Dexter: Series review

Dexter Series review. As I was not, as many people are not, a Showtime subscriber, I am woefully behind the curve. If you are planning to watch the series there will be certain spoilers in here but I will try to keep them to a minimum. Dexter is a forensic tech and serial killer. In concept this is perfect even if your hairs or prints were at the scene of a crime they are certainly explainable as contamination occurs at every crime scene there is no way around it, especially if people are doing the work. Keeping things realistic is difficult in fiction, you have to keep the story line moving and the amount of time to process the evidence they are performing does not happen as instantly as they do in show. Not a critical opinion just an observation about all crime shows. Dexter is a very well rounded character and I’ve read a lot of reviews saying he is played too flat or emotionless or something else related to him not being able to connect to the other people. I have to say I think you missed the point. Dexter is supposed to have trouble forming the social bonds and isn’t phased by the things which others have difficulty. Is it completely accurate to a sociopath, yes, no, maybe, the thing is they stay true to the widely held belief by law enforcement and the psychiatric field that serials killers aren’t raving lunatics. They tend to be in the genius range of intelligence and often blend into social settings pretty well, just not with other people so much. Dexter fits the archetype for serial killers pretty well. Methods of killing aside, what ever really gets the job done, if you are having him find people methodically who fit a certain “code” it stands to reason there is a method to how he kills and disposes of bodies. I’m sure there were other ways to dispose of bodies with less actual traces but there has to be an element that our hero or anti hero might be found out and that adds to the tension and drama. Main characters: Men, Women, supporting The men: Batista, Masuka, Quinn, Doakes and Harry The women: LaGuerta, Deb, Rita and Hannah Supporting: Cody and Astor, Harrison, Jamie If a character isn’t on the list it is; one, because they are a spoiler or two, are season plot movers only and don’t really have an overall impact on the show, i.e. FBI Special Agent Lundy. He really only exists to move season two along and then is really essentially gone. Is he a likable character… yes, does he play the part he needs to play,…yes, does he impact the whole series…no. Men All of them are well acted and remain true to who they are through out the whole series or at least as long at they are in the series. Batista is moral with flaws, Quinn is his polar opposite he is flawed but has some morals. They are both good at their jobs. They are both their own worst enemies. Quinn has too much ego and Batista not enough. Masuka ... Love this character. He is what he is and I think typical of people who are good at what they do, but not much else. He adds much needed comedy in what would otherwise be a very dark series. Masuka also shows a coping mechanism that many people in these fields develop in the warped sense of humor in the face of very disturbing things. Harry. I like that they include Harry through out the series and it works for me how they do it but others may not like it. We all have that guiding voice of our teachers, parents and mentors that help us get through things. Harry teaches the code to Dexter and it makes sense as a detached person he relates to it as not part of his own internalized personality but as an external control that he has to follow to survive. Doakes: He is typical of the law enforcement image; tough, the law is black and white no gray areas. It is right or it isn’t. He is frustrated with the system and bad guys getting away with things that they shouldn’t. He relies on the evidence only because he has too and there inlays the tension between him and Dexter. Dexter as the lab person is the ‘necessary evil’ to doing the job by the book and not a “real” cop which frustrates Doakes more. After Doakes leaves the show Quinn and Batista share the load of system frustration, macho-ism and other things. The women First, I have to say for a series as big as it was, the women who are supposed to be in strong leadership roles were depicted horribly. Weak, manipulative, spiteful etc, every negative stereotype about women in the work place is represented in the main characters and supporting women. It is truly shameful. Rita. She is not the love of Dexter’s life and for her role she is one of the only almost respectable female characters in the series at first. Rita is typical of abused women in this country and the flaws in how they try to set their lives to right. Going back again and again to the men who hurt them and the cycle of violence continues. We meet Rita in this role and she tries to grow and then they just make her bitchy. It would have been nicer to see her grow as a person and break the cycle she was in without the transformation into a micromanaging harpy. However she wasn’t intended to be the love of Dexter’s life and she isn’t which makes it easier when she isn’t in the show because I for one didn’t like her character any longer by the end of her role. LaGuerta: Oh dear lord, could you have seriously have made a character any more shallow and self serving as this character. There was not a single redeeming thing about this character. She was out for number one always, more