Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; American Rust; Bosch: Legacy; Citadel; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outer Range; Outlander; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Diplomat, Last of Us, