Dexter 8.12 Series Finale Review: The Storm Has Come

For all those that have yet to watch the series finale of Dexter entitled ‘Remember the Monsters?’, and wish to watch it spoiler free, avert your eyes from the screen now. As usual, my reviews are not a spoiler free environment. THERE MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD! You’ve been warned.

I am so unbelievably angry that that is the way in which the showrunners decided end the series. Yes, I certainly saw some parts of it coming, but to this extent, it’s just outrageous to me. For one thing, who just dangles the idea that Deb will be okay, only to kill her in the end? This isn’t Grey’s Anatomy, this is Dexter, I don’t want to here shit about blood clots, and vegetative states. And this is coming from a person that finished the episode two hours ago, and had enough time to go grocery shopping, do the dishes, and let it settle in before I reviewed the episode. But I still feel the same.

Okay, let’s start back at the beginning. After the usual opening credits, and recap of the season up to this point, the show basically picks up shortly where it left off last week. Deb’s still conscious, which completely surprised me, I thought for sure she was either a goner right from the beginning, or at least going to be unconscious by the time paramedics got there, but she was still awake. I have to give the character credit for this, despite the likeliness that where they left her off last week, she should’ve been unconscious. Quinn shows his protective edge towards Deb by riding in the ambulance with her, and I absolutely love their dynamic, which pains me even more. In Deb’s self-sacrificing attempt to give her brother what should soon be a happy life, she refuses to let anyone call him in and let him know what’s happened to her, but all we know that wasn’t going to last.

Meanwhile, Dexter and Harrison are rushing to their gate, when Hannah calls stuck in a bathroom hiding from Elway. I have to say, with this, I’m happily surprised. I thought for sure the last episode was leading to Hannah getting caught, but no, Dexter ends up getting her out of this. Which leads to him getting the call about Deb, and he rushes to her side. Now this is where we get the cop out. Once the surgery is finished, Deb wakes up, and Dex and her have one of the better moments in this episode. She basically tells him her actions are not his fault, no matter what his brain makes him believe. If he actually took that to heart, I don’t understand how he could just abandon Hannah and his son, in the belief that his actions only ever hurt people. If you no longer feel the need to kill, then there would be no reason for you to go hunting other killers, and thus no moronic bad would come upon your family of your own accord, like the Trinity Killer, and Saxon.

Let’s talk about Saxon. What made him the best killer for a final season? And what was his point in this episode? He basically maims a couple people, gets caught, and ends up killed by the rightful hands of Dexter, but what did he really do in this episode? What was his point? It was like it was just a tiny little loose end that needed to be written out. Did anyone feel like he was a rehashed Trinity Killer? His entire point was to get someone Dexter loved out of the equation? Okay, so he’s not the worst serial killer this series has had of late, but he didn’t have that oomph a final season could’ve used. I mean, this season has been a bit lackluster for the most part, especially in the beginning, but this whole Brain Surgeon bit was a little too lacking.

I do have to say that I like that, for the most part, Hannah got to Argentina, and gets to have some semblance of a happy ending, and is basically becoming Harrison’s mother, but help me out with something. What legal rights does she have to him? I know she’s basically on the lam, but were documents forged to make it appear that she was his mother, at least in writing?

Here are a few more issues. Why in the hell did Dexter throw Deb overboard and not jump in after her? That I could get, but just throwing his sister into the ocean (did anyone else get reminded of Jack in Titanic in that moment?) where all his victims went, when she deserved a proper funeral for dying in the line of duty, was weird. Also, how did he ride into the storm and somehow manage to get to that lumberyard? And hadn’t he sold his boat? Though I did find it poetic to have it destroyed in the end. But why a freaking lumberyard? And what was with that random flashback to when Harrison was born?

