Dexter Review: “Beauty and the Beast”

Alright, I’m switching gears from The Event to Dexter as one show continues to hold my interest while the other is losing it. I’ve been a fan of Dexter since season one, so be aware I’m not just jumping into the series cold here. I regard it as one of the most brilliantly structured shows on television, as the series excels at creating masterful plot arcs that take unexpected twists and turns but ultimately are very satisfying in the end.

Now in season five, Dexter has lost the anchor of a family around his neck. Previously in season four, he had to balance work, a wife, her kids, his kid, pretending to be Kyle Butler and murdering people in his free time. Now, with his Butler persona gone (but not buried) and Rita and the kids out of the picture, all he’s left with is his own son, Harrison, whom he totes around like a bomb that’s about to explode, and he tries to find someone, anyone to take it off his hands.

So far, that job mainly falls to his new nanny, an Irish woman whose name I don’t actually know yet. She’s sweet and kind, and even willing to give Dexter a second chance after he’s his usually never-where-he’s-supposed-to-be self, this time dealing with Boyd’s living victim in his woodland shack. I have to wonder what secret is going to emerge about this new nanny, because new characters are never introduced unless something is ****ed up with them, so I wonder what her deal is going to be. Or is she actually just a plot crutch so Dexter can go about his dirty work? That doesn’t seem in keeping with the show’s usual plot developments.

This show has trained me not to trust you.

The big story of last week, and really this season is that Dexter now finds himself in the awkward position of having to figure out what to do with a victim of one of HIS victims once she’s seen him murdering someone. He’s killed 68 people (glad the show finally gave us that number last week, I’ve always wondered), but he’s never offed anyone close to as innocent as this girl, even if she does look exactly like Charlize Theron’s serial killing prostitute in Monster.

I knew Julia Styles was guest starring this season, but I didn’t know in what capacity, and figured she’d be some new hot shot detective or something. But no, and I see why they brought her in, as her portrayal of a broken runaway is incredibly moving so far, and she looks to be a recurring character for most of the season. Possibly even one Dexter doesn’t end up murdering.

But in what capacity? Dexter got her to trust him at long last, and she realizes he saved her, but her revelation that Boyd “wasn’t the only one that did this” to her implies her and Dexter are about to go on some sort of cross country serial killer serial killing spree, or something along those lines. Are we just accepting that this runaway has had the misfortune of being kidnapped, tortured and raped by other serial killers like Boyd? What are those odds? I’m very curious to see what exactly spawns from this.

Morally superior serial killer in training?

Competing for the title of most relevant subplot are the case of the machete beheaders and Quinn’s investigation into Kyle Butler. The beheaders seem like the typical seasonal arc mass murderer(s) that usually populates each season, but while say, Ice Truck Killer or Trinity were central to the plot, these guys kind of seem like afterthoughts, and I’m actually hoping that Dexter won’t just realize what’s going on, swoop in and kill them, like he’s done so many times before. I’d love to see Deb put bullets in their brains herself, but when she had the chance today, she didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger.

Quinn is busy analyzing the world’s greatest police sketch that looks exactly like Dexter, firmly cementing his status as the new Doakes. But Doakes was far more worthy and adversary and that was the entire season two plot more or less, and I just don’t see the same tension being recreated here. Yes, Dexter being IDed by Trinity’s family would look shady beyond all belief, but it’s not quite the same drama as the police pulling every single one of his victims out of the bay a few years back.

“Is this your card?”

Don’t even get me started on the Batista plotline, where he put some cop in the hospital and his wife LaGuerda may or may not end up blowing the IA guy to get him off the hook. I like Batista and LaGuerda’s characters, but none of their plotlines have ever come close to interesting me.

I’m a fan of this season because it’s structured differently than the previous four. There is not a big baddie lurking out there, at least not really. Rather, it seems Dexter has a new partner in crime, and I look forward to seeing how exactly her role develops in the coming episodes.

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11 Comments

  1. My gut instinct says that the nanny eventually kidnaps the baby, freeing up Dexter next season, and setting up a nice story line when Dex eventually finds him again, without the hassle of actual child rearing.

  2. Based on the letter to Lumen (Stiles’ character) from her mother, I’m assuming that her line about Boyd “not being the only one who did this” is in reference to her father rather than some other random serial killers. After all, she would have had to escape from those other killers too – WITHOUT Dexter’s help. My guess is that she ran away from an abusive household (perhaps an allusion to the situation with that Austrian guy who held his daughter in the basement for years) where her father did things to her while her mother sat idly by. That would explain the lack of a missing persons report.

    I’m also interested to see how long Trinity’s family holds out on Quinn. They know Dexter freed them from the tyranny of someone they at least partially despised even before finding out he was a serial killer, so I think the son especially figures he owes Dexter.

    I agree that there’s more to the nanny than meets the eye. Too early to speculate what it is though. Something tells me there’s a reason she’s Irish – mostly because the show seems to bring it up more than the plot requires.

  3. Maybe spoilers.

    This season actually seems to be running parallel to the third book (Dexter in the Dark). If so, there is a Big Bad, and what Julia Stiles said about there being others than Boyd, doesn’t relate to her father or other serial killers. Boyd himself even made reference to this; remember when Dexter stabbed him he said (something along the lines of) “He won’t be happy.” In the book, Boyd isn’t the mastermind, he mostly just does the dirty work for someone much more menacing.

  4. I just had the longest Deja Vu moment while reading this. It was so weird…

    I actually thought that Julia Stiles wasn’t going to be that great. I don’t even remember the last thing she was in. I think there was a commercial once…then Save the Last Dance or something like that. But…I liked her. A lot.

  5. Why does everyone think Quinn isn’t worthy to take on Dexter ? Quinn is at least keeping his cards to himself and isn’t letting Dexter know he’s looking into him like Doakes did. That’s where Doakes messed up, he showed Dexter his hand and Dexter knew he could play him. Quinn on the other hand is smarter than that. I don’t know guys I think Quinn might actually be onto Dexter.

    btw, the nanny’s name is Sonya.

    and this Season is probably going into Human Trafficking…

  6. Don’t forget that at one point Lumen asked Dexter if he was going to sell her. So not only do I agree with Bert that Lumen’s dad was one of the “other men” that she spoke of, but I also believe that he may have sold her into some kind of slavery.

    I see Ugo has beat me to it, but I remember giggling when the nanny was introduced as Sonya, what with her red hair and all..

  7. Boyd had “partners”. Or thats at least the way I understood it. Before Dexter kills him Boyd says “you don’t know what you’re getting into”. I do not think it means that she has had this happen multiple times but that all the men hurt her in some way while she was locked up a t Boyds.

  8. Human trafficking…who’da thunk it? Makes sense. Boyd may have just been the clean-up man. No boy mentioned Lumen being a new Miguel. I can tell by the trailer for next week…she’s doing it wrong. Was it me or was the IA dude propositioning LeGuerta? The nanny is IRA. She’s going to kidnap Harrison and train him for the militia lolz.

  9. Frankly I ain’t worried about the Nanny…it’s Debra’s partner I’m worried, Officer Monsong (correct me if I’m wrong which I’m almost 100% I am). She seems fishy to me…kinda hot but fishy. If the Nanny is involved in ANYTHING it’d be too much going on and sloppy writing which I hope not. Anyways I got my eye on Monsong…

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