’s inter-personal awkwardness was taking a toll on their relationship, and that seemed really real to me. Once again, watching Dexter sitting on that couch trying to figure out what was expected of him, and then, even more so, trying to figure out what he might actually want or need, was the best possible insight into the struggles of normal human intimacy, even for those of us without Dark Passengers. There is something so honest about that terrifying truth: how to be really vulnerable with someone else, all the while realizing that there are just some parts of ourselves that will always remain a mystery to anyone else, and even to ourselves. Perhaps this is what makes Dexter seem so much more real to me than even Rita does. Rita wants a storybook – the idea of intimacy, honesty and sharing (and cutting her some slack, I don’t blame her – being married to man like Dexter would be emotionally exhausting). Dexter is trying to figure out what human intimacy really is and how, even given his severe limitations, he might partake of it.

Which is what makes the whole “you carry your family with you” motif so interesting and so chilling. Dexter and Trinity both have litterly been washed in the blood of their family members: what kind of salvation or damnation might that bring?

Can’t wait to hear what you thought!
Kathryn

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Hey Kathryn,

I’m with you, you don’t need to be a theologian to see the irony of that hymn.  But on the other hand, I often wonder in television episodes like this if they are as compelling to folks who don’t go to church or make their professional lives as theologians.  If you don’t anticipate singing “Washed in the Blood” with your own congregation some time soon, can it really impact you as much as it did me?  It’s always been a bit of a creepy hymn that I’ve nevertheless loved.  Certainly, thanks to Trinity and Dex, I’ll love it in an even more complicated way now.

I too am loving this storyline of Dexter seeking some sort of mentorship in Trinity – and that they bonded over something akin to a habitat build (again, my church had its habitat build just a month ago and I couldn’t help but wonder…what lurks in the lives of my own co-congregants?)  What intrigues me is that while we see so many parallels between Dexter and Trinity – family trauma (because I’m going to part from you here and say I’m not convinced yet that trauma is missing from Trinity’s early life), successful professional lives, varying degrees of success at family and, of course, ritualistic killing – the real difference, it seems, is not that Trinity is better at it, but that he’s got religion.  Sure, Dexter has his humanistic code that functions like religion, and certainly his Harry apparitions function like a God-figure at times.  But he doesn’t have your standard, participate in the life of a community who worships, serves and eats potluck together.  And yet he’s the one whose rituals ensure the killing of the supposedly deserving, while Trinity is willing to slaughter innocents (in perhaps the most chillingly God-like turn of all, as the center of Christian faith includes the slaughter of the most innocent one, as some theologies have it, by and for his father).

Unlike you, though, I’m not totally convinced that Trinity killed his family.  It’s definitely likely, but not certain.  It makes me wonder what his involvement was in those original killings – was it, like Dex, a traumatized observer who then hunted down the killer of his mother…perhaps, his own father? Did he accidentally kill his sister in the bathtub?  Or was it something else?  Whatever it is, I don’t think it will be simple as three straight-up murders.  And of course, the bathtub scene at the end left me wondering – does Trinity’s wife know what he does? How open and vulnerable is he with her, really?

Which leads me to Rita.  For all the ways she’s annoyed the piss out of me so far this season, like you I did feel for her last night.  And as she handed Dexter the padlock, I actually found that I genuinely liked her again.  And I found myself hoping for their marriage; that they’d be able to work things out and Dexter (with that fabulous final cheeky grin to the camera) would find the work/life balance that he – and we all – seek so desperately!

And so let me flag one more theme for our continued conversation.  While this work/life balance theme is playing out so beautifully between Dexter and his hopeful mentor, Trinity, we’re seeing it as a theme throughout the lives of all the other characters too.  For Deb, it’s inextricable – her work and her lost love are the same right now as she searches down Lundy’s killer (and worryingly and accidentally, searches down Dex at the same time).  For Quinn, it’s an attempt to balance this great chemistry with the reporter (who seems to wear fancy underwear more than she wears anything else, it seems) with the fact that he needs to guard his work from her.  And then there’s poor Maria and Angel, who have had to give up their love for their work.  We haven’t said much about these two, but I’m going to miss their affair – I really liked them as a couple and I just wish poor Maria could find what she’s looking for with love. First Doakes, then Miguel (both ending up dead), and now Angel…at least we can hope that he’ll make it through his relationship with her alive, I guess.

Looking forward to next week!
Natalie

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EPISODE 8 – Forgive Me, Father

Hey Kathryn,

What a great episode last night!  I don’t even know what to do with Lithgow’s weird and wonderful performance.  Are we to think he’s had a real ecstatic sort of religious experience of conversion and, dare I say it, been born-again? Or is this an act because he realizes Dexter is on to him?  Does he really believe in a God who judges his actions? Does he really believe in the power of confession?

