Dexter season finale, whee!

Man, Dexter is screwing up right and left.

Indeed. Not making the smart moves.

Oh, yay, I was hoping straight up police work would get to the truth.

Dammit, this is the first time in four seasons that I've NOT wanted that to happen.

I fear that Debra will now wonder if Dexter himself did it.

They could certainly go that way. Looked like her spidey-sense was tingling when she found him in the garage.

Poor kids.

I don't know this Evan Rachel Wood creature other than that she used to date Marilyn Manson when she was all of about 2 years old and it was creepy and weird, and not in the normal, Marilyn Manson weird way, in the icky child molester, backyard compound kind of way.

She played the youngest daughter on the very excellent series Once and Again with Sela Ward and Billy Campbell as the parents, and Jeffrey Nordling and Marin Hinkle as Sela's character Lily's ex-husband and sister. ERW was electrifyingly, jaw-droppingly good; never, ever sounding false note anywhere in this drama, no matter what she was given to play, and in some key developments towards the end of the series, bringing an astonishingly subtle and transcendent change to the character, literally with some flickers of her eyes. Mischa Barton played her friend towards the end of the series and was notably wooden and false in comparison, very obvious in their scenes together, although MB is very pretty in a showy way and ERW in a different way. At the end of that series, I was convinced that ERW will win a Best Actress Oscar someday. The movie Thirteen seemed to reinforce that; she was again excellent. I think it's still true though I kind of wondered about it after the whole weird Marilyn Manson-look-just-like-Dita-Von-Teese thing. (Dear young actors: go to college like Jody Foster or Brook Shields did. Don't try to look like a 40-year old when you are 20 to try to transition from a child actor to an adult actor. Go be an kid at some safe college where you can grow up away from Hollywood and get a good edumacation to boot.)

Anyway, I mainlined the last season of Dexter over the holidays and whoa. For starters:

Y'know, I never like the machinations to keep a killer uncaught so that Dexter can kill him himself. Sympathy goes *poof*

This, in spades. This is the most uneven season yet. It's hard enough to get over that he's a serial killer, then it's the morality inside Harry's Code plus the interior dialog's sense of humor that makes us have sympathy for Dexter. They substituted "visions" of Harry instead of Dexter's droll voice much of the time, and although I'm really glad they figured out a way to keep Harry on the show, they went forward a few steps with that technique, and back one with the lack of Dexter's voice.

Then, this egotistic need to be the one to make the kill: the dreadful haste and sloppiness of his footwork in re the photographer, and all the missed opportunities to take down Trinity (Quaternary?) ... Dexter isn't all that much better than him. Okay, I suppose the one accidental killing last year (the DA's brother in the crack house at the wrong time) and the mistake this year isn't a match for the thirty-odd-year spree Trinity had. But the photographer alone puts Dexter solidly into a different category.

I have to rewatch the last episode. I got spoiled by I think EW the week before (damn them!) but after shock and gross out, my next thought was where the heck are they going with this?

In the books, Deb knows about Dexter, he and Brian square off over her tied-down body and she's awake to hear it all. So the writers have a blueprint there. Perhaps the actors want to go this route, MCH is an exec producer now and JC is his wife now. But where are they going without R? It's hard to imagine where they can go without her. She's been The Key to his "normalcy." Have to mull that over more.

Erika, enjoyed the Entourage stuff, thanks. Next up for me, after finishing what's aired so far on FNL, is the last season of Entourage. Woo hoo!

eta whitefonting

I'm jealous, though I've gotten spoiled for a few eps.

the writers claim they haven't read the books except the first 1 or 2. given what I know of the books (which isn't a whole lot), a lot has happened in the books that occurred in the series.

(shrug) maybe there really aren't original ideas out there. I was so turned off by this season of Dexter, I'm not sure I'll be back next year. Time will tell, but I really didn't like the show at all. It's like everything they established about character vanished progressively in seasons 2, 3 and was obliterated this season.

I think the shock ending of this season was a way to reset the series, to bring back the Dexter of Season 1.

With bonus kid(s). I dunno. I'll watch next season, I didn't hate this season as much as many people did (though I understand why they did), but I have deep doubts about them being able to make it work again. It's possible next season will be the last (speculation only).

Personally, I don't think there's any way the show can end except with Dexter committing suicide by cop.