Dexter on Showtime

wow ;_;

really really did not see that coming. damn.

The final is indeed awesome, fucked up, kinda inevitable and fitting.

Apparently he has Hodgkins but is in recovery. (My mom had nit too. It has a very high recovery rate.)

After watching the whole season, I believe I have traced the shark jump moment to when...

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
SPOILER SPOILER Lundy gets killed. SPOILER
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

huh - to me that's exactly when the season turned around and got good!

I felt like taking that tension out of the show just deflated all of the subplots. it was a great moment, but the result was that it flattened everything out. there were so many uninteresting and unrelated subplots pursued after that episode, like they just didn't have enough story to fill up 8 more episodes. every time they showed that reporter, I cringed and rolled my eyes. the Laguerta/Batista story was second rate melodrama. I can only hope that the crazy events in the finale lead to a more interesting show as opposed to a more dramatic one.

MORE SPOILERS FOLLOW...

My idea for the next season would be to skip forward about five or ten years, with Dex an addict in recovery, raising his kid (assuming the other two kids just went to the mom or the ex's parents) and faced with something either too sweet to pass up, or being toyed with by some evil genius.

Do people who don't want ***SPOILERS*** actually read the thread?

The will-Deb-find-out? twist will probably be next season's long arc, with the usual killings thrown in. Actually, with the S3 ending it'll be more of a will-the-department-find-out arc.

Yeah, it's been a month - people who haven't caught up by now are probably going to catch it on DVD. Who's foolish enough to jump onto a forum thread after the show airs, not expecting spoilers? Beforehand I can understand, but no more than a day after it airs.

While I appreciate the intent of the finale (to reboot Dexter a bit since he'd gotten far too soft and humanized) I'm worried that the next season will have lots of boring custody battles with his mother-in-law, Quinn being a third-rate Doakes, and so on. I'll be shocked if they save Deb figuring out Dexter's secret before the real end of the show, and I think there's at least two seasons left. Also, one of the original showrunners immediately left after the finale, despite Dexter getting record ratings - that doesn't give me a lot of hope.

This show by its very premise has been getting stretched thinner and thinner every season, and it really should end sooner than later, but it won't due to the ratings. I will give it to them, though, I thought this was the best season since the first, mostly thanks to Lithgow.

I hope they go with Dexter going through the five stages of grief but skipping straight to ANGER, 5 kills a night kinda thing.

I was always disappointed when they went from him explicitly torturing and carving up his victims to a simple, single stab wound to the chest - it seemed like such an obvious cop-out, a way to make his (no matter the justification, still wretched and disgusting) executions more palatable. Hopefully they'll use this opportunity to get back to that Dexter.

There was a scene where Dexter gets all protective of his family and literally growl/yells at someone (can't remember who - prob Lithgow) like Mel Gibson, was one of the worst moments not only of this show but possibly of Michael C. Hall's acting career. I laughed out loud and said "fuck this show" under my breath when I saw it. You can feel the writers trying to make people care more about Dexter, and what better way than to make him more of a masculine bad-ass, protecting his domain, punching out dudes who kissed his wife, toning down his sadism, and blah blah blah. For a dude without feelings he was an emotional wreck in seasons 3 and 4, but it bugged me most of all in S4.

You know, I actually don't disagree with you on any of those points. It just didn't bother me that much because I was captivated enough by the main plot. By contrast, Jimmy Smits being unbelievably terrible last year just made all the softening trends worse and more noticeable, though they went further with it this year. Maybe I bought it more because Dexter having his first child born was a slightly more believable cause of his attitudes changing than having a goofy serial killer buddy. Inherently though, I don't have a problem with the idea that he might have emotions after all, or that he's discovering them now, since that's how Season 1 ended. S4 does put up a statement that says: Dexter can't be the stone cold serial killer he once was, or he'll be like Trinity, but I don't know if that HAS to be true for this show (or if it's even true for all the real serial killers that the Trinity character was inspired by).

I remember liking that scene where he punched out his neighbor, since there's the possibility that he didn't do it out of real anger but only because that's what he believed Dexter Morgan, family man, should have done. Did he realize that his wife was watching and did he do it for her benefit? I'm not sure, but it was played and acted in an ambiguous way, I thought. Maybe I'm wrong on this, though.

To me the low point of the season was Dexter's confrontation with the neighborhood vandal, after getting chased down by an angry neighborhood watch. I know I already mentioned this a few months ago, but man - I can't believe anyone in the writer's room actually thought that was a good idea.

Maybe I bought it more because Dexter having his first child born was a slightly more believable cause of his attitudes changing than having a goofy serial killer buddy.

That is a good point. I also agree with you about the neighborhood vandal thing. I felt like they could have mined that whole story line for comic relief - a lot of missed opportunities there.

This is another big problem I am having with this show lately: It's just not as funny as it was. One of the reasons I put up with a lot of the sloppy writing surrounding the police work (DNA tests can be done at someone's desk in 15 minutes, etc), and lot of the less plausible plotlines, was because I didn't take this show very seriously on a dramatic level. Yes, it was suspenseful, but it was also a fun black comedy in a slightly cartoonish world. When you show me an extended shot of Deb hunched over and wracked with grieving sobs, and make me care on that level, then I am going to start holding up the rest of the show to a higher standard, too. I noticed toward the middle of S4, I started getting really annoyed by the some of the shitty writing that I had always let slide in previous seasons.