This episode was saturated with religious language, clearly.  It makes me wonder if they’re just playing with it, or if there is a careful pattern to the usage.  First, Dexter muses about his desire for certainty being met in Trinity – sure, he’s thinking about the certainty of guilt deserving a ride on his own ritual table rather than existential angst about the existence of the Divine…but those two are sort of related for Dexter.  And then there’s all Arthur’s religiously soaked altruism.  Dexter – sorry, Kyle – convinces Trinity – sorry, Arthur – to let him tag along on the ride to Tampa by forcing Arthur to live up to his own desire to have a generous spirit; his own desire to perform actions that will please God.  Dexter further wonders if Arthur is the one who has a soul while he, Dexter, does not…which Dexter interestingly relates to the question of whether or not he is human at the end of the episode.  And while Arthur tries to live within God’s point system, Dexter is sure that they both transcend such moralism.

In the end, Arthur has this deep need to confess his mistakes – I noted, he didn’t call them sins – in order to ‘go into the light unburdened,’ but after Dex saves him he decides that God must have had another plan.  And perhaps it’s worth noting one more time the echo of traditional Christian narratives – Dexter’s voiceover says, “I’ve killed an innocent man and I’ve saved a guilty one. I won’t make that mistake again.”  In essence, it is the slaying of the innocent one that leads Dex to this Triune father figure, God-figure, religious instructor type guy…not unlike Christian narratives of the slaying of the innocent Christ leading believers to the Triune God, the Father God, the God who teaches us the ways of life.

It was interesting to me that Dexter is trying to disrupt the police hunt for Trinity.  We go back and forth in this show between understanding his killing activity as catching those who fall through the cracks of the justice system and understanding it as a way of curbing a natural impulse.  And while he says, “I just have to stab something,” we’ve learned from this show that there’s always someone worthy of being stabbed in Miami.  Dexter, in fact, actually wants to kill Trinity – aches for it.  He doesn’t want to risk him entering the justice system and not falling through its cracks.  He wants him for his own.  This kill is to be much more personal for Dexter and, as such, much more interesting.

I was pleased to see my initial hunch played out – that Trinity, like Dex, had some early childhood trauma that set him on this strange path…that he didn’t kill his sister, but rather, like Dexter, was implicated in a somewhat innocent way in her tragic death, as he also was in his mother’s, and which led to his killing of an abusive father.  It makes Trinity more interesting, more complex and, as those of us who love Dexter clearly love to love our messed up serial killers, more sympathetic.

Loose ends – so who did shoot Deb? Any thoughts? They’ve dropped Antoine completely…was it him?  What is going to happen with Maria and Angel? Do we care (btw, I do – I really like them as a couple and am happy that arc hasn’t been dropped).  And what is going to happen with Rita and Elliot?  And on a more personal note, what on earth does it say about me that I like this new, “I was a dress over the head party girl,” conflicted-about-her-sexy-neighbour Rita?  Do I just like my fictional women to be badly behaved?  Or is it that I long for female characters who are more morally complex, not to mention more complex in their desires, than we usually get.

Can’t wait to hear what you thought!
Natalie

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Dear Natalie,

I agree – an overall great episode. I also loved the layers of religious language and meaning and think the show is finally getting a bit more explicit about some of the deep themes that guide the show. Especially this question about what makes one human, which has always been part of the series for me, but is really coming to the fore. On the surface, the religious elements of last night were mostly about Arthur: Arthur praying over his own coffin, Arthur struggling with is own conscience in allowing Dexter/Kyle to come with him, Arthur espousing and then practicing the catharsis of confession, Arthur admitting that he seems to believe in some sort of point system where he can earn good deeds to atone for the life of violence he has perpetrated. But as you point out, Dexter, who is disdainful of and distant from this whole “religious” life, actually taps into the kinds of questions that religion is often trying to address: what is the point of morality? do we have souls? what makes us humans? And you are totally right that there are all kinds of things going on with the Trinity/Father God complex.

Which brings me to the big question: why does Dexter delay killing Trinity and your question why does he seem intent on not letting him get caught? I guess my real question is: will he be able to bring himself to kill Trinity, the more he understands him, especially the more he learns from him and feels connected to him in some sort of replacement for Harry sort of way? Other folks on other discussion boards have hoped that this season won’t end like the others before it, with Trinity on Dexter’s table (like Lyla, Miguel, and the Ice Truck Killer before him). I don’t have a strong theory yet on how else it could end, but I am intrigued by the idea that in the end Dexter will not be able to kill Trinity. Or I suppose something else could happen to make that impossible.

I don’t know if I think Arthur is on to Dexter. I guess I haven’t really seen enough clues or indications that he is, so if that turns out to be the case, I think I might feel a bit cheated. Unless I’m missing something. I know Arthur goes out of his way to use Kyle’s name a lot, which could be a clue to us that he knows it is a fake name. But that is about all I’m getting so far.

I am very intrigued to see where the Rita/Elliot plot goes. Like you, I like watching Rita not have all her ducks in a row. There is something about her actually having desires that complicate her life, instead of just trying to cram things into the cookie-cutter version of suburbia she has longed for for so long that is so refreshing. It is interesting to think about why that is, especially since I usually have a low tolerance for this “unhappy housewife cliche.” Given the preview for next week, it seems like the second half of this season is going to explore more carefully the dark recesses and unvoiced desires of middle class families and I am interested to see what it does to Dexter to realize Arthur is not the ideal family man he has been hoping to learn from.