so than Dexter who is the sociopath serial killer. Let’s just say a place for asses sums up her character. However, Why take the female character in an authority position in a profession where women are not respected as much as less qualified male counter parts and make her everything negative that people say about women in these roles. Shame on you series writers, shame on you. Debra Morgan. Her character is another example of this series asking how can we take a strong female role of a truly competent female police officer and investigator and make her pathetic and unlikable. Now I don’t mind all the swearing that was fine, people cuss and swear, women fuck and drink too. I don’t have a problem with any of that. However this train wreck the writers pass off as being an anchor for a serial killer would be laughable if it were not so pathetic. Whining, lack of confidence, coupled with a misplaced bravado, falls in love at the drop of a hat, and on and on. She is a walking, talking cliché. Debra Morgan is a train wreck of hazardous materials next to a water treatment plant in a highly populated area. If her character was going to exit the series how she did it would have been better to do it in season one rather than at the end of the series. Hannah McKay. She at least is not compromising. She is the only strong female character in the series. She fights to survive, moves past bad times in her life and adapts. I like that they kept her character human and vulnerable when it came to shedding light on her past and how she got to where she is in life. We all have those people, vices or things which break us down. You either cope or you die. She fights, to win even if she stumbles here and there. Supporting Characters Astor, Cody, Harrison and Jamie Batista They really had little to do with the show and Jamie only exists to deal with Harrison. However to play them down as not important isn’t the point. They all have a point of grounding the story in some reality. Putting a serial killer in Miami that is a single guy who never dates and is always killing someone or cleaning up after someone else who has killed someone would be a hard series to make last for more than two seasons. These supporting characters give a depth to the characters and the story that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. The Series overall Wow, how to sum up a series without spoilers. Well each season had good points and bad points. It is very clear to see that there wasn’t really a map to the end, which certainly explains a lot of the up and down things in the series. I think if the series writers had taken the time to say okay this is the character and we want to go from here to this other point, how do we do it, and then mapped out some sort of rough path it would have played better in the low points. What happened was shot gun blast story writing with some things hitting targets and some things not hitting anything. The last season. I heard a lot of negative stuff about the last season and it really is a weak one in the series. However the contrast between Dexter and the final villain is a mirror of sorts one side is Dexter’s life and the other is what it may have been, but really the series had already done this in season one so why repeat it. However the whole Elway / US Marshals bullshit was just unnecessary and could have been avoided especially if they had derailed the Debra Morgan express train to hell in season one. The ending or as I saw it… ok here is the ending…just kidding really here is the ending… just kidding again here is the ending… ok serious this time here is the ending. Fuck you he is our character we will end this on our terms not yours. That said it is open which is nice you can think about it however you want. Something that hurt Dexter was Breaking Bad … here was a show that had a map plotted out, the major story points at the beginning and then drove the car from A to B with some side turns but knowing where it was going the story was able to stay pretty close to the trajectory and had an amazing ending in three less seasons. It left people wanting more where as Dexter lost a lot of people because there was no plan for an end point How would I have ended Dexter? Hannah and Dexter are recruited by Isaak Sirko once Dexter pulls his ass out of the fire and they take the murder road show international and are millionaires in the crime world. Seriously why not this is fiction not reality … Isaak is on the outs with his bosses, he seems to be fairly well connected in the international drug world. Isask was not a peon and was well placed he could make a move on his own with the right people to support him. There is a lot of competition and people who just fuck you over in that sort of business. You need problem handlers, Why not a pair of handlers who don’t mind getting their hands dirty and are pretty freaking good at it too. Who would expect Dexter, Hannah and Harrison to be murderers of the crime world’s competition. Law enforcement would be as light about tracking them down as they were with all of Dexter’s previous trash removal enterprises and chalk it all up to internal struggles that don’t cost tax dollars, eat up the courts time or take up space in the prisons. That’s just me Sorry about the few spoilers I tried to keep them to a minimum. What did you think of Dexter? Well, that’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow or some other day most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015