I may have to come back to this review, because my brain is being very much scatterbrained at the moment, and I can’t so much organize my thoughts, so I’m going to leave this where it is, and rewatch the episode when I get a chance and update this later this week.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Best Lines:

“You’re such a friggin’ asshole.” – Deb to Quinn, after he tells her he’s riding in the ambulance with her.

“It’s not yours to screw up.” – Deb explaining rather poignantly to Dexter that her actions are not his fault.

All right, check this review later this week for an update. Otherwise, check in tomorrow for reviews of Bones, How I Met Your Mother, Sleepy Hollow, and The Blacklist. I’m off to go comfort myself with Buffy.

Best Performances of the Week: Dexter's Debra and New Girl's Winston

Welcome to the very first edition of Best Male and Female Performances of the Week. This is a weekly update that will occur, for the most part, on Thursday’s – when I don’t forget – after watching and reviewing the past week’s worth of episodes, where I will single out one male and one female performance that I believe merits special attention for the week. This, like my reviews, will be based solely on my opinion of the shows I watch in a week, and if you don’t like whom I’ve picked, well that’s just too bad for you.

This week I only had to pick two performances out of Haven, Dexter, Bones, Sleepy Hollow, Under the Dome, New Girl, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. So anyone that is not caught up with this week’s episodes of Dexter or New Girl, please kindly step away from this blog. This is my weekly (*cough*two days late*cough*) update of Best Male and Female Performances of the Week, and there may be spoilers pertaining to the two aforementioned shows. I repeat, THERE MAY BE SPOILERS! You’ve been warned.

Best Female Performance of the Week:

Jennifer Carpenter as Debra Morgan in this week’s penultimate episode of Dexter. While there weren’t many performances to choose from, this one, hands down, took the cake. Carpenter just managed to pull off Deb in a way that made me absolutely love her, a large feat from my absolutely not being able to stand in her in the beginning of the season.

There were so many significant moments in this episode for Deb. Just to name a few, there was the subtle way she acted around Quinn after finding the engagement ring in his drawer, the way she pulled the gun on Saxon and smiled as she left Dexter to him, and the way she played being shot in the end of the episode and called in for an ambulance. Every one of these moments just made me crave for a happy ending for Deb, especially with all the things she’s gone through the last two seasons alone. More so than even for Dexter, I want Deb to get her happily ever after, at least on the force and with Quinn.

Knowing that Deb may well be dead, or at least dying, I have to give Carpenter her due in this very first segment of Best Performances of the Week. Her performance, the writing, and the screen time she was given was just spectacularly done. I applaud her, and hope she goes on to do well in future projects, which hopefully includes television at some point.

Best Male Performance of the Week:

Lamorne Morris as Winston Bishop in this week’s season three premiere episode of New Girl. While Tom Mison’s performance as Ichabod Crane in the pilot episode of Sleepy Hollow, and David Boreanaz’s performance as Booth in the season nine premiere of Bones were both well acted, it was Morris’s performance as Winston that stole the show.

Just the very fact that he was given such a B storyline in an episode that was supposed to be more Jess and Nick centric, and made it totally his, that won me over. The whole ludicrous aspect of going crazy over a puzzle was hilarious. Sure, some might think of it as silly and stupid, but this is a sitcom, and sometimes it’s supposed to something ridiculous. I absolutely loved every moment Winston was on screen. He may appear to be the butt of the jokes, but he completely gives himself over to this character, and just made me laugh with ease.

Hopefully in weeks to come Winston will be given more screen time, because I’m almost at the point where I think Morris needs his own show, and all the other plots for Jess, Nick, and Schmidt can become the subplots. This man has fantastic comedic chops, and I greatly encourage the writers to use it as much as humanly possible.

That’s all for this weeks edition of Best Performances of the Week, check in next Thursday for week two of this update. But before then, check back in tomorrow for my reviews of Haven and Dexter. And yes, I’m a little behind, but that doesn’t mean you should enjoy my reviews any less. So stay tuned.

