DEXTER Season 5 Discussion & Spoilers

[Jax]

This season deffo doesn't have the same kick of previous years though thats because Dexter sets the bar very high. Overall still a good season of telly and am sure it will get even better in the end but I feel its showing signs of lets wrap it up next year so it can go out with pride.

I would even consider dropping season 6 to 10 episodes to get a more focus plotline.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm beginning to worry about the writing on this show. Several scenes in this last episode came off as being clumsily handled: a) Masuka immediately buying into the scene that Dexter had laid out b) Quinn's drinking and dancing in the club while undercover (is this believable?) c) Rapey guy picking up the phone and calling his rapey friends as soon as Dexter and Lumen left the room. I did enjoy the final scene with Dexter and Lumen at the scene of Rita's death however.

Yes - c in particular struck me as clumsy.

I also disliked Lumen being designated as carrying a "Dark Passenger." She's way too weepy for that - the Dark Passenger should cause a person to have joy in committing murder (and continuing long after the initial targets have been exterminated). We should be getting the sense that Lumen is a terrifying person in order to sell this idea. Either that, or keep her as she is, and lose the Dark Passenger in regards to her.

I also stand by my prediction that the finale will end with Debra finding out Dexter's secret, and having to kill Quinn over it.

They've really got to pull the trigger on Deb-finds-out by the end of this season - there needs to be some propelling factor into next season, regardless of whether it's the last.

I really hoped the dentist guy wouldn't turn out to be one of the rapists, and would lead to Lumen going on an increasingly insane and random killing spree, thinking every man who looks at her was one of her attackers, while Dexter has to try to keep her in control and clean up after her.

That could still happen. The dentist being one of the rapists could be chalked up to dumb luck - there's no way her explanation of how she targetted him is going to work twice - and she got it wrong once before, after all. But she needs to amp up the scary-factor if we're going to believe she's a female version of Dexter without the Harry Code.

It'd be a good twist for Lumen to identify Quinn as one of the guys who assaulted her.

Only if she's dead wrong about it and Dexter has to protect Quinn from her. There's been zero setup for Quinn being a rapist.

We already know he's crooked from last season. He's always been a little skeevy, which has been emphasized in this week's ep.

He's skeevy in a stealing-money-from-a-crime-scene way, but that is a long long long way from characterizing him as a rapist.

Weller's character seems more likely (although a heck of a coincidence) - he's playing that character as very skeevy (but maybe that's because he's over the top with it).

 

[Jack Bauer]

Looks like Quinn is getting some cold feet due to him sleeping with Dexter's sister so he looks like Dexter is gonna have more trouble with Weller's character.

 

[AJBryant]

This week's episode had the same mistake one of the Dexter audiobooks did -- something that any native Miamian like me would never make.

This week, Quinn made the mistake of saying "Brickell" (as in "Brickell Ave.") with the emphasis on the second syllable (brih-KELL) -- and any Miamian can tell you that it's BRICK-ul.

Grr. Threw me right out of the episode.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

I'm having trouble buying Lumen's decision to keep going after the men who tortured her even though all of them would, as Dexter said, end up executed, or at least imprisoned for the rest of their lives anyway. In theory it makes sense considering what she's been through, but I don't think Stiles was able to get across the emotional nuances of making that choice needed to make it believable.

 

[LitmusDragon]

Better this week I thought. At least we have a real villain now.

 

[Aragorn]

I wonder if Eli Stone breaks out into a George Michael dance number before he rapes and tortures his victim.

I wonder if the Peter Weller character will end up killing Quinn.

 

[MichaelDornFan]

The truck getting hit was another annoyingly convenient plot device, but I'm generally enjoying the season I suppose.

 

[Geck]

^Yeah, agreed. Otherwise, I generally enjoyed last night's ep too, though the new villains as introduced came off a little too comic booky for my tastes. In other seasons, Rudy, Lila, even Arthur were all psychologically messed up, but still sympathetic in a way, creating complex characters. These guys just seem like bland, straight-up baddies, which is kinda boring.

 

[davejames]

I'm having trouble buying Lumen's decision to keep going after the men who tortured her even though all of them would, as Dexter said, end up executed, or at least imprisoned for the rest of their lives anyway. In theory it makes sense considering what she's been through, but I don't think Stiles was able to get across the emotional nuances of making that choice needed to make it believable.

Yeah I'm not really buying it either. Stiles is perfectly believable and sympathetic as a rape victim, but taking that extra step to being a crazed and obsessed vigilante just doesn't seem like something she could ever be capable of.

But to be fair, it would be hard for a LOT of actresses to pull that off. You'd almost need someone who already has quite a bit of an edge to her, like a Michelle Rodriguez.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Stiles is perfectly believable and sympathetic as a rape victim, but taking that extra step to being a crazed and obsessed vigilante just doesn't seem like something she could ever be capable of.

I agree. She's not delivering the idea that there's a surpressed psychotic edge to her.

