Why am I watching it? Because it's on TV. (Dexter)

Since this is my first official blog post, I feel like I should start out by telling a little more about myself and about the things I expect to write about. This post is about the television series Dexter. The tedium of the college dorm and a mostly uneventful social life resulted in many hours spent browsing Netflix for something to kill time. Anyone with a Netflix account knows that they pretty much gave up on streaming quality movies and are more focused now on television (something I will probably end up writing another post about someday). The first series I introduced myself to were Dexter and Breaking Bad. (There was also the month I dedicated to watching all seven seasons of Nip/Tuck, but we don't like to talk about that). Breaking Bad, now probably my favorite show - alongside The Wire - will also most certainly be the topic of discussion further down the line, especially once this ridiculous full-year mid-season break comes to an end next summer.

I digress. I first started watching Dexter on Netflix just before the fourth season began on Showtime. Despite being a soulless killing machine who constantly reminds us via inner monologue how emotionless he is, Dexter was surprisingly easy to relate to. (I guess I'll keep this as spoiler-free as possible. Though I would expect anyone who hasn't seen the show to have given up on this post by now.) Suffice it to say that season 1 had a fair share of twists and turns and, as one of the first and only mature dramas I had seen, it quickly became one of my favorites. Seasons 2 and 3 each deviated from the first in quality, and maybe the reason I didn't stop watching the show back then was because I raced through those three seasons in time to jump into season 4, which was easily the best of the series. I also enjoyed season 5.

But the fact is, Dexter should have ended with the fourth season. Dexter is a sociopath who has to kill in order to satisfy the urges of his "dark passenger". We find out early on in the first season that he got this way because of an incident that occurred when he was a little boy, and throughout his childhood and adolescence his foster father policeman Harry gave Dexter a "code" to live by that would channel his urges into intelligent assassinations and prevent him from death or capture. That is the premise of the show, and every season Dexter ends up in a battle of wits with some other serial killer, begins doubting Harry's code, attempts to learn and evolve from the villain and, in the end, realizes that the only way to defeat the foe is to listen to Harry's (in the form of Dexter's conscience) advice. Meanwhile, there is usually a female interest who, on some level, seems to understand and accept Dexter (though in season 3, instead of a love interest it was a friend: Miguel Prado).

The most obvious reason the show should have ended years ago is the fact that even though Dexter is a tormented character, the formula of each season quickly grows irritating. Rita, Lila, Miguel, Rita, Lumen, Deb, Hannah...each season, Dexter finds someone to fill a void in his soul. Each season he believes that this person accepts him for who he is, and in the end, realizes it was all a mistake, and, in most cases, that person ends up with a needle in their neck. As for villains, the most provocative character was certainly the Ice Truck Killer in season 1, who turns out to be Dexter's very own biological brother.

Now I do not write for television, and I do not assume to know the intentions and thoughts of those behind the creation and execution of these shows. But it seems to me that what we are supposed to get out of the show is that, even though Dexter is the hero and a pretty likable guy, he is a sociopath who murders people, and he will always murder people because he has to. Each season he tries to relate to other, he tries to let other people in, and in the end it winds up backfiring. So the message must be that he is hopeless, destined to be alone and different from everyone else, living a lie until he gets caught. He ALWAYS comes to the realization that it was a mistake to ignore Harry's warnings and a mistake to let the killer - the identity of whom he usually discovers about halfway through the season - live as long as he did.

By the end of season 4, Dexter's entire world was thrown upside down. The life he built around a lie was destroyed. The bad guy won. It becomes clear that Dexter is a danger to everyone around him. Because in the end, Dexter is the true bad guy. His inner monologue reminds us in nearly every episode: he is ruled by his dark passenger, he must kill, etc. The overarching message of the series then reads as 'Dexter is what he is. Despite his efforts to be more human, he can't help but be a monster, a vehicle for destruction. The end.'

Wow, I almost wish I made all that a separate post. My intention here was, and continues to be, to talk about how season 7 has completely fallen apart, and so far all I've done is talk about how I would have liked to see the show end 3 seasons ago. Maybe I can snap back to the point. Season 6 was horrendous. I stuck through it because I like Dexter and I wanted to stay a faithful fan. Since that was last year, I will try not to get into it. Season 7 started out promising. Deb walked in on Dexter finishing off last season's foe and quickly realized that he has been killing people under her nose for years. Meanwhile, Dexter manages to piss off the wrong Ukrainian mafia boss by killing his boyfriend. So we have the setup for an interesting season. Or so I thought.

Isaak is a pretty interesting guy, and I'm not just saying that because I like Ray Stevenson. Like Dexter, he is also a meticulous killer who feeds on the thrill of chasing his prey. Needless to say, he and Dexter make obvious their intentions to kill each other a few episodes in and then proceed to do anything but. What makes their tango slightly more interesting is the fact that Deb, now Dexter's ally, is in on the whole plot and tries to protect Dexter from Isaak. What makes Isaak different is that he is a man with means and talent and vows to stop at nothing to kill Dexter, even if it takes the rest of his life. And yet, starting in episode 8, all of the central characters seem to completely abandon their motivations and rational thought in order to add a false sense of suspense. I don't know if it was when Isaak decided to open fire on a coffee shop window from a car in the parking lot, or when Dexter subdued and executed some guy he found in Isaak's apartment. But since then, nothing seems to make sense. In the episode after that, Isaak suddenly decides he won't kill Dexter, as long as Dexter kills two other people he has never researched and knows nothing about. For some reason he agrees, and even kills them both in broad daylight in relatively populated areas, while we see Isaak sitting on the couch in his apartment. Isaak is then killed off by a peripheral character who says nothing and then escapes without explanation, even though Dex is only a few feet away.

Without a villain, it is clear that the writers do not know what to do with the last few episodes of the season. They threw in another serial killer that we've never heard about, just to show that Dexter is willing to change his mind about killing someone. To reinforce this point, they also threw in the father of Dexter's love interest, who is of course a bad guy. But despite not actually being a killer, the man is dispatched by Dexter because it seems to him like the safest way to ask the man to get out of his daughter's life. Quinn finds some unimportant reason to kill the guy that shot Isaak, which neatly wraps up any loose ends with the Ukrainian mafia story line (although you'd expect that now that three of this Kashka brotherhood have been killed - two by police - they would do anything but simply disappear). So where exactly was the climax of the season? With the exception of LaGuerta looking into Dexter's true identity, there is virtually no reason to look forward to the rest of the season. We already know that his 'love' for Hannah is going to result in her dying, which I am certainly not opposed to. Deb seems to be okay with Dexter being a killer. If LaGuerta happens to walk in on him killing someone, why shouldn't we assume that she'll just come around to his side by next season too.