For the record, I never thought Maria and Angel were totally done and I am very glad to see them strike up a clandestine affair. I am cheering for them all the way!

OK, back to the couch to nurse this nasty cold. I can hardly wait for next week!
K

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EPISODE 9 – Dexter’s Thanksgiving Special

Dear N,

What an amazing episode last night! This season is turning into one of my favorite yet. What with all the holiday hoopla to come, you don’t get that many Thanksgiving themed shows, and I loved that Dexter took on Turkey Day with a further exploration of family togetherness, and all the dysfunction and trauma that it can breed. Trinity/Arthur has creeped me out plenty in this season so far, but the intimate violence within his own home scared me almost more than anything else this season. The slight lingering shot of the locks on Rebecca’s doors and windows, the lack of footage from the back part of the house (even though we see Dexter peering down hallways), and most of all the carefully maintained smiles and warm body posture of the Mitchell women masking a terror that was palpable in its stilted expression. Was there anything quite as disturbing as Sally basically offering Dexter her daughter (“I don’t know what you’ve done with Rebecca or what you plan to do, just please don’t tell Arthur”)? Unless it was Arthur staring his son in the eyes as he breaks his little finger.

What was most revealing to me, was how much this episode let us see Dexter’s own investment and involvement with the Mitchell family. We’ve known all along that he is fascinated with Arthur and with Arthur’s ability to maintain seemingly real emotional bonds despite his serial killing proclivities. And we’ve watched him, against the Code and the promptings of his Harry consciousness, delay killing Arthur to study him and learn from him. But what became clearer to me than it had been, was how much longing and displacement there is on Dexter’s part to be part of the Mitchell clan. We’ve known that Arthur functions as a father-figure for Dex, but to hear him admit as much to Jonah last night (“you’re not the only one with father-issues”) really solidified it for me. As did watching Dexter’s own family undergo struggles and permutations in his absence that he is oblivious to because he feels a need to protect the Mitchells. He doesn’t need to be there for their Thanksgiving feast, save to protect Jonah. There is even something interestingly symbolic about the fact that his motives for killing Trinity have always been a bit personal, but are shifting from his family of origin (now that Trinity is not Deb’s shooter) to the Mitchell family (he can save them by killing Arthur).

Of course, if the huge stunner at the end of the episode and the “next week on Dexter” previews tell us anything, Deb’s shooter might still be connected to Trinity through bonds of family. I have to admit, my mind is reeling with imagined possibilities with the revelation that Christine is Arthur’s daughter. Perhaps from an earlier marriage – does Arthur have multiple families? does he ultimately kill them off? Does she know who her father really is? Does she do his bidding – killing Frank Lundy to protect him? Or is she a red herring to some other diabolical twist yet to be revealed?! It all seems a bit implausible and over-the-top, but I am totally intrigued and cannot wait to learn more!!

Other note: Rita. Coquetish as it was, I really believed Rita’s stunned confusion and rejection of Elliot’s outright come on. There is no doubt she’s been flirting with him and probably harboring a variety of unexplored desires, but there is a definite line between the flirting you can write off in your own mind, and the external manifestation of desire that would cause you to cross a line you couldn’t uncross. Rita’s flustered confusion and her exuberant return to Dexter’s arms seemed pitch perfect for her character. But the wide-eyed glance at Elliot as she embraces Dexter promises more to come. The overwhelming feeling of safety and relief that you have just avoided a potential catastrophe or passed some great moral test is just phase one in the “will you have an affair” dilemma (just ask Anna Karenina). If Elliot is persistent and Dexter is still absent, the shock of the idea will wear off and in a more dangerous way than before it will seem easier to walk down that path precisely because Rita has the conviction that she is strong enough to avoid it.

One final thought: if Christine isn’t Deb and Lundy’s shooter, do you want to put money down on another Mitchell who might have done it? They’re all about the right height.

Kathryn

—

Hey Kathryn,

Oh, I know – what a great episode!  The Thanksgiving theme allowed for lots of playful close-up shots on giant glinting knives wielded in the hands of killers into the backs of birds; a further play on the opening credits reminding us how brutal some of our day to day, most ordinary activities can be.  And so the parallels between Trinity’s home and Dexter’s were perfectly played out with their own little departures from each other – both men stand at the head of their table poised to carve, but with Trinity’s son refusing to admit gratitude for him while Dexter’s kid shouts out his own father-thankfulness from another table unprovoked.  And of course, the two wives at the opposite ends of the table – Trinity’s filled with plastic-mask-faced fear over a potential indiscretion not even her own, and Dexter’s having just performed her own transgression but having no sense that such an action might put her in danger…which of course, it doesn’t.  Because Dexter’s violence is of such a different type than Arthur’s.

What I found particularly interesting about these scenes, though, was how with both men placed at the heads of their tables like that, they were placed in Dexter’s usual ritual killing position, not Arthur’s.  And so while we’ve thought Arthur was the successful family man from whom Dexter could learn a thing or two over the course of this season, we got the narrative and visual clues last night that in fact Dexter’s got this family thing down way better than Arthur ever will.  Be it kill room or dining room, Dexter’s got his table set and, for the most part, got the right people at it.