The story is okay, I guess, but it would be so much better if a) Dexter were unravelling because of Rita's murder (he barely even seems to remember it now) and b) Lumen seemed like much more of a loose cannon, which Dexter was too wrapped up in his own psychosis to notice or care about. They should be like the Macbeths, two people who are more dangerous together than in isolation because they magnify each other's evil. We should be terrified for them, and terrified what they might do next.

I'm wondering if all the actual rapists will be killed by mid-season and then Lumen decides she's not going to stop, and starts killing any guy she decides is a rapist, which of course could be anyone. Then what does Dexter do? Maybe at that point, the story will kick back up to the level we expect from this show.

But to be fair, it would be hard for a LOT of actresses to pull that off. You'd almost need someone who already has quite a bit of an edge to her, like a Michelle Rodriguez.

Or a female Michael C. Hall. I guess this is a lesson in how rare actors like that really are because Julia Stiles is hardly untalented.

 

[Harvey]

How is it that nobody checked in on Boyd until Dexter planted the evidence? Dexter mentions that it's been a month (or almost a month?) since he killed Boyd. Wouldn't someone from work report the guy missing by now?

I liked this week's episode well enough, but I suspect the plotting of this season will just have too many holes by the end of it. I still wonder what happened with that guy Dexter brutally murdered in the first episode. I'm more and more convinced that the writers have just forgotten about it, if they ever thought about the implications in the first place.

I did like the suggestion that Dexter is attached to Lumen because she reminds him of Rita a couple of episodes ago. But that angle was dropped this week.

And what of the subplot with the two murderous brothers? It's like another show co-existing with this one.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

Well, Masuka often gets the best moments. Remember when he drove up in the Pussy Wagon last season? Brilliant.

Still, pick up the pace season five.

I liked his "mummification" demonstration.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

I wonder if Eli Stone breaks out into a George Michael dance number before he rapes and tortures his victim.

I wonder if the Peter Weller character will end up killing Quinn.

He'll pull his gun out and be like, "Your move, creep!"

 

[Aragorn]

The show isn't as tightly written as it used to be. I'm surprised that Prado never once mentioned the Bay Harbor Butcher. Or that Dexter never noticed Trinity's big freaking van following him around. Or how quickly Quinn moved on from being involved with Trinity's daughter who took her own life, since season 5 takes place right after season 4 ends.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

And whatever happened to LaGuerta's belief that Doakes was innocent? If she thought that, then the Bay Harbor Butcher is someone else who works for her! Doesn't that ever bother her even one little bit?

 

[Harvey]

I thought I was the only one left bothered by that. Still, that problem originated in season three, not season five--the writers dropped that hot potato almost immediately. Doakes hardly gets a mention (much like the Bay Harbor Butcher) after season 2.

And it would give LaGuerta something to do besides this relationship crap, or at least provide her with a plausible exit from the series (fired for being paranoid and investigating everyone under her). Argh!

 

[Guy Gardener]

And whatever happened to LaGuerta's belief that Doakes was innocent? If she thought that, then the Bay Harbor Butcher is someone else who works for her! Doesn't that ever bother her even one little bit?

From my recollection (when she was collecting money for his funeral) I think she compartmentalized the two sides of Doakes in so that he was the bay harbour butcher who was bad but mutually exclusive from Doakes the cop were the same people, or possibly that he was a good man up till the point he was a bad man divided by a line in his personal timeline.

It's how Young Zod the clone in Smallville last year was seen as a hero and saviour because that's who he was cloned from before he became the dick who destroyed Krypton and the asshat who tried to cornhole planet earth.

(Or in the real world.)

Y'know like how George Bush Snr's best bud Saddam didn't get along with his "nephew" Georgie Junior in later years but you still can't argue how the moustachioed dictator stood up for America in the war against Iran no matter what he would come to do in the "future" or not do and be Ozwalded into taking the blame for.

 

[Jax]

Best episode of the season, this was a real gem and I hope LaGuerta gets her ass fired especially with her husband not siding with her. The comm chatter must of been recorded some how? as evidence for the op so LaGuerta is screwed surley or don't they record whats being said during an operation like that.

Last night's TV was fantastic...Dexter & Boardwalk + A solid though weakest episode to date of Walking Dead.

Cable rules

 

[Geck]

Things are starting to come together. Some good scenes between Dexter and Lumen this week, though I could have done without her ex-fiancé's visit. I still worry that Jordan Chase is a bit too much of a stock villain though.

On other fronts, I like Deb's frustration at being forced to take the fall, and feel like her being reassigned to desk work for a few weeks is setting her up to play into the season's climax and possibly start to discover what her brother is. Great scene between Dex and Deb at the apartment, too - both played it perfectly understated.

I hope LaGuerta gets her ass handed to her too. She deserves a comeuppance after five years of stupid selfish moves and being a generally annoying character

Peter Weller's still hamming it up like mad, but I enjoyed it more this week. Maybe I'm just adjusting to the accent and over the top style. Interested to see where that thread goes. I'm starting to doubt if Quinn will survive the season.