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 Dexter: Season Four PremiereRegular airtime: Sundays, 9pm ET (Showtime) Cast: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Julie Benz, Lauren Vélez, James Remar, Keith Carradine, John LithgowUS release date: 27 September 2009 By Daynah BurnettThe Man CaveSeason Four of Showtime’s Dexter poses a question: can one man have it all? As Dexter (Michael C. Hall) is a serial killer, you might not think this would include the suburban house, doting wife, and infant son. Yet the series submits that he would compromise his own bloodlust, or at least a less risky and more satisfying bloodlust, to secure exactly that hetero-normative “all.” And while Dexter’s criminal “hobby” is a potent metaphor for those aspects of manhood suppressed by domestication, he is rarely emasculated or empowered. He’s simply absent. This commentary on the emptiness of all-consuming family life might fare better were it not brimming with one suburban cliché after another. These clichés don’t indicate Dexter’s discomfort with the banality of his new environment. Instead, they’re just boring. Still, Dexter is a compelling serial killer, in part because his sense of justice makes him as much a vigilante as a sociopath (see also: Dirty Harry), and in part because he functions as such an ostensibly successful person who maintains close relationships and continues to earn professional respect at the police station where he works as a blood pattern analyst. This dichotomy has always been the most fertile part of the series, and yet it’s always been the least cultivated. Through Dexter’s narration, we’re privy to his efforts to hide his misanthropy, as he struggles to fit in with mainstream society. Tenets of his father’s (James Remar) “code” are invoked so often (now via cheesy fantasy sequences rather than the flashbacks of earlier seasons) that the points have lost their moral heft. His murders and the code end up as a means to forward plot than to develop character. With that emphasis on plot in mind, the new season’s first two episodes put the gears of a season-long arc put into motion. There’s a new serial killer (John Lithgow) in town, leaving crime scenes for Dexter to investigate (and admire), as well as another series of murders that involve Miami tourists. That said, Dexter’s romance with Rita remains dull, especially compared to the tender and complex interactions between Batista (David Zayas) and Lt. LaGuerta (the always awesome Lauren Vélez). Disappointingly, Rita is still Dexter’s most pathetic and unfortunate victim. — 27 September 2009
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Comments
Good article. I have been looking forward to the this next season as Dexter as a show that is on the whole not perfect, but still, one of the more watchable cable shows at present (Mad Men is still damned good and I liked Hung an awful lot. I think it has a lot of potential if it can get renewed. Did anyone watch this but me or did the topic scare off potential viewers? Don’t get me started on the wretched True Blood, however, or the deadly dull—though, occassionally mesmerizing for no apparent reason—In Treatment. It has to be Byrne. The man is so good at what he does even with this boring, cliched crap).
To return to topic, though. I found your comment that “Dexter is a compelling [ . . . ] because he functions as such an ostensibly successful person who maintains close relationships and continues to earn professional respect [ . . . ] This dichotomy has always been the most fertile part of the series, and yet it’s always been the least cultivated” interesting, though, because (assuming that I am interpreting what you mean by the “dichotomy” correctly) the contrast between Dexter’s sociopathic tendencies and Dexter’s relationships seem to me to be the central focus of each season length arc.
The first season seems to concern Dexter’s relationship to his original nuclear family in the form of his brother (who he later kills). The second season concerns his love life and relationship to a passionate woman (who he later kills). The third season concerns male bonding and finding an honest to God “buddy” (who he later kills). This fourth season seems like it is being geared towards relationships to a new nuclear family, wife and child (who he later… wait… uh oh…).
I may be misreading your argument, though.
I do have other problems with Dexter that largely concern what I think is some uneven performaces. Michael C. Hall is great, but the detestable sister and Rita herself leave me cold if not just aggravated. I don’t know if it is purely these actresses’ skills (or lack thereof) or if the writers just have some trouble with writing compelling female characters (I hated Dexter’s “lust” interest from season 2 also).
Rita (the actress’s name escapes me at the moment) in her other televised appearances on Buffy and Angel as well as (if I am not mistaken about the character that I am thinking that she played) on Deadwood has done much better work, and I haven’t felt that she was in any way weak in those other roles.
She is really, really hard to like here, though.
Comment by G. Christopher Williams — September 27, 2009 @ 8:30 am
Oops… in my quotation I excised a few words unnecessary I think to my point. However I should have quoted “is a compelling sociopath” and not cut off at compelling.
Comment by G. Christopher Williams — September 27, 2009 @ 8:32 am
I liked the episode a lot, and overall I like everything about the show, except for one thing: long term creativity. Dexter continues to kill and wriggle out of different situation. It’s fun, it’s wrong to enjoy, but it’s the same. I’ll still watch, but I would like to see some changes. The first scene with the Trinity Killer is the most disturbing of the whole series. Full review of the episode.
http://th3tvobsessed.blogspot.com/2009/09/dexter-comes-back-withthe-same-stuff.html
Comment by TV Obsessed — September 27, 2009 @ 6:33 pm
I find the dichotomy between Dexter’s Dark Passenger and the trappings of Miami suburbia to be amusing and enjoy them playing it over the top. That pink house, like a fantasy confection, emphasizes the strange and separate reality into which Dexter has reluctantly invited himself. Yes, the cliches of manicured lawns and friendly neighbors may be boring in themselves, but filtered through Dexter’s schizoid personality, they assume an interesting bizarro world strangeness.
Rita is the only sort of wife that Dexter could realistically acquire, pathetically needy enough to blind herself to the fact that she barely knows him. Perhaps we don’t like that sort of person in the real world, but she does exist, and she makes complete sense, fitting into Dexter’s life as she does. The show could no longer suspend disbelief if Dexter had a normal woman free of neurosis finding a serious relationship with him.
Comment by Dexter Fan — September 28, 2009 @ 7:22 pm