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Dexter: The Final Season


Petey

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I never posted in the old Dexter thread (I didn't catch up with the show until this past Monday.. I had watched the first half of season 1 like a year ago and didn't resume watching the show until about two months ago) but figured with this being the final season it'd need its own thread by the next episode.

 

I wonder if they stray away from a Dexter love interest this season and focus more on Deb's demons.

 

Random stuff I thought of while marathoning the show: I wonder what happened between Angel and Barbara between seasons three and four. I don't recall their ever being an explanation about how he moved from her to LaGuerta.

 

Who was watching Harrison on New Year's Eve in the season 7 finale?

 

Did Hannah McKay really have to poison Deb? She was hot, was fine with Dexter doing his thing and made him homemade cookies to wake up to. Sounds perfect.

 

Was Quinn's randomly messy hair a running gag or something? I feel like it got to the point where his hair was always perfectly styled except for one part that always looked wind damaged or slept on.

 

Doakes might have been the worst acted character I've ever seen on a critically acclaimed show.

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I am way less hating this than I should be, for one reason mainly.CHARLOTEE MOTHERFUCKING RAMPLING!Chalotte Rampling is fucking awesome.  I have some Netlfixing to do, becaue I've totally not noticed anything she was in.  I mainly remembered her as a rather stiff 70s starlet.  But, My God, she was breathtaking.  Quick, someone recommend me some Rampling!Usually I hate when the retcon extra stuff into a creation story just to keep a series going.  But she is so good, I will buy anything she's selling.  I like the idea of a mother figure, the one relationship they haven't offered him yet.I take back every bad thing I ever said about Quinn now that I know is outgoing voicemail message not only quotes but actually attempts to imitate Tommy Atkins from NIGHT OF THE CREEPS  ("It's Quinn, Thrill me")There has actually some good dark moments in this so far.  The road rage thing was stupid and gratuitous, but finally getting to see Dexter have trouble holding his temper with his son was good.Deb's stuff has veered from intolerable to surprisingly okay.  Like during the hidieous scene in the store with Deb, I was thinking that either AJ Lee is a way better actress than I've been giving her credit for or Jennifer Carpenter is hideous because one of them is channeling the other in terms of line delivery.But then they turn around and give us a great scene between her and Dex in the motel.  After that, I'm actually willing to give the Deb stuff time, since it revolves around at least a dramatically satisfying idea, that she is in a misery he cannot understand, since he is free from guilt and she is not. It works that Dexter now sees her as "changed" and no longer innocent and that Rampling may need to get her out of the way.But MORE RAMPLING.  I fairly well marked the fuck out when she actually said the words "We mad scientists" while wearing a lab coat and cutting into someone's brain.  The fact that she's going all Magneto trying to undersatnd and justify her own condition is going to make her maybe the most sympathetic and tragic bid bad since Rudy/Brian Moser.

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Yeah I found the Deb stuff in the premiere to be awful but much more manageable in the second episode. I think I was subconsciously connecting Deb's drug usage to Jack Bauer's drug usage in season 3 of 24 and well, that part of 24 sucked.

 

Deborah Morgan=Jack Bauer?

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The Deb stuff so far has been better than anything Deb in previous seasons. As I watched the first episode of this season and they were showing the highlights of previous seasons I realized I apparently didnt watch the last half of last season. Too late now. I hope this is a good season and they send the show off with a high note.

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Posted Image

 

Every line, every little gesture and head tilt, every smirk is so finely tuned.  Even her little joke asides to jobbers like Angel are delivered with so much nonchalance.

 

And then she gets this special kind of focus in her eyes when she's talking to Dexter alone.  I loved how she noticed when he was pacing around with his "killer face", recognized the darkness partially in control, and recoiled a little.  Not out of disgust but like a lion-tamer who's just pushed things a little too far.  But then she quickly recovered and swatted him down: "You're agitated." and he sort of got hold of himself.

 

Rampling and Lithgow need to be forced to procreate for the good of us all.

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Does anyone else find it odd that they haven't bothered to explain how Dex and Deb covered up what they did to LaGuerta?  I mean, we know what the plan was.  Dex was going to shoot the guy with Maria's gun to cover the stab wound and then use the other guy's gun to shoot LaGuerta.  But none of that happened!  

 

Some of that COULD have happened still but they would still have to AT LEAST cover up Deb's killshot, right?  The show's been great but that's really bugging me and I have a feeling they're just going to ignore it.

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Whatever good work Ms. Rampling is doing is totally lost on me because I'm so utterly annoyed by the character. It's clear she was invented and wedged into Dexter's origin because they've decided that they want Harry's Code to be the big bad, but they also don't want to make Harry a bad guy. Enter: Dr. Vogel. Now they can protect Harry by saying he just took bad professional advice from another psycho. Which sucks.

It actually kinda reminds me of that season on BUFFY when they decided they wanted to have Buffy in conflict with the Watchers but didn't want to make Giles a bad guy, so they pulled Wesley out of their ass.

Harry's Code being the ultimate evil in Dexter's life, though an obvious conclusion that most people have theorized at one point or another, was about the only thing that could have saved the show for me. A lot of the stupid flaws in this show are beyond saving, but having Harry end up as the ultimate, unwitting big bad in Dex's life would've been interesting and subversive and might have elevated the show a little bit, in the way that great endings can.

Of course, I'm sure the writers might say that the problem with Harry as the big bad is that Harry's already dead and, thus, can't be strapped to Dexter's table and killed at the end to give the audience a satisfying conclusion. And I'd say that's always been the fucking problem with this show.

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One thing about the last episode bugged me. When Vogel was saying that Dexter really believed his feelings for Deb were for real, how the fuck would she know if it is real or not. I mean, I know she has classified him as a psychopath, but does that mean anything, really?  I guess I'm asking if there is any merit to her fictional diagnoses. In other words, wouldn't any emotions felt, be real? Maybe I just think she's condescending.

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One thing about the last episode bugged me. When Vogel was saying that Dexter really believed his feelings for Deb were for real, how the fuck would she know if it is real or not. I mean, I know she has classified him as a psychopath, but does that mean anything, really?  I guess I'm asking if there is any merit to her fictional diagnoses. In other words, wouldn't any emotions felt, be real? Maybe I just think she's condescending.

 

 

I have a feeling that she herself is a psychopath, and is intractably defining her subjects based on herself.  She is trying to force everyone to fit a mold designed to make her right and them wrong or something.

 

Her research into psychopaths has all been self-serving justification.  Kind of like the Koch Bros. research into global warming.

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I have a feeling that she herself is a psychopath, and is intractably defining her subjects based on herself.  She is trying to force everyone to fit a mold designed to make her right and them wrong or something.

 

Her research into psychopaths has all been self-serving justification.  Kind of like the Koch Bros. research into global warming.

 

Honestly, after it turned out that the killer-of-the-week wasn't the Brain Surgeon, my money's on it being Vogel.

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I don't think so.  They showed her alone acting as if she wa surprised by receiving the packages.  Whereas last season they were making it glaringly clear that we never see Edward James Olmos interact with anyone outside of Hanks, and never alone either.

 

It would be seriously dirty pool to stage and show us that scene of her alone in her apartment and then say something like "she has no memories of sending herself the packages, and so that's why she looked surprised."

 

I would kill so hard over that.  I would hope they've learned their lesson after being mocked for most of a season last year.

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I also think Vogel is the killer but I certainly hope not for the reasons listed above.

 

I hope it's Vince, just to hear him yell "IT'S ME DEXTER! IT WAS ME ALL ALONG"

 

But I'm sure Dexter will realize that like EVA said above, Harry's code has been the big bad in his life and that he'll convinces himself that if he kills Vogel, it'll allow him to escape Harry's code.

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I'm still not sure about the code being evil.

 

They've had Dexter question Harry and the code in various ways for various reasons, but it did succeed in instilling in him a sense of responsibilit about the people around him that almost every other killer he's been in contact with did not have.

 

Whether he truly feels nothing, or disdain, for all the regular people around him, I guess we still don't know because Dexter himself is not always a reliable narrator of his own feelings.  But he acts as if he has an obligation to, you know, not kill the inferior beings around him and to somehow make the world better rather than worse.

 

If he doesn't feel guilt (for anyone other than maybe Deb and Rita and his kids) then don't we still have to code to thank for that?

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I was one of the many about to write off the show after the past few seasons, although the last one was considerably better.  I'm keeping with it just to see what they do, and since they went into this season with an idea of how to end it I'm hoping it'll be halfway decent.  So far I've liked what I've seen though like some of you all I think the female Stephen Fry is going to end up being the killer.  Dexter has also stepped outside of Harry's 'code' numerous times before so I don't see why that's an issue all of a sudden.  I think her not knowing him nearly as well as she thinks she does is going to come around soon.

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I use the term "evil" as shorthand. I guess what I'm saying is I forsee them letting Dexter off the hook a bit by saying that, while he might have been a fucked up kid, he could have been helped and didn't *have* to grow up to be a killer of any sort, if not for Harry making the unfortunate choice to seek professional advice from a nutter.

While it's good that he has been programmed him to only kill bad guys, it would be better, for Dexter and the innumerable people who've been sucked into the violence surrounding his life, if he didn't kill anyone. And the code is to blame for that, is how I'm thinking this goes.

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That makes sense.

 

It marks an interesting shift in the tone of the show itself.  For the first few seasons, serial killers were presented pretty much along the lines of how Vogel sees them...as almost mythically fixed and predictable creatures that cannot be diverted or helped in any way...almost like a seperate species living among us.

 

Not just Dexter but Rudy/Brian, Trinity, Miguel Prado, and tons of other minor characters.  But also Lundy seemed to subscribe to this.  For awhile it seemed like the whole show was set in an alternate reality where there were no psychology or psychiatry at all.  Everyone just accepted that:

 

1) serial killers were "created" by a traumatic event or series of traumatic events

2) that once set in motion the process was irreversible and predictable

 

It went so far as the practical reality of Dexter's brother being a kind of proof.  Of course he was also going to be a killer, because he went through the same traumatic event.  That's just science!

 

But now they're going to reverse all that and claim that all of those ideas were the result of this one woman.  It works as an emotional thing, and as a way to end the show...but it changes more than just Dexter's view.  It flies in the face of the reality that the show introduced for the first five or six seasons.

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