Dexter: Love or your Dark Passenger

Before I kick things off with a brief recap of last weeks episode of Dexter, I’m going to use this time to tell anyone who hasn’t watched this weeks episode, or previous episodes, of Dexter and plans to in the near or distant future, to back away from this review now because there will be spoilers. I repeat, there WILL BE SPOILERS!

Now that that mostly run-on sentence is out of the way, I’ll jump right into a quick recap of last weeks episode. So Vogel wanted Dexter to back off hunting her son, under the guise of the name Saxon, because she foolishly believed she could help him and that he was earnest to change. Harrison ignored Hannah’s pleas to stop playing with Deb’s treadmill, and ended up needing to be brought to the hospital for stitches, where Hannah was recognized. The nurse phones in the Marshall, who’s already caught on that Hannah is still in Miami because he overheard Batista looking for a replacement blood spatter analyst in Dexter’s stead, and he comes in to check things out. Deb and Quinn, who’d broken up with Batista’s sister because he wasn’t all there in the relationship, share a moment that ends in a kiss that’s almost too good to true. And then we come around full circle back to Dexter, who shows Vogel that Saxon can never change, and so she chooses to help Dex, moronically invites her son over for one final visit and lies atrociously to him, and Dexter ends up catching up with them where Saxon kills his mother in front of Dex’s eyes. I think that’s about as brief as I can get, now onto the meatier portion of the night.

Starting things off, the episode began very beautifully. The image of the blood being washed down the drain before jumping into the typical Dexter voiceover was the perfect way to begin the penultimate episode to this series. Blood is something both the character and the show were born out of, and it’s a mirror of how this serial killer bathed in his mother’s blood as a tot, and now washes clean the blood of his Code mother’s near the close of the series.

I have to say I enjoy the cinematography in this series much more when it’s not a camera attached to the actor or actress, and it’s not all in their faces. Neither of those appeal to me, and they tend to feel like sloppy work, so I enjoyed this episode for not having any of that that I noticed, and for the easy flow.

For the side characters, I’ll begin with Batista. While I do have to say I don’t very much like him when he’s at the forefront of the series, he is a spectacular minor character. He’s a great friend for Dexter, and has become wonderful in his position as lieutenant. He isn’t always the most realistically played character, but I’ve always had a soft spot for him. Except when he was with LaGuerta.

Then there’s Masuka, I used to always enjoy him. He was quick with the funny, and his jokes were always so childish, but they made him him. Now that they’ve brought this daughter character in for him, he hasn’t really been all that great, or even as funny. They have terrible chemistry as family, even given the fact they’ve just recently come into each others’ lives, and the daughter is not all that great of an actress. The line, “Really? Are you gonna go there?” had just terrible execution, so I really don’t understand why they felt the need to bring her in this season.

Those are the only ones I really have any notes on, so I’ll get down to Deb as a character. I am so beyond glad they seemingly decided to dump the whole ‘in love with her brother’ storyline at this point, because it was just terrible. A person can be close, and damagingly so, to their brother, without being in love with them. It doesn’t matter that they’re not related by blood, they were raised together. So I’m definitely glad that’s done with. But again with that point, it just goes to show how many storylines go forgotten, or ignored, by the showrunner and writers of the series. Half the time they’re just terribly written out. I do like how Deb and Quinn’s relationship has come back around, because they fit so well together. And that whole scene with the ring still being in his drawer at work was just cute. I’m really hoping she survives for them to be together. Her progression in this series has definitely developed well, especially just in this season alone. I have to give mad props to the actress for working so well in this role and just enveloping it with all of her being. Especially after her split from Michael C. Hall. Specifically in this episode, where she showed how well her lying has gotten in the scene with the Marshall, Jennifer Carpenter proved to the world just how amazing Deb is. From this one episode, she may well be added to my favourite heroines list. That’s singing praise.

