Amph [Showtime] Your favorite serial killer, Dexter!

So next season we're supposed to be rooting AGAINST our protagonists, right? ...

 

Really enjoyed the finale, though I was disappointed with a few things and called the final twist before the season even started.

 

Well played, sir.

 

Dexter's coming back soon! First episode on June 30.

What do we think will happen? Will Dexter die by the end of the season? Go to prison? Will he go on the run?

I say Dexter will be alive, well, and free.

 

Sooooo.... Dexter's back tonight.

 

its gonna be really, really, really, really, really, reallyreallyreallyreally bad

 

I'll predict the end now. Dexter on the table, Deb dealing the final blow. And then she carries on the work.

 

Poor Jennifer Carpenter. She's giving it her all and she's probably the highlight of the season premiere. If only she had better material to work with.

The six month jump was lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy; instead we got awkward exposition at the bench dedication.

Everyone accepted she was killed by that dude? I guess that's to be expected of this exception homicide unit.

I liked the "Hey, remember that black detective dude who wasn't Doakes and never really mattered?"

Apparently Batista is the Lt. now? What happened to retiring and opening that res-- wait, I don't care and clearly the writers don't either.

"****ingpassword" is amusing until you realize how dumb it would be actually use that as your password.

Capt. Obvious Ghost Dad and his sidekick Dexter's Internal Monologue are as useless and comical as ever. The show would be greatly improved by simply removing those two things. I forget when Ghost Dad stopped being useful, but it was at least a couple seasons ago. But hey, abandoning the status quo might scare the large number of viewers back to CBS or something. Or the writers might have to come up with something new!

Another sideplot about Quinn's love life and extraordinarily poor choice of partners? Ugh, why didn't he die years ago? The actor deserves better anyway.

Road rage and murdering his sister's boyfriend-or-something? Okay, whatever, I guess.

I'm glad we didn't have the cliche "DOES SHE KNOW?" arc with Dr. Nice English Lady. She does. But how did she know he'd be at the Bench of Exposition? Eh.


Despite this being the last season, I am getting no "end game" vibe. Nothing much has changed except Debra. Vogel looks to be a slight variation on manipulative one-season antagonists we've seen before. She might not be a "Big Bad," but she's nothing new. I guess she's the only person who can give Dr. "HAVE HOT SEX WITH YOUR STEP BROTHER DEB" from season six a decent challenge for Worst Shrink Ever. (I'm guessing she's the one who told Harry to focus Dexter's homicidal tendencies rather than... you know, trying to stop them). This show has made me realize that it's really, really difficult for me to quit a program I once thought good. Only 11 more episodes. Here's hoping my pessimism is wrong. Sadly, this is not going to compare favorably to Breaking Bad's final eight episodes when it returns in August, and Mad Men's final season next year will probably be nothing but excellent.

 

Father of the year award: "I'm really woried about Deb getting shot and killed by a hitman. Let's go save her, Harrison!" If anything, it helps support the non-existant Harrison spin off where he's the serial killer and Dexter is his dark passenger.

Don't forget the Sean Patrick Flanery cameo! That's going to be important later!

 

Yeah, lots of lazy writing. The exposition was really painfully bad, especially because the bench stuff was also ADR and therefore even more stiff. Ouch.

There's definitely some clunky writing that's marked the show the last couple seasons. They feel obliged to have Harry even though he's usually insanely poorly used and his dialogue is really bad.

One thing I do love is Deb actually reacting the way a real person might. Last season she was in a trance and I could sort of buy it for a while. But I'm glad we did get to the "holy **** you're a serial killer and that's really ****ed up, leave me alone" part. I'm interested to see where that goes. Like I'm glad she called the cops about the guy's murder... but then the question is whether she just made herself a suspect, and if she will have to roll on Dexter anyway.

I also do like the notion that Dexter is losing it without some kind of mediating force in his life. However, this completely contradicts what British lady says about psychopaths not acting out of emotional reasons (I won't even go far into the fact that this isn't medical speech because I'm sure they just decided to go with pop speech because viewers are dumb... but it's still wrong and still is not the same thing as being a sociopath, which is what they've said before). But maybe they're setting up that she was wrong, as she was wrong to tell Harry to not try to stop Dexter's murderous urges.

I like that she thinks the "code" will protect her though. Lol, Dexter has killed at least five people outside the code. I'm not sure what this lady wants.

Anyway, I think IGN's 7.8 rating is near the mark. There's potential to have some good plotlines.... but there's also clunky writing and the continuing problem of secondary plotlines that I just don't care about. Quinn is one of the most useless and irritating characters in TV. And he didn't begin that way. They just have nothing to do with their secondary characters. It's the problem of having a main character and his sister now as well involved in murders... everything else seems boring and petty by comparison.