Which I why I also find it interesting that Elliot would have snuck onto this family table only a few episodes after Dexter experienced another error in judgment at his kill table.  It’s bound to happen – kill enough people by a strict code, you’re going to have one aberration or slip-up in the code and take out the wrong guy.  There’s always the exception that proves the rule; the trace hidden in the discernible truth.  And so this scene of domestic perfection around a Thanksgiving table echoes that kill room error – rather than the aberration being Dexter this time, as with previous seasons, it’s the guy honing in on Rita.  The seeming suburban perfection (which Rita even professed to desire explicitly last night) is cracked by the presence of this attempted adulterer.  Hmm, murder, adultery – what other deadly sins graced that meal, I wonder?

Oh yes, so much creepiness in the Mitchell household – I too am torn between the mother offering her daughter and Arthur breaking his son’s finger as to which was creepier.  But what captivated me was that in the end, it was a desire to protect Jonah that kept Dexter at that Mitchell family fiasco.  With their shared Daddy issues, was Dexter identifying more with Jonah in that moment than he was with Trinity?  What made Dexter form another bond on genuine care and concern outside of his own family unit?

The final scene where Dex just looses his crap on Arthur then was fascinating!  We’ve never seen Dexter lose control like that in public in front of others – it was crazy and we were reminded just how dangerous he is.  Was he playing out some of his own father-frustration?  And is this leading to his eventual inability to kill Arthur?  I mean, if he did kill him, they’d know it was him after a display like that, right?

So yes, my mind is spinning too on how Christine fits into all this.  I’ve been wondering for a while if she was the shooter and I’d put my money on her over one of the other Mitchell clan.  I’m also wondering if they’re going to start drawing some parallels between her and Dex – both have these absent fathers who it seems trained them to kill in particular ways.  Will these two make some sort of connection?

Wow – there’s so much more to say, but I should probably get to my real job!  I can’t believe we only have three more episodes to go!  Oh, and it needs to be said – three cheers for Angel and Maria.  I sure hope they manage to make this work; threat of buses and all, not to mention threat of job loss…I love those two crazy kids and would be very happy to find them find happiness for themselves!

Happy Monday.
Natalie

—

EPISODE 10 – The Sins of the Father Will Be Borne by His Sons…and Daughters

Again Dexter is playing around with this father theme, developing a very Old Testament type of idea that the sons will pay for the sins of the father…that sin is passed down generationally.  But as we saw last night, it’s not Arthur’s son who pays for his sins, but rather it’s his daughter.  Dexter convinces Jonah to help put an end to Trinity’s sins, whereas Christine can’t avoid carrying her father’s torch as she seeks so desperately to secure his love.  She’s right – Arthur’s kids who have to live with him aren’t nearly so loyal to him as she, but I had to wonder last night what it was that made her so loyal to a man who manipulates her so?

The idea that she’s like an abused puppy who can only feel fulfilled by the love of her abuser just doesn’t seem to work with Christine, and I’m waiting for the show to fill out her obsession with her dad just a little more for me.  The sibling rivalry with the established, new family just doesn’t cut it.  Arthur’s got to have some hook in her that keeps her hanging in with him that runs a little deeper than mere abandonment issues, and I’m hoping the next episode will give a little more insight into what that might be.

So the show last night played around with the idea of ‘Lost Boys’ (the title of the episode alluding not only to poor Scott, but also to Dexter’s and Arthur’s own childhood losses of innocence).  But I began to wonder more about the Lost Girls.  What toll has a life of secrecy taken on Christine?  What innocence does she need to regain after watching her father mid-kill cycle?  And what kind of father leaves his 5 year old daughter in the car while he murders a woman?

Unlike Dexter, Christine has always remembered that childhood trauma and sought ways to live with it…to integrate it into her own sense of self.  In a very real sense, the sins of her father are a part of her own identity, mixed up with love and desperation and hope and God knows what else into an inevitable time bomb that explodes in Lundy’s death.

Last night seemed to be less about Dexter to me and more about childhood trauma in general – Dex’s, Arthur’s, Christine’s and now Scott’s.  What will his reaction be to his days in the cellar?  What rituals will he need to enact to purge the pain of being momentarily buried in cement (with one of the best lines of the night, Dexter was right to note that burying a child in cement just isn’t very Christian).

But what will happen next?  The previews (always done so brilliantly on Dexter!) indicated some shocking twists right up till the very end.  Will Arthur take revenge and take Cody?  Is Elliot coming back to make Rita’s life difficult?  Angel and Maria were kept in a holding pattern this week, but the endurance of that story makes me think it will come to matter in the closing episodes.

