Dexter Review: “Do The Wrong Thing”
This continues to be a rather interesting Dexter season, and I will admit to being caught off guard in the directions it’s decided to go. Many, many times.
Dexter has been a little…off his game since Deb found out his secret. Instead of being more careful than usual, he’s been even riskier. And now? What the hell is he doing?
Philosophical question: If Yvonne Strahovski wanted to bang you, but you knew she was a killer, would you do it?
You all know what I’m talking about, and last night yielded one of the strangest scenes in Dexter history. Finally convinced that Hannah was a killer, he had her all on his table and ready to go when suddenly. Surprise serial killer fetish sex!
It’s the complete opposite of what I thought was going to happen. I thought that maybe for once Dexter would be wrong. Maybe Hannah just LOOKED guilty but wasn’t, and he would either A) kill an innocent girl or B) ALMOST kill an innocent girl before being stopped at the last minute, and she’d then know his secret.
But nope, none of the above and my prediction skills were way off mark. She is a killer, and not a morally justified vigilante either. Dexter is certainly “doing the wrong thing” here by getting involved with a person like this…why exactly? Because she’s hot? That seems like a bit of a shallow reason, and I wasn’t exactly feeling the sparks between the two when they were bantering earlier in the episode. My favorite part of the night was Harry’s face after Dexter asks her out being like “What the f*** are you doing man?” Which is exactly what I was thinking too.
“Jesus F***ing Christ, Dexter.”
This opens up a huge can of worms for the season now. What the hell does this mean? Every time I think something is a minor subplot, it turns out to be a way bigger deal than I thought (the Ukranians), and every time I think something is a major plot, it turns out to be nothing (Lewis). Now I’m eating my words about Hannah because she’s like, the most important development going on right now. She’s a crazy killer, crazy enough to be turned on by Dexter about to murder her, and she now knows his secret, at least the gist of it. These are dangerous waters.
I loved the callback this week to Jordan Chase, as outside of Trinity and the Ice Truck Killer, no one really mentions big bads from past seasons all that much. I’m still waiting for Jimmy Smits’s season three killer to come up. Will Lumen be coming back? That’s certainly what it sounded like, and that would be pretty cool.
Poor Batista. Has he literally been relegated to such a doorstop role that his entire scenes were for the sole purpose of getting Deb to “live a little” and ask that guy out on a date? They really just have no idea what to do with his character now.
Ferris Bueller voice: Ohhhhhh YEAHHHH
Quinn is faring a little better as his role in the season is more pronounced He’s been thrust back into dirty cop mode, which is something we haven’t really seen from him since he joined homicide. Is his stripper girl dead already? Why wouldn’t they have her answer her phone? You’d think he’d want proof of life before he actually started stealing evidence.
Best line of the night:
Isaac: “I would rather not kill anyone while I’m in here. It would interfere with my release.”
Anyway, I must commend this season for taking a whole bunch of turns I in no way saw coming, which is the polar opposite of last season where I predicted the finale in episode three. Good on you, Dexter, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
The answer to your question is YES!!
I’m back on track. After being extremely bitter about Louis, I’ve deiced to let this Season take me where it wants to, and…Dexter is acting WAY out of character here. Much like yourself, I didn’t sense a spark between them at all either, but I had an idea she wasn’t going to die that easily. I suppose Dexter was turned on by her “getting away with it”. That’s the only thing I can guess since Dexter was fascinated by Trinity for the exact same reason. The problem I have here is the fact that I get she’s hot and all but it seems like the writers wrote her hotness into the plot and it feels kinda juvenile.
I’m glad to see Isaac coming back, after being resistant to him, I decided that I would indeed like to see where his story goes and how Dexter will deal with an entire Koshvka Brotherhood after him should Isaac end up deal. This season is VERY different from other Seasons and it gets a plus in that department from me. I would NEVER want this to be more of the same, this season being different isn’t my primary complaint, it’s this season being not what it could have been, which brings me back to Louis. I’m curious how this Season will end and what’ll happen to our dear Ms. McKay…time’ll tell.
Seeing as you brought up the Batista/bar scene, did anyone else notice that his sister is some kind of mongoloid mule when trying to use cutlery? Continuity issue notwithstanding, she was just faffing about like an idiot.
The Hannah/Lumen thing will be weird. The promo images for last season showed a set of wings painted behind Dexter painted in blood and the season was meant to be about redemption and catharsis, and obviously, the Doomsday killer.
This seasons promo shots show a cut on Dexters right check, his preferred check when mining for trophies. Are we going to see him on his own table at the hands of one of his killer women? Who knows…
hes on the table in the promo that airs in the closing credits
I disagree. From the first second, where Dexter meets Hannah I thought “wow, this is it! they need to be together”. I didn’t predict her on his table, but i guessed that he would reveal himself to her and that they would share each others secrets. Kind of a stronger and harder version of Dexter/Lumen. If this relationship lasts, i could even imagine that it will have something to do with the series finale in the next season. (But those thoughts would be too crazy to write them down here 😉 )
All in all I already think it could be the best Dexter season so far. And now with you saying that Lumen could come back, i really get excited. That’s also something i hadn’t thought about… would be great.
That final scene was very weird, but I still can’t say if in a good or bad way. I had mixed feelings about it. It was a surprise, which is always good considering the terrible last season, but I tend to think this season is too schizophrenic…. it lacks some focus. We’re halfway through the end of it already, but still there is no proper focus. A lot of plots going on at the same time and none of them are actually…good – which was the main problem of ALL seasons of Dexter. If you think about it, the best seasons were the ones who had a main, big plot going on (like Trinity Killer and the BHB) but everytime the series tries to invest on subplots and subcharacters….it’s just lame. Look at Angel, Laguerta, this new writer-boyfriend of Deb (how bad was all those dialogs, for god’s sake?) and specially Quinn (what, now he’s a corrupt cop?? oh…how convenient! who had this idea? Spiderman 3 writer?)
That’s why Breaking Bad is SO good. If it asks for your time and attention for subplots, they are indeed important to the main one. You never feel you’re wasting your time watching small plots, because you TRUST they’re gonna be, somehow, emotional powerful.
“Debra & Dexter” issues – that was SO promising – seems to have gone to the background, while this weird romance takes all the the attentions, and…honestly, I can’t have good hopes about it.
I don’t know….I can’t help but feel this series STILL suffers a lot from bad writing. How long are we waiting for a REALLY good plot and the complex Dexter we saw in the firsts seasons?
But…. I have to say I love Yvonne Strahovski since she played my dear lover Miranda! 😛
I think this season is going to be good. Hannah is more attractive and a better actor than Lumen, and (although I seem to be a minority) I sensed some proper chemistry between Dex and Hannah.