The “Dexter” Season 4 episode reviews have been shrink-wrapped to an autopsy table in an unknown location, and will have to be postponed indefinitely. Let’s kill time before the rescue with the new hardback Dexter By Design (Doubleday, $25) and consider how Michael C. Hall’s secret serial killer resembles the original creation of writer Jeff Lindsay.
The author introduced the perfectly-assimilated predatory sociopath in Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Published in 2004, the award-winning mystery served, rather loosely, as the basis for the 12 episodes of the Showtime series’ first season. Since then, the show’s continuity has diverged dramatically from the books. Sgt. Doakes, Dexter’s Javert-like police nemesis, was killed in the show’s second season but still lives on the page, if in a horribly maimed fashion. From Dexter’s perspective as the first-person narrator, his homicidal impulses, nicknamed “The Dark Passenger” manifests more like a secondary personality who keeps watch on Dexter’s consciousness.
The fourth book, like the show’s fourth season, begins with Dexter married to Rita, only Dexter by Design first finds the couple as newlyweds in Paris, not as sleep-deprived parents of a new infant. Dexter by Design sees our antihero thoroughly pwned by a pranksterish nutjob with a grisly artistic bent. Miami’s latest human butcher puts dead bodies on display in ghastly parody of South Florida tourist behavior. (Lindsay makes a passing nod to Carl Hiassen’s Tourist Season, which features a home-grown terrorist cell with similar anti-tourist motivations.) Staying one step ahead, the killer discovers Dexter’s true identity and targets his loved ones.
John Lithgow as "Trinity" (second from right): Killer knows best
A side effect of the Trinity plot on this season of “Dexter” is that it makes the new remake of The Stepfather, starring Dylan Walsh, seem even more superfluous than it already was. The original Stepfather offered a dark satire of suburbia and the 1980s cult of family values, with a terrific performance by Terry O’Quinn (these days zipping between life and death on “Lost”) as a Ward Cleaver-wannabe who butchers his families whenever they, inevitably, reveal human flaws.
The PG-13 remake of The Stepfather seems to be vanishing with barely a trace, while John Lithgow’s Trinity killer, a.k.a. Arthur Mitchell, offers a vivid, fresh portrayal of an upstanding, all-American middle-aged male who happens to be a homicidal monster. This week’s episode, “If I Had a Hammer,” fills in the outline of Trinity’s life (I’ll call him “Trinity” for convenience sake) as husband, father of two, high school teacher, deacon at “Sacred Fellowship” church and organizer of the community home-building project called “Four Walls, One Heart.” “If I Had a Hammer” opens not with the Pete Seeger/Lee Hays protest song of the same name but the hymn “Are You Washed in the Blood?” The blood symbolism isn’t exactly subtle, but the song gives Lithgow a chance to zestfully sing an old-school church song.
"I'm getting a lot of use out of my stalkin' shirt."
This week’s episode has the title “Dirty Harry,” which probably does not mean that baby Harrison is overdue for a diaper change. Series regular (and Lance Henricksen look-alike) James Remar gives a particularly angry, wrathful performance this week as Dexter’s imaginary/ghostly stepfather Harry in the wake of Deb and Agent Lundy’s shooting.
“Dexter” has grown increasingly skeptical about Harry over the seasons. At first, he came across, in flashbacks, as a positive influence on his young adopted son. Perceiving at an early age that his adopted son has sociopathic tendencies and a fascination with death, he channeled Dexter’s homicidal instincts in a “positive” direction, “The Code of Harry,” so he only preys on murderers and takes enormous precautions to cover his tracks. Early on, Dexter’s flashbacks and imaginary conversations have portrayed Harry as a combination of guardian angel and nurturing parent, albeit one who offers advice on the best places to dispose of chopped-up bodies.
DEX TAKES A HOLIDAY: So I guess that IS a gun, and you're NOT glad to see me?
“A deadly game of cat and mouse” served as a frequent tag-line for TV crime shows, especially in the era of “Columbo” and “Mannix.” Overuse has turned the phrase into a kitschy cliché — would the abbreviation ADGOCAM be worth coining? — but it aptly describes the juicy suspense of a good “Dexter” episode. “Dex Takes a Holiday” offers deadly games that pit Dexter against police office Zoey Kruger in the “A” storyline, and Lundy vs. Trinity in the subplot. Part of what makes them engrossing is the way in both cases, hunters turn into the hunted. Neither of these games has “mice.”