Well, I think we have to wait for next week to really know what this season is about. This season opener isn't nearly as good as last year's, and that led to a season that was good but not great... so we'll see. It's only 11 more episodes, as Evan pointed out. But man, how much better would this show have been if it ended in season 4? Or maybe with a final season in 5 where we covered Deb finding out and trying to figure out how to deal. Basically the personal storylines of seasons 5-8 could have been covered in one. Combine Lumen and Hanna. Get rid if the incest complication. Just deal with Dexter coming apart after Rita's death and Deb finding out. Alas. I think Showtime is partly to blame for dragging things out and milking all its shows. It does that instead of going to HBO route of short runs, and I think it's one reason there's still a divide between these two premium channels.

 

On the plus side Hghgggangel's sister has a top arse.

 

yeah this show has been godawful since season 5. im really embarrassed to admit that ill probably start watching this season at some point

 

This was a letdown after last season....not the direction I thought they'd go (kind of a boring choice imo).

What really irked me were the interviews Showtime aired before the season premiere--loads of people talking about how we "want to root for Dexter." I want Dexter to get caught! It just reminded me of the loads of comic-con nerds at one of those Dexter panels who seem disturbingly enthused by the actions of a serial killer. Originally, I didn't think the point of the show was to glorify killing, but rather to focus on the human aspect of the kind of person that others usually think of as...inhuman.

 

Yeah, I really hoped that this show would eventually go the Breaking Bad route of "no, the main character is awful. It's okay to dislike him". But they just weren't brave enough to do that. I mean, they sort of portray it neutrally. I guess it's more the fault of the fans with their weird reactions. I didn't watch the interviews because I never do (also, their "next times" are notoriously awful and spoiler-filled). But I have definitely heard those things at Comic Con, and it's insane.

He's a serial killer. He's an interesting and even sympathetic character. But he's still a serial killer. I actually do like the direction at least of heading towards Deb waking up about this. Because sometimes you just need a character to feel that way to give the audience permission to feel that way, too. I just think this show has somewhat of a problem in that many of the fans don't really get the show. They are the comic book store fans of the Dark Defender who were derided in season 2. It's really annoying. I want to see Dexter caught so badly, for the good of everyone. We'll see if the writers have any stones on them at all.

 

So, is this a bad time to start watching the show to decide if it's worthwhile, then?

 

womp womp wwwwoooommmpppp

 

I don't think the secondary characters must have boring storylines just because they're not serial killers. In the last few seasons especially, they're clearly afterthoughts (at best) unless tied directly to Dexter. "Hey, let's pair up Batista and LaGuerta even though there was pretty much nothing between them before. They're both Latino!" "Quinn's in love with a stripper!" "How 'bout a creepy intern who steals evidence! No, I don't know why he matters. We'll figure it out later." If the show weren't so lazy, it could come up with more interesting things for the other characters to do.

 

The premiere was "meh." I really liked 2 things: 1.) Vogel and the character's actress, Charlotte Rampling, and 2.) Deb's distancing from Dexter. I honestly hope Vogel doesn't turn in into some seasonal villain. I'd like her to be more unique than that. Fat chance, I know.

I'm really, really disappointed that after LaGuerta, a professional policewoman, spends her last months and weeks and days obsessing about Dexter and the Bay Harbor Butcher and Dexter and Doakes and Dexter again, that the Miami P.D. is apparently not investigating Dexter. We're supposed to be satisfied with the explanation, "she just didn't know when to stop," as is the entire Miami Police Department, unfortunately. All series long, I have been waiting for a season (which I thought would be the very final one) when everyone in the department was absolutely suspicious of Dexter, to the point that he would be given some kind of paid leave, as obviously a suspect can't be involved in his investigation. Such a storyline would do two things: 1.) show us a Dexter where EVERYONE around him who used to love him is now suspicious of him and 2.) deprive Dexter of the vast resources of the department.

Instead, we're not going to get that. Maybe towards the end of the season depending on how the story plays out, we'll have a few episodes like this, but a lot less of the potential will go unexplored than if we had a whole season for it. Still, this is the end. Like, not just an end, but the end-end. Dexter, as a tv show, still has arguably the hugest piece of its story left to tell and legacy to decide, which will absolutely affect how we view the entire series, positively or negatively, and may even redeem some of the more recent seasons.

 

the writers just really like t-pain



(ima get a like from juliet for this but i dont even give a ****)

(Jabba-wocky mike JONEZ)

 

http://i.imgur.com/24eTm1m.jpg]Thought[/url] this was interesting, if a bit on the nose [image, linked for profanity]

 

Recognize someone? (thanks Zardoz)

 

Wow, the show is really telegraphing the "twist." Again, like with Adm. Adama being in Hanks' imagination, I hope I'm wrong. But

-Vogel remarking numerous times that "a psychopath doesn't blah blah."
-A killer being coerced/forced by someone else.
-Vogel showing her own signs of being crazy.

Dexter is going to turn out to be not a psychopath/sociopath/term-that-doesn't-actually-appear-in-the-DSM. Eh, whatever. It only completely contradicts at least the first few seasons. They've probably done worse.

 

Or maybe he's cured!

 

I hate myself for continuing to watch this.