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.
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.