John Dahl directed the episode, which could explain why the sleuthing and suspense scenes felt particularly taut. Dahl helmed such cult neo-noir flicks as The Last Seduction, which featured a feral femme fatale performance from Linda Fiorentino. Zoey Kruger may not be in the same league, but at least she provides Dexter with a formidable opponent this season. Kruger wields a badge, a gun and some fairly keen predatory instincts of her own. Dexter explains to the ghost/memory of his stepfather Harry that he targeted Kruger as a “challenge,” but she seems almost too much for Dexter’s lethal stay-cation project while Rita and the kids are gone for three days.
The latest episode, titled “Blinded By the Light,” begins with Daiquiri-delivering Dexter at a backyard barbecue, slicing strawberries rather than grilling the ungodly amount of meat on display. That Dexter: he’s never far from something red. Given that their neighbor has not just a swimming pool but a waterfall, the Morgans clearly have moved to a tony address. We’ll probably never know how Dexter supports a wife, three children and a boat on his blood-spatter salary.
Michael C. Hall and Julie Benz: "Have a good day! Don't kill anyone you don't have to!"
With the Trinity subplot still ramping up, “Dexter’s” A-story this week feels like a place-holder and has more of that “Desperate Housewives” quality. Both shows feature ironic voice-over narration about suburban dynamics and appearances vs. reality, along with a dead character who serves as a Greek chorus. The dismemberments on Wisteria Lane just tend to be figurative, not literal. (Most of the time.) The “community” themes may be a little too explicit. Dexter would probably be surprised to know how many people could identify with his alienation, which strikes a chord with anyone who’s struggled to talk to a sullen teen or groped for small talk at a block party.
It’s kind of a humiliating week for Dexter, which finds him prohibited from driving after last week’s concussion, hassled by the street’s beautification association and pursued by the neighborhood watch. He’s like a declawed lion, or maybe Gulliver pinned down by the Lilliputians. (A huge laugh accompanies the revelation that Matsuka drives a pimped-out monster truck.) Laguerta and Batista face more peril in that near-ambush than Dexter did this week.
One of my favorite running gags on the recently-retired animated sitcom “King of the Hill” would show a Spanish-language soap opera running on various characters’ televisions. It was called “Los Dios y Los Noches de Monsignor Montenegro” and presented the torrid adventures of an ass-kicking man of the cloth in mirrored sunglasses. He’d whisper his catch-phrase “Vaya… con Dios!” before, say, whipping out an Uzi at a baptismal font.
Watching “Dexter,” it’s so easy to get caught up in Michael C. Hall’s performance as a different kind of avenging angel that one forgets how soap operatic the Showtime series can be. Whenever “Dexter’s” subplots take telenovela-worthy turns, I usually make “Monsignor Montenegro” reference. They’ve been coming fast and furioso in the fourth season, with one regular now entering a potential love triangle, and two others having a secret affair. “Dexter’s” version of the Miami police department looks more like the set of a day-time drama, anyway: ever thought about how uniformly young and hot the cast is? Is it too much to ask for the precinct to have a Dennis Franz type? One imagines that the equivalent of a grizzled vet in this department would be a 29 year-old former J. Crew model.
The new episode, “Remains to be Seen,” features a reliable soap opera gimmick: amnesia induced by a blow to the head. In this case, at least, the script feels closer to the realm of possibility, as Dexter’s concussion gives him short-term memory loss after he flips the family minivan. (In)conveniently enough, the only thing he can’t remember is what he did with the body of his latest victim, so he has to retrace his steps and stay ahead of his colleagues and family while shotgunning Red Bull. I remember the idea of keeping a concussion victim awake from a “MASH” episode that had Hawkeye Pierce delivering a 20-minute monologue.
One of the most interesting things about Showtime’s “Dexter” is how the serial killer drama has humanized the “monster.” Dexter Morgan has always been an unrepentant mass murderer, never hesitating to slay killers that meet the demands of his personal “code.” Part of the lingering fascination of Michael C. Hall’s performance is difference between Dexter’s ruthless true self and his placid, cheerful-to-a-fault public face.
It may be more noticeable if you’ve watched previous three seasons in a couple of months, rather than years since the show’s 2006 debut, but Dexter’s emotional palette keeps expanding. Initially he dated Rita (Julie Benz) because, as the ex-wife of abusive drug user and a single mother of two, she seemed too “damaged” to put many demands on him. For Dexter, a girlfriend was simply a beard, part of his masquerade of normalcy. At first…
Over the years, he’s become more deeply attached to Rita, her step-kids and his sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter). Season 4 opens to find Dexter ensconced in suburbia as a husband, homeowner and father to a newborn baby, Harrison — clearly named after his late father, Harry (James Remar). The new season will put to test just how monstrous Dexter remains. Will his sociopathic compulsions consume his middle-class ideal? Or will he split time as family man and murderous crusader, making the show sort of like “Desperate Housewives” with the occasional fetishistic execution, dismemberment and body dump?