And perhaps what is piquing my interest most of all – Dexter hasn’t killed in ages!  Where has his need to kill gone?  Is it gone?  This isn’t about an uncontrollable desire to murder anymore – it’s about a personal vendetta or, more so, a desire to protect the innocent.  That’s always been an element of Dexter’s killing, but as he gets further and further from his last kill without an obvious compulsion to kill in general but only to take down Arthur, that raw monster dark-passenger Dexter we know (and oddly love) is fading away to be replaced with some caped crusader, protector of the helpless type superhero father-figure.  When Dexter picked up Harrison to soothe his crying and gave him a quick kiss on the thigh – that was the most real moment I’ve seen in what is usually a playfully over the top, almost parody-like show.  That’s what real parents do and it was lovely.  I believed for the first time that a switch has been flipped in Dexter’s brain – that we have new possibility for humanity in him…that maybe the sins of the father that we’re really dealing with here are Harry’s and that once Dex manages to kill off his own father, the next season might have to take us into his post-killing life.

Can’t wait to hear what you thought!
Natalie

–

Dear Natalie,

I was taken by the exact same emphasis – Dexter has really taken the traumatized child theme to heart. Not only do we see Dexter return to the scene of his own trauma by installing his safe room in a cargo unit, we are subjected to the ever-creepier Arthur Mitchell’s own take on repetition compulsion – down to making Scott wear 1960s style pajamas and play with a rather sad train set in an abandoned bomb shelter. Perhaps it was all a bit head-bangingly symbolic, but the revelation that Arthur kills “himself” in a 10-year old boy by burying him alive in cement to protect his innocence was pretty damn chilling and only served to reinforce Trinity as one of the scariest, most psychologically disturbed characters we’ve seen so far.

The introduction of the child into the kill cycle also allowed Dexter another chance to work out some of his own pathologies. I agree that we are watching him move more deeply and more thoroughly into his role as father (he even  makes an explicit reference to this fact when “Harry” observes how upset he is by Scott’s kidnapping). Although Arthur has not turned out to be the role model Dexter initially hoped for, Dexter’s vexed relationship with him is doing more than anything else has so far to show Dexter how much is own family means to him and to allow  his own native emotional expressions to come to the fore. Like you, I am not sure where this is leading, and I sort of like how subtly and slowly it has been developing – but I do feel like we are watching a new Dex and I am excited to see what it all means.

But the real revelation on the traumatized children front is the emotionally wounded, father-protecting Christine. I am right there with you on the need for more context. I have to admit, however, that I am not sure the show is going to give it to us. There is something text-book stereotypical in her pathological behavior – she witnessed a horrible event in her past which knit her to her father in some twisted way and now she acting out despite her tough-as-nails reporter persona. There are a lot of mysteries around Christine that I am not sure will be solved: like how old is she? She barely seems old enough to have been left on  her own before Arthur settled down with his second family. Who and where is her mother? Right now it feels like a shock tactic – guess who killed Lundy?! guess why?! – and it fits a bit too neatly into the traumatized incident explains all anti-social behavior (I realized my father is a serial killer so I killed the investigator who was after him). I love this season so much I am willing to forgive them this plot device – and I am holding out hope for more shocking revelations that tie it all together – but if I am really honest, I am a little disappointed with the Christine storyline.

I do wonder, however, if maybe the degree to which Christine’s story presses the credibility of the childhood trauma explains all paradigm is a clue that Dexter really is on the verge of a new self-understanding. Maybe, as each season has suggested so far, he too is not as determined by his childhood traumas as he has always believed. Which brings us back to the possibility of a new, at least slightly more integrated, Dexter to come…

Other observations: I am really enjoying the fun, sly way the show is playing with the trope of cheating/sneaking around by adding Angel and Deb sneaking around behind Quinn’s back as they investigate Christine. And speaking of Angel, I agree, he and Maria aren’t done yet. I just hope they both make it through the season alive. Also, did you notice the strange time-lapse sun-rise sequence? I don’t remember Dexter ever doing something like that and it totally jumped out at me. Can’t say I know what they were up to, unless it is a visual clue to back up the whole “a new day dawns for Dexter” motif.

I can’t believe the season is almost done. I haven’t wanted something to end less in a long time.

K

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EPISODE 11 – Hello Dexter Morgan

Hey Kathryn

Ok, I swear that about half way through this episode I started plotting out my note to you thinking I would write all about how Christ(ine) was going to sacrifice her life for her father, the Trinity.  I was so proud of how smart and prescient my comments would be, and then she had to go and shoot herself before the episode was through – damn it!  But if they’re going to be so theologically obvious with their character naming (maybe there’s another daughter named Sophia lurking somewhere so we can round out a Holy Spirit figure too), how are they going to follow through on these religious references? Will the shocking twist endings they keep promising involve some version of a resurrection for our Christ(ine) Christ-figure?  Not, of course, in the literal sense, but maybe as some lingering evidence or even the trace of evidence that’s she keeps hidden with her death…she died knowing they had the wrong guy, so will Arthur get away?  Will her sacrifice truly be for him as somehow it keeps Dex from being able to finish a season at his own Eucharistic, sorry I mean sacrificial, table?  I kind of hope so!