And then we get around to Dexter. He’s definitely developed so much in this series. Although the reality of the situation from where he began to where he is now, it’s unlikely that that could have happened. But I give leeway to the writers, because I’m quite happy with where he’s gotten. With someone, though, that’s gotten away with so many murders; he’s not always the brightest. Sure, he remembers to clean Vogel’s apartment of evidence of him, but the fact that he doesn’t trust Saxon to leave his loved ones be, doesn’t make sense when he seems to trust people far too easily for someone with such a heavy secret. And why wouldn’t he just automatically expect to be followed? That would be something I’d constantly be paranoid about, and I’m not a serial killer with such extremities to hide. And then he makes the mistake of not making absolutely sure that Saxon is imprisoned, or taken by more than just one cop, before taking off.

Some issues with the episode. Why hadn’t the Marshall known who Saxon was before he stupidly let him go? Sure the cop your following has likely been harbouring a fugitive – though we know she has been – when you see someone locked up, would you just automatically release them, when you have a gone to be able to protect them if need be? It’s just not smart of him to properly evaluate the situation. Another thing, the abandoned building that has been keyed for demolition, why hasn’t it been demolished yet? Saxon’s has been using it for way too long, that there isn’t any reason the city shouldn’t have imploded it by now. And my third issue with this episode, wouldn’t Saxon, after turning himself in when he learned he was a suspect in Cassie’s murder case, he have known they’d take a swab of his DNA, since he was cooperating? In turn, wouldn’t he have known that would connect him to his mother? Are all serial killers in this series flawed morons in some aspect of their lives? Or do the showrunner and writers think the audience is dumb enough to miss that? Also, why do some serial killers seem to always want to taunt the police? Do they always have such high egos?

All in all, they are starting to tie this series up nicely, although I don’t quite think the serial killer they chose for the final season was really that up to par. Sure it ties into Dexter by tying into Vogel, but being that we had no idea who she was before this season, that’s easily just something thought up and written in with no actual concrete ties in the previous seasons. I like that Sylvia was brought back in as his realtor, rather than hastily introducing a new character in that role – though I was under the impression he was going to sublet. But I’m surprised Dexter bothered to keep in touch with her. Or that she wasn’t mentioned earlier on in the series. I do think in Deb’s growth, that she has ultimately become smarter than Dexter, at least in some aspects. Love, with Hannah and his son Harrison, has made him both protective, and less intelligent. But maybe, that’s just my opinion.

I have the sneaking suspicion that Deb is going to die from her wound, although – and I’m no doctor – it didn’t look all that bad. I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen, not just because I’m a sucker for a happy ending, or at least some form of proper finality and hope to a situation, but because I think it will completely undo all the progression that Dexter has made in his life. He doesn’t feel the need to kill as strongly as his need for love, and he’s finally gotten rid of the father character that I so despise (though I did find it especially touching in the way they basically said their goodbyes). It’s very important for me that characters develop, realistically in the time and troubles they’ve gone through, and if Deb dies, I feel like that’ll be out the window, and we’ll have the old Dex back. That doesn’t make sense to me. Because let’s be honest, Hannah’s either getting caught, or dying, I don’t see that happy ending for him, but I could be wrong. So I just don’t know. I expect if Deb dies, Hannah gets caught, and Dexter throws everything into getting Saxon, and possibly dies in the line of fire. That or Dexter dies while Deb is in the hospital, and she gets the happy ending with Quinn, and gains custody of Harrison.

One final note on the subject of this episode before I give you my favourite line of the night and sign off; did you catch that stare between Dexter and Saxon? Amazing!

Best line:

“I know that, fuckface,” – Debra Morgan, after Dexter tells her they’ll see each other again. Though it could end up being ironic.

Tune in next Sunday for my review of the series finale, and check back in tomorrow for my reviews of Bones, Sleepy Hollow, and Under the Dome. Although, fair warning, I may wait until Tuesday for one or two of those reviews. Lots to do, so little time to sleep. These things definitely take a lot out of me.