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Monday, December 7, 2009

Dexter 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck"

"You'll come across as a soulless, anti-family schmuck" - not a shot against Dexter Morgan, or any major character on the show, but what Laguerta says to Captain Matthews, as she stands up for her marriage to Batista in Dexter 4.11, and tells Matthews to stop threatening her and Batista about their romantic relationship. One of the best lines in the show, and I mention it because it shows how sharp even the throwaway lines have been on this series, especially this year.

Actually, Trinity, last week unveiled as more accurately called the Quadro killer (at least by me), turns out to be even more of a "soulless, anti-family, schmuck" than we thought. He tells his daughter Christine, after knowing that she killed Lundy to protect him, that was she was "always a stupid girl" and he was sorry she was ever born. This leads her to take her life, after confessing to Debra.

But Dexter Morgan has more soul than ever, even it's split among at least five parts, as Harry enumerates - "blood tech, husband, father, serial killer, and now Kyle Butler" - as Dexter stands before a four-paneled mirror, and the camera moves slowly over Dexter's refections, and then to Dexter, in a scene that Hitchcock and Fellini would have been proud of.

This show is so good, so well made and acted, so powerful in plot, brilliant in dialogue, that it's almost painful to watch, as befits a show about a serial killer who in all other ways is a mensch.

And the Season 4 finale is next week!






5-min podcast review of Dexter



See also
Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ... Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ... 4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity

See also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ... Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter







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4 comments:

dawn said...

I can't stand how good this show is getting and am only sadden that the finale is upon us. For the first time I do not know how this will end. I like Batista and Laguerta together but fear they will tear them apart. I do not know how Trinity will end or if it will end in the finale we will see

Paul Levinson said...

Good thought about Trinty maybe not winding up in the finale, Dawn - I was thinking the same thing.

And I think it's pretty likely that Debra will find out something unsavory about Dexter.

Barton Paul Levenson said...

From what I've heard about it, I have very mixed feelings about this show. I don't deny that it's probably very well-written.

By accident my life has intersected those of no fewer than three multiple murderers. I spent a long time studying these guys, wondering if I could contribute something to criminology. Eventually I had to quit--it was making me sick.

I know of no serial killer who was otherwise a mensch. They tend to be selfish, bullying jerks, totally absorbed in their own grievances to the exclusion of caring about anyone else's well-being at all. Damned souls.

Paul Levinson said...

That's why Dexter is fiction, not documentary.

But it raises very important questions about the extent to which the worst evil can co-exist in a given human being with nobler qualities.

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