Once again, I think Deb was amazing in this episode.  Her refusal to forgive Christine was acted with brilliant complexity of emotion, immediately followed by an attempt to save her and a whole hodge podge of emotions around Christine’s death, Lundy’s name erasing and God knows what else.  And her call to Dexter calling him back into responsibility to one of his many faces – blood tech, husband, father, serial killer, Kyle Butler extortionist – illustrated perfectly how easy it is to forget that important info Dex gave us in the very first episode of the whole series: that the one person in his life he managed to love, or come close to loving, without forcing it was Deb.  For all the ways he’s sought to create bonds with others – Lila, Miguel, Rita, etc. – Deb’s the one with whom he’s most naturally affectionate and bonded.  It’s a lovely sibling narrative that too often gets overlooked in this show.

Which leads us to the many faces of Dexter.  The scene at the mirror was lovely.  And the opening lines to the episode in which Dexter’s voice-over pondered all the sides to all our lives – the public, the private and the secret – was such an interesting musing.  I’m often intrigued by the ways in which we mark space between public and private identity…that way of understanding space and self is a 19^th century invention that has created a contemporary culture in which we think it’s the private that is real: we think what we share with our most intimates is our most authentic self, our most true self.  But that model still has us sharing something of ourselves with others – still has the true self experienced in community.  Dexter pushed that with this episode by claiming that no one ever – not even in our more private lives – has access to that true me; that the true me is the me I intentionally hide, the secret me.  It’s a bold claim, and not one I’m willing to follow.  I think our true selves exist somewhere between the public, the private and the secret – my hope is that as Dexter starts to integrate those mirror images, he’ll begin to find the same.

So the Rita/Elliot storyline.  For all the obvious, she wants freedom vs. she wants her man to want her gendered clichés, I was still endeared to Dexter’s path of acting out some of his own feelings and then being surprised that those were what Rita wanted.  But I also found myself frustrated at how much Rita got off the hook.  In the end, Dexter’s warped feelings meant that Rita didn’t get to be a culpable, moral agent.  So what happens to the desire that Rita obviously felt?  Is that just solved now by her man punching out the guy next door with a caveman type, ‘stay away from my woman’ grunt?  Rita gets tossed about too much as a pawn for storytelling about Dexter’s emotions.  She’s the weak link in this cast for that reason, and I’m kind of bummed that the one interesting story she was getting for herself – conflicted lust for the neighbour – had to get used to tell Dex’s story and then dropped so quickly.

Ok, I’ll leave Battista and Maria’s wedding for you to talk about (if you want to), but just say that I do think it’s going to come back to bite them on their asses, and that this might make for an interesting story.  And Dex’s first kill in weeks, Stan, just seemed a little flat to me…and perhaps intentionally so.  No time to chat at the table and relish the moment, Dex just had to get it over with.  And for all our musings about what’s going to happen with Harry this season, we’ve got one episode left – what do you think? Is Dex going to leave his code forever?  Will he finally fade away?  What’s going to happen with Deb and the CI files…and how on earth are they going to fit everything in that needs to get fit it!?!

Can’t wait to fly up to New York and watch the final episode with you!  What a perfect way to end the season.

ox,
Natalie

—

Dear Natalie,

There was a lot I really loved about this episode: Dexter’s musings about his multiple identities, Deb’s performance (as you point out, it was amazing. I have always loved Deb, but this season has taken her complexity to new heights), the flip-flop cat and mouse game Arthur and Dexter are playing. All that said, overall the episode felt a little flat to me – like filler waiting for the shocking, unexpected surprise twist they keep promising in the conclusion. I guess I had hoped they would stock this episode with its own surprises so that the tension/anticipation built to the breaking point for next week. The main plot line – Dexter must find a substitute Trinity, kill him, and then plant evidence to convict him (at least in the mind of the police) – was a bit of a let down. Maybe it is because it all felt a bit pointless to begin with. I understand why he had to do it – it is part of his mojo to take the killer down himself (and he has done this before, misleading evidence, etc. so he can get to the kill before the police do). In this case, the stakes of a personal kill are even higher: after this much emotional investment, a ritual serial killer like Dexter won’t be satisfied if justice is done anywhere but on his table. But it felt like he was spinning his wheels, buying time for the big finale. As you point out, even the kill was routine and rushed, without passion, connection, or the usual release.

Trying to figure out what Christine would do as she faces the consequences of her own sacrificial action and the rejection of her father was the best part of the episode. And as you point out, they are all over the theological map with the names and the trinitarian tropes. I’m not sure her shooting herself was not some kind of follow through on her christological role, however. She still offers herself up (in despair and abandonment – my god, my god why have you forsaken me?) and dies protecting her father even as she is betrayed by him. I wonder then, if in some way Dexter can’t be a holy spirit figure – the spirit that comes after the father and son have done their grisly work on the cross, attempting to bring ongoing order to a still chaotic world. Then again, while I can’t imagine they are unaware of what they are doing, I am not sure I think they know what they are doing, at least on some deeper, super subtle theological level.

I was just as disappointed by the Rita development as you were. It really seemed like she was going to become a character of her own, and now she is just back to the sad girl defined by the men in her life and there to play the shrill when Dexter needs to be reminded of his family commitments. Dexter’s generally nonplussed response to her infidelity and the complete lack of commentary on his part about the entire situation pretty much summed it up: not much is happening here and it doesn’t matter anyway.