OH MY GOD THAT ENDING

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

yeah this show was better when the main character had no emotions - i thought that was kind of the point.

they still know how to pile on the tension thought jeeeeeeeeeeeez

also what is up with that reporter chick taking her clothes off

i'd trade all her sex scenes for one LaGuerta :P

Season 5 starting Sunday!

At the end of S4, I was convinced the show had totally jumped the shark. I made fun of the last 5 episodes out loud. But I'll be damned if I am not ready to dive back into the world of Dexter again. Really excited about it, actually.

After seeing the preview trailer, Quinn seeming to have an even more prominent role was kinda killing my interest, but whatever, I'm on board

surprised and a bit sad that dexter hasn't had anywhere near the ilx chatter that mad men, sopranos et al have had

mainly cause dexter isn't anywhere near as good as those shows imo.

at least this show has a thread. Unlike Chuck, an awesome show that no one here watches. :(

yeah dexter's not in the same league as those other shows, but it's still pretty fun + ridiculous

mmm yeah i guess, i love em all though, just figured dexter would be the kind of show to get a lot of chatter as its all daft plot twists and big cliffhangers. anyway yeah can't wait to see this new series. suffered a modern-media-consumer crisis during s4 when i was downloading the eps from TPB last month, absent-mindedly scanning the comments to see if it was legit and reading a post by some utter dick revealing the big spoiler in the final episode. will. not. let. this. happen. again!

i find Dexter to be infinitely more enjoyable than Mad Men (which i find to be VERY boring -- albeit well-done). that just comes down to taste (Mad Men probably IS the better show in terms of plot, scripts, acting, etc.).

and whoever wondered aloud why "Chuck" doesn't have an ILX thread and deserving same ... 1000% OTM.

Near the end of the first season - love Michael C Hall, like the character of Dexter, not so sure about the show surrounding him. The general standard of acting isn't very high (particularly his sister, ugh), some of the storylines are glaringly unbelievable, and others are strangely banal.

My housemate says season 2 is shit, should I listen to him and not bother with it?

haha Deb gets quoted a *lot* in our house. They don't even have to be real Deb quotes. "No fucking shit, Dexter, God!" She's so terrible and vulgar...at first I hated it & now I think it's great.

That time when she was wearing a dress and said something like "I feel like a tranny," I think that was the ultimate 'wtf Deb' moment for me. Among a very great number to choose from!

Watch all seasons as there's stuff that happens in each that's carried over to the next.
I didn't think any season was shit, enjoyed them all.

Agree with Abbott on the deb likingness, she grows on you.

I still need to watch season 4, esp. as I love Lithgow a lot!

4 + 1 are the best. 3 is the worst. 2 is ok, imo.

Thanks to this show, every time I see palm tree trimmings lying around in the parking lot of my apartment complex (about once a week), the little kid part of my brain that believed in ghost stories gets creeped out a bit.

1 was great because it was something new, 4 was the better season, so much going on and really dark.
Lithgow won an award for his part didn't he?

I keep unfavourably comparing it to Breaking Bad in my head, which is really unfair as there are only really superficial similarities.

Not seen breaking bad, is it worth getting into?

It is incredible. First season is just good, then it becomes one of the best things ever in S2.

oh hell yes.

It does the protagonist with a double life thing with way more tension and psychological veracity than Dexter.

Great, i've been wanting something to get into since watching all the Dexters and seasons of other stuff.

Thanks :)

See you on the BB thread.

I'm probably in the minority in that I really liked season 3. It bordered on absurd, which I quite enjoy.

I just found the central antagonist/conflict in season 3 forced + inexplicable. (SPOILER especially as it required us to believe in the existence of someone psychopathic enough to have no problem with what Dexter does and want to learn how to do it himself (!!!) but who somehow kept out of trouble and led a successful political life before now)

Hahaha Jimmy Smits, I forgot all about that character until your post. "Dexter, I want you to keep this on the down low, ok my friend? I am with you one hundred percent on ACTUALLY DOING JUSTICE, brother of mine! My wife you and I are making mango salsa together."

My wife thinks you and I

golfing, killing, fishing, killing...so OTT

I kind of loved it.

It was so goofy! I enjoyed it, though.

Smits was soooooo bad.

s3 was such a letdown after the previous two awesome seasons. pretty much all prado's fault too.

first episode of s5 the other night, so dark and depressing. esp when you recall e1 of s4 was all brady bunch family chuckles, with even the title sequence amended to reflect dexter's new homelife.

i try to avoid all the "this particular episode of this particular season was weak" that comes with watching tv shows week on week rather than the cohesive whole/boxsets thing (the mad men thread often becomes unreadable with people pointlessly banging on about this shite) but s5 looks set to be great. particularly loved the nods to six feet under in the funeral parlour scene - it's been a while since i watched SFU, was it the actual same funeral home? and did dexter really use the same david lines or am i misremembering? loved that bit anyway

disappointing premiere. although i was happy when he went bat shit on the dude in the shitter.

I liked the season 1 finale a lot - was worried Rudi would escape to become a recurring nemesis, but then the actual resolution was surprisingly affecting. Also enjoyed Dex's imaginary victory parade, and Debs chewing out that muscly cop who looks like an action figure.

I thought the premiere was a bit of a let-down, too. I really was sort of hoping they would just jump like 2 years into the future as Dex gets the killing urge again or something. But it appears that they are just going to deal with the fallout of the s4 finale all season. This show is at its best when it is funny.