My wife and I are trailing the zeitgeist, being totally behind on “Mad Men,” the TV show of the moment. We’re all caught up on Showtime’s “Dexter” however, which isn’t nearly as rich or subtle a show, but somehow enticed us more than AMC’s quiet drama of 1960s ad executives. In recent weeks, weighing the choice between “Mad Men’s” second season and “Dexter’s” second and third, more often than not we went with the luridly entertaining serial killer drama.
The two series share one thing in common, however, in that their protagonists are each, essentially, imposters. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) built his life on a fraudulently constructed identity — “Don Draper’s” not even his real name. Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) keeps up a mild-mannered front as a harmless forensics expert and all-around nice guy, when he’s in reality a sociopath with a compulsion to kill and little first-hand experience of human emotions (or so he claims). Both shows suggest that viewers focus on the real man underneath the public face, although Draper’s a much more ambiguous figure on “Mad Men,” since he seems ambivalent about what he really wants, while Dexter’s voice-over narration reveal his sinister inner thoughts.
Both shows are also on a roll in the ratings. “Mad Men’s” Sunday debut set a ratings record for the show, while “Dexter’s” third season finale on Dec. 18 gave Showtime its highest rating for any of its original series since 2004. “Dexter: The Complete Third Season” comes out on DVD today, in advance of the show’s fourth season premiere on Sept. 27. In its third year, “Dexter” made an occasionally wobbly transition, which nevertheless featured some fiendishly delicious developments.
A few weeks ago I marked the end of the 2008-09 TV season (which, of course, may be a meaningless distinction) by asking “Which TV show should I start watching?” and soliciting for suggestions. Within a week, a mysterious package arrived at the office addressed to me, which contained the Season 1 DVD set of Showtime’s “Dexter.” It’s a tantalizing message worthy of the enigmatic Ice Truck Killer of “Dexter’s” first season.
I’ve watched the first disc (episodes 1-4) and was not surprised to find that Michael C. Hall’s performance lived up to its hype. Hall, who played an (initially) closeted mortician on “Six Feet Under,” portrays a Miami blood-spatter expert who moonlights as a serial killer who preys solely on other predatory murderers. One of the impressive things about the show is the way it takes the serial killer genre, which had become stale after The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, and offers fresh, queasily fascinating variations on the theme. The superb title sequence hints at the character’s superficial normality and hidden potential for violence, and indicates how much the show likes a red-on-white color scheme. It’s comparable to the terrific, tone-setting titles of cable shows like “The Sopranos” and “Big Love:”
AMC’s “Breaking Bad” airs the finale of its second season on Sunday night. My wife and I just watched the first three episodes of its first season over Memorial Day weekend, and man oh man, is it ever good. I initially resisted the show because it sounded a little too much like Showtime’s “Weeds” — both involve the darkly comic collision of drug culture and middle-class family life in a Southwestern U.S. suburb. But where “Weeds” always struck me as smug and full of itself, “Breaking Bad” has proven to be both more humanistic and more harrowing, with suspense scenes nearly worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. Bryan Cranston fully deserves all the acclaim he’s won as a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher who begins cooking meth to provide for his family.
I’ll finish up “Breaking Bad’s” first season soon enough, and will have a hankering for another show. It’s the perfect time to start, since “Battlestar Galactica” is finished, “Lost” won’t be back until 2010 and the networks are in summer reruns (assuming that concept has meaning any more). So which show should I start in on? Ideally, it’ll be something that we can watch on DVD, because we don’t have cable and, as much as I like Hulu, I’d rather not commit to an hour-long program I can only see on the Internet. Here are some under consideration, with their potential pros and cons:
“Dexter” (Showtime) – Michael C. Hall series about the serial killer who kills other serial killers. Pros: I liked Hall a lot on “Six Feet Under,” and he’s supposed to be terrific, while playing a diametrically opposite role. Cons: The premise sounds pretty lurid and contrived. Also, it would be a hard sell to watch with my wife, who’s squeamish about violence. (Which, admittedly, never stopped her from watching “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood,” “Rome” or “Breaking Bad,” for that matter.)
“Party Down” (Starz) – New sitcom about caterers, starring hilarious people like Martin Starr and Jane Lynch Pros: It looks like a lot of fun. Cons: It’s so new, it’s not on DVD yet.
The “Dexter” Season 4 episode reviews have been shrink-wrapped to an autopsy table in an unknown location, and will have to be postponed indefinitely. Let’s kill time before the rescue with the new hardback Dexter By Design (Doubleday, $25) and consider how Michael C. Hall’s secret serial killer resembles the original creation of writer Jeff Lindsay.