Whereas his relationship with Deb matters all the more. I agree completely that there was something perfect about the way that her need for him led to his unveiling – because he is genuinely moved by him at some level, he leaves the chase and becomes the prey. Which brings me to predictions for the conclusion: Deb is going to walk in on Dexter in the middle of a kill (of Trinity?), or find his kill cargo container, or some other such proof of his secret life. I think they will leave us hanging with this as the season concludes. I am sure Trinity will die and I am beginning to think Dex will get to do it, but I wonder if it will come at the cost of his own exposure. If killing Trinity is the death of the father for Dexter, to be discovered in the act would be the opening of a whole new world of chaos as he becomes a law onto himself. Even though I didn’t buy it this episode, the whole season has dealt with Dexter’s integration issues and I wonder if they aren’t going to pull the rug out from under our feet.

Which brings me to my final point: private, public, secret selves. Like you, I think whatever is “real” about us lives in the conjuncture of all of these selves. That said, I am a big believer in the secret mystery of the self, unknowable to anyone else and perhaps even to ourselves. This show plays with this all the time, and not just with Dexter. Think of Christine – at her death Deb thinks she understands her, thinks she can basically read her motives, thinks that the secret self has been revealed. But we know that she hasn’t scratched the surface of the truth. Not only does Christine die taking tangible secrets to the grave (the real name of her father), but no compilation of motives or psychological explanations fully explain what drove her. The same is true of Dexter even more so. The real Dexter Morgan is more than sum of all the competing motivations that drive him, and that is his real secret self.

I can’t wait to watch the finale with you as well!

see you soon!
K

—

EPISODE 12 – The Getaway

Dear Kathryn,

Oh my, well let’s start at the beginning before we hit that twist ending.  This was a great episode and, for me, a great ending to the season.  First of all, I really thought Trinity was going to get away, and I thought that I would be disappointed if he didn’t.  But they played it brilliantly, with Dexter catching him, losing him and then catching him again.  This was an insanely fast-paced episode, and so as Trinity seemed to escape in his Mustang I couldn’t figure out why they were lingering on him for so long (i.e. why not take time telling the story of asking little Scott a follow up question like, ‘what did the guy who kidnapped you look like?’ but spend ample camera shots on Lithgow driving through downtown Miami?!?).

With hindsight now, I realize they weren’t lingering on him so much as they were lingering on the chilling idea of freedom tainted by Dexter hiding in the trunk.  Driving down the highway, with his own 1950’s music playing in an effort to recapture his innocence, poor Arthur had no idea what was about to happen.  In the strangest way, it was sweet that on the killing table, Dexter allowed his nemesis, his teacher, and in many strange ways, his friend, to listen to his song, watch his train swirl round, and die in a way that captured that lost innocence.  With his kill cycle interrupted, Arthur got to die as the child he had tried to be in his failed efforts with Scott.

Of course, this idea of re-capturing innocence would become so much more important as we reach the end of the episode and face Harrison experiencing the same types of trauma that Dexter and Christine both once faced.

While I thought that type of neat ending to Trinity would annoy me, the fact that they brought so many old stories to the surface made it work.  Arthur died in a poignant way (so much better than Lila, even better than Miguel).  And Deb discovered one of her brother’s secrets.  Thinking she was informing him of something new, we got some raw and lovely emotion from Deb as she told Dexter that she loved him.  And Dexter was able to realize that he had been the one good thing in Deb’s life, just as he was the one good thing in Rita’s – he realizes he’s not Arthur, that with his family he’s got a chance.

So, oh my goodness, I was so shocked in that final scene.  As soon as he saw he had a voice message from Rita, I knew she was dead or captured or something.  Finding Harrison in the blood and Rita in the bath was a genius twist that I don’t think any of us saw coming!  We worried for Cody.  We thought Dex might kill Rita.  But we didn’t think of this.  We’ve talked so much this season about the sins of the father being passed to the sons…or daughters – Harry to Dex, Arthur to his kids and then especially to Christine, and so on.  But here we really saw the effects of Dexter’s actions creating a rebirth of his son – born into blood, just like me.

So Dexter loses his family just as we think he’s going to be able to keep them.  What on earth will happen next season?  Not just forensics expert, family man and serial killer, let’s get ready to add single dad to that list.  I can’t even imagine!!

While Rita was the most shocking moment of the night, though, I have to end with Harry.  I really thought this was going to be the season where Dexter killed him off, but his influence still hung on.  Sure, he took the back-seat in the car at the beginning while he usually takes the passenger seat, but he stayed omnipresent, coaching Dexter along.  Dexter had to choose one father to kill, and he chose Trinity – the father who embodies God’s will rather than the father who embodies the law.  It all comes to a head between Harry and Dexter though when Harry wants to insist that Dex’s family is ruining his life and Dex wants to assert that it’s his dark passenger who is ruining it.  Harry insists the dark passenger is Dexter’s life; Dexter finally realizes he doesn’t want it to be.  We think at the time that Dexter has reached an important conclusion that will free him from perpetuating the same killing cycle again and again.  We think he’s free from Harry, free from Trinity, free from his own dark passenger (or at least on the path to freedom).  But in the end, Harry’s right – Dexter thinks he’s done all he needs to do, but it’s his family that pays the price…that ruins everything with their own ruin.  Harry might not ever know why he’s right or how he’s right, but the fact remains that he’s almost always right.  I thought next season would be freeing Dexter from his sub-conscious father figure.  I wonder now if it will be a deeper descent into that abyss of his mind’s dark side.

Ok, I am off to bed – I have to get up in four hours and my mind is still buzzing from our season finales!  I’ll be late with my comments on Californication tomorrow, but I hope to get them up by the afternoon!  Can’t wait what you thought of this episode, and any predictions your might have for next season!

ox,

Natalie

—

Dear Natalie,

From the minute the “previously on” started playing, I knew something strange was going to happen in the family way for Dexter. Not only was this the longest “previously on” ever – going all the way back to scenes from season 1 – it almost entirely centered on Dexter’s family, reiterating the central theme of the season: can Dexter have a real family? That is, can he experience the bonds of familial love to the degree that it overrides his murderous impulses and moves beyond the safety shield such relationships were meant to be for him (at least according to Harry’s Code)? As they made abundantly clear in the scene between Harry and Dex in the jail cell, this decision has everything to do with how Dexter views his Dark Passenger – as the essential element of who he is or as a handicap he can actively work to overcome.

I do hear what you are saying about Dexter choosing to kill Trinity/Arthur/God and not Harry/law. But if I am not mistaken, isn’t his confrontation with Harry in the jail cell the last time we see Harry (at least in the episode)? There was something very dramatic and poignant to me about his admitting, “out-loud” to Harry that he didn’t want the Dark Passenger to define him anymore and then bam, Harry is gone. It definitely felt like a kind of “death of the father” moment (but maybe I am forgetting another moment when Harry shows up in the episode later on? Readers: help me out!). We’ve talked before about whether or not Harry is responsible for making Dexter what he is – not just for giving him a code, but for actively insisting from the age of 2 that Dexter had no choice but to grow up a serial killer. That scene was the closest Dex has come to asking the same question and challenging the Code, not just as a method to his life, but as its driving motivation. So the question stands: should Dexter try to overcome his Dark Passenger, which might mean opening himself up to self-deception, and ultimately anti-social chaos, or should he stick with Harry’s ‘better-safe-than-sorry’ Code, simply assuming that the Dark Passenger can’t be overcome, and therefore at least living by the Code?

Dexter’s final speech as he carries Harrison from the bloody scene of Rita’s death seems to suggest he has decided on the latter. Or perhaps even worse – perhaps he has decided that he is so irreparably flawed that even the Code is a shallow means of protecting those around him from the world of pain he represents. And so we have to wait for season 5 to see just how dark Dex might go.

I too was shocked by Rita’s death. I was pretty certain the season couldn’t end with something so uplifting as a ritualized, symbolic death of Arthur on Trinity’s table. When Dexter walks into his dark house I was totally prepared for menace and vengeance, I just couldn’t imagine for sure what form it would take. Choosing to make it a bathtub death was particularly gruesome and horrible for me, not only because it allowed for Harrison to wallow in his mother’s blood, but because the very first time we see Trinity is watching him perform a bathtub murder, and it was one of the scariest and most awful deaths we’ve seen. Trying to imagine Rita undergoing the same ordeal was worse than a dozen other ways she might have died.

And I agree, at first the pace of the episode confused and frustrated me. They were squeezing enough twists and turns to comprise three normal episodes (the build up to discovering Trinity’s own identity would take at least two episodes in the normal pace of the show). So to zoom so quickly through the discovery of Trinity’s fourth victims to the revelation of his identity, to Dexter loosing his shit and Trinity early on, to Deb discovering the truth about Dexter and Brian Moeser, made my head spin. At first I felt like the writers were just rushing to tie up loose ends and had no real idea what they were doing. But the minute Arthur’s car starts sputtering, the pace slows down, and you realize all the rest was just a red herring. It was all meant to distract us from the primal game of cat-and-mouse Arthur and Dexter are playing. Thinking about it this way, I can’t help but wonder if Dexter’s despair at the end is partially caused by realizing his own limits. For the first time he has encountered a nemesis that in many ways outsmarted him and managed to destroy his life, even in dying.

Which brings us to predictions for next season. Something tells me that, like Californication, which I know you will address, we are going to see Dexter at rock bottom when he returns. I do wonder if the show will do anything with the fact that Dexter has a Trinity murder in his own family, and one that doesn’t fit the profile (if anything, Rita should have ‘jumped’ to her death). What will the police make of this? How would Dexter avoid being outed as Kyle Butler? Or at least how will he avoid raising suspicions in Deb’s mind? If they choose to go this route, we could have a much bleaker, much darker opening than the already bleak prospect of Dexter as a demoralized serial killer single dad. But that might be expecting too much logical consistency for a show that (in good ways) can play fast and loose. I only wonder how long we’ll have to wait.

It has been a great season and so fun to ponder together. Thank goodness Big Love and Lost are coming on again soon…

K