This season is shaping up to be amazing. Is this the year they finally get their Best Actor and Best Drama Emmys? Lithgow is certainly a shoo-in for the guest actor category. His bipolar happy-feet routine is nothing short of terrifying. This show is gonna give me a heart attack. I just about fell off the couch when Dexter said "I killed a man." How many ways can they think of to have him confess and not confess? I love that they chose a dumpy, grubby roadside picnic area for that scene. And Dex trying to pry Arthur away from the skeeved out family before he blabs everything - I suppose they figured that Arthur was Dexter's senile, horribly embarrassing dad? In S3, I felt the show had lost a bit of its style, particularly its wicked sense of humor, but it was truly back in full force this episode. But the scene where Dexter contemplates whether suicide will be his final only option - wow. Till now, I had no inkling how they could end this show or even what Dexter's arc will be, leading to the end. I don't think they'll go for suicide, but I wouldn't be surprised if they let us think that's where it's headed. He feels guilty for killing Ferrell, but why feel guilty about him in particular and not the pedophile he killed last year who had never killed anyone? How about Miguel's brother? It may have been an accident, but it was the kind of accident that's inevitable when you make a habit of breaking into other people's houses. Sooner or later, one is going to point a gun in your face and who's to say he's guilty of anything? Dexter breaks into houses to find evidence of guilt - he can't be right all the time. Ferrell was an inevitability, and regardless of how careful Dexter is, it will happen again. For that matter, can he justifiably kill Arthur? Clearly, he is mentally ill - sick, not evil. But the same can be said of many of Dexter's "righteous" kills. What about Brian, wasn't he sick for exactly the same reason Dexter is? If Brian deserved death, doesn't Dexter deserve it, too? His entire value system has been built by conveniently ignoring all the uncomfortable questions. If the writers are really playing fair, they have to acknowledge that Dexter's lack of - or really, supression of - emotions was the vital way he kept the Dark Passenger fed while not becoming overwhelmed by guilt. Now he's realizing the repression no longer works and his deal with the devil has to end. But to stop killing will just make the DP push him to kill indiscriminately. Unless there's a way Dexter can rid himself of the DP - and that's hard to envision in any way that wouldn't be a cheat - he is really headed off a cliff. My hunch is that at the end of this season, he realizes he cannot bring himself to kill Arthur (and I think Arthur dumping the vial of his sister's ashes off the roof signifies that he's ending his cycle - the suicide wasn't a whim.) He lets Arthur go because he realizes it would be hypocritical to kill him. Then he has a real problem, because who does he then have a right to kill, if not a serial killer with decades of heinous murders to his credit? Phew, heavy stuff. On a lighter note -Deb realizing Trinity was not the shooter was an interesting twist. But does that mean it was the reporter, desperate to whomp up a story? Okay, comparatively lighter.
Temis: I strongly think by the end of the series, Dexter is going to still be doing what he has always been doing: killing bad guys. He won't commit suicide, he won't go to jail for his crimes, and he won't get killed by someone seeking revenge or justice for his victims. Shows like this aren't meant to be cautionary tales. They meant to manipulate our symphatizes by directing them towards someone who if we didn't know we would consider a monster or a menace to society. These shows are meant to show what life is like for those kind of people on all sides, how they view their living, the consequences of their actions and how they view them, their failed attempts to change who we are deep down, and ending it with us stepping out of their lives without a cliche good-guy-beats-bad-guy ending. I give you The Shield and the Sopranos as examples. On other things, I think Trinity thinking Dexter was destined to keep him from committing suicide is going to make things worst for Dexter, Mitchell's family, and anyone who cross his path. It may give Trinity some ideas about using his "salvation" to his greatest twisted delight. I also think we are going to find out that Trinity is a bigger and more terrible monster than all of Dexter's kills and Dexter himself by what's going on in next episode's preview with the reveal of the distubring truth of Mitchell's family life behind closed doors. Before this episode, I've suspected Quinn was the one who shot Deb and killed Lundy. But now I find myself reconsidering that theory. I so wish the reporter wasn't the shooter because she seem too obvious to be the shooter. I thought she was just a red herring to distract us from the real shooter. Since the shooter has to be Makusa's height to do the deed, it has to be the reporter. I'm wondering why Trinity would be concerned when seeing the reporter's name and article in next episode's preview. If he worried she may be closing on him, why not come after Deb or any one of the cops investigating the crime. Maybe she's someone from Trinity's past. Maybe she shot Deb and killed Lundy to protect Trinity, who she probably knows is in Miami. And I still have this feeling that Rita is going to die this season. Maybe it starts with the flirtation between her and the neighbor Elliot. Next episode, they'll probably kiss. Sooner or later, Dexter finds out which stirs up some tension in Dexter and Rita's marriage. Rita realizes what she did was wrong and that she doesn't want to leave Dexter to be with Elliot. Just before she could fix things between her and Dexter, Trinity comes in and kills her. Or maybe it's the reporter when she finds out that Dexter has been noising in on Trinity's business and wanted to hurt or distract Dexter by killing Rita.
It definitely could be the reporter. I hadn't thought of that but it is more than likely going to be a woman.
You might wanna consider coming up with a new acronym. The mental image that one evokes, especially in sentences like that one... well... yeah. Might wanna reconsider.
Great stuff. This was probably the best hour of television I've seen all year. I personally would like to see a note of finality when they end the series and not a business as usual ending like we got in the Sopranos. There's still at least a year until we get to that point, but I'd like to believe that the writers have some kind of end game in mind. This episode was helped I think by the complete lack of Harry, who I feel has been overused in recent episodes. For a dead guy, he sure gets a lot of screen time.
Christine makes (the name Gayle Weathers just popped into my mind, I really don't like Courtney Cox, so why on earth is that my go to name for reporters? besides nudity/sex is one of the rules to avoid the slashers knife according to Scream... Seriously! I HATE THESE MOVIES! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!) sense from a casting view point that they'd want to not have crap just flying out from left field at the 11th hour... Were she and Quinn on the outs and the time and he needed a shoulder to cry on? That's almost like what happened in DC's identity crisis where the Atom's exwfie was murdering the spouses of other team members to get her ex to take an interest in her again and save her from some nebulous big bad... Women. What about Adrienne Barbeau? That's a serious waste of some acting chops to just wedge into a nothing subplot... Though the cruise ship floozy was unstable. Godness knows what she thought was going on, because she was an idiot and probably medicated. It's the hunt for Harry's lover which got her shot.
I have obviously led a sheltered life because I have no idea what else DP could be. Now that's an intriguing hypothesis!
That idea about her being shot because of her search for Harry's lover is interesting. I was thinking maybe it was just that woman that hysterically denied shooting her. The one from the Tourist Shooter case. She cried and said that if she(the sister) says that she shot them then she is a liar. Another idea I had was that Lithgow's daughter did it.
I just watched this episode today, and it's just great, one of the best in this season yet I'm starting to agree that Dexter may let Trinity live. John Lithgow owns this season, I'm finding him more interesting to watch than Hall. The scene where he vistied his childhood home was breathtaking, and that scene in the diner......
There is no way in hell that Dexter will let Trinity live. He is even more dangerous now. He thinks it is a sign that he was saved. What allows us to sympathize with Dexter is that he kills maniacs like Trinity. If Dexter is cool with Trinity killing innocent mothers and random people then he becomes unsympathetic.
I'm interested in the development with Rita and the neighbor guy as well. I wonder where that could be leading. I find it funny, because I think some of you guys in these threads were a bit weary of that guy when he first appeared in the first episode.
They made sure to mention Dexter's affair with the British psycho lady. That was to justify his wife's affair with the neighbor.
could the reporter be a former lover of Lundy? I don't remember if they had any scenes together, possibly followed hm frm Oregon, ehh prob fetched
I don't think the reporter chick would touch Lundy unless he had a couple million bucks around his neck. She is way too hot.
Is anyone else here reminded of Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield when you are watching the Lundy/Trinity thing? Whenever I see Lundy I call him Triple Lundy after Dangerfield's swim move in the movie. I think it was called a Triple Lindey or something like that.