Last chance to avoid the SPOILERS...
I felt the need to go overboard with the spoiler warnings because I was totally spoiled on the ending of this season months ago while reading an unrelated article that just casually mentioned this big shocker with no warnings whatsoever. So damn you, unnamed site. You completely took away from an ending that might have ever-so-slightly improved my outlook on this overall disappointing season if it had actually been the surprise it was supposed to be.
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| You made me do this! You made me get naked several times while Julie Benz stayed fully clothed! |
That aside, Season 4 was fraught with problems. Dexter as the family man wasn't nearly as interesting as Dexter from previous seasons, but it was something different and did seem like a natural evolution of the character considering where Season 3 left off. So I wasn't crazy about it, but I didn't mind it. The problem came in the latter stages of the season when Dexter started drifting away from his "Dark Passenger" and toward the upstanding husband/father. It wasn't so much that it was totally unbelievable but rather that it threatened to take away Dex's uniqueness as a character. It didn't quite jive, and thus it necessitated the ending in order for the show to continue.
Similarly, the Miami Metro drama didn't seem nearly as compelling as it used to. I think the absence of Doakes hurts, and I didn't notice it as much last season because Jimmy Smits's character largely made up for it. Doakes was always a thorn in Dexter's side and could be irritating at times, but overall I liked him. Trying to have Quinn fill that role doesn't work nearly as well. I'm just not that interested in his character, and that reporter business and where they went with it all seemed quite cliche. And the Batista/LaGuerta romance? Awful, awful filler that had nothing to do with anything.
On to what may be the biggest surprise to anyone who's seen or heard about this season: my plain-face reaction to the Trinity killer. Beforehand, I'd heard nothing but great things about the character and Lithgow's performance. Apparently, he won a Golden Globe for it. Okay, well his performance was...fine. There wasn't anything wrong with it, but I certainly wasn't floored by it, either. The character himself, though? Ehh. I never got why he was so special. He seemed more like a killer-of-the-week from Profiler than a badass season-long threat on Dexter. I just never bought this bipolar old man as a legitimate threat to Dex. Maybe 'cuz Dex passed up about 867 chances to off him early on, either by his own choice or as a result of extremely convenient coincidences or twists of fate. And as the viewer, you know full well that Dex can't off the main villain in the middle of the season. So every time Dex says, "Tonight's the night," you kinda have to roll your eyes and go, "No, it isn't." Any intrigue, then, has to come from how they get to where you know they're going to go, and that's just not the same. Same deal for me with the ending, though I can't fault the show for that one since I was spoiled ahead of time. I wonder if I would've suspected it if I hadn't already known...
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| I'm really, really scary...I swear! |
With all those negatives, you might think I hated this season. Not so. I was just let down. Season 4 was the weakest of the series thus far, and I'm just hoping it's not out of gas. I'm still looking forward to Season 5 and where they take Dex nex(t). I'll be waiting a while, though, as I don't have Showtime. If only I can avoid spoilers in the meantime...
Thoughts on Season 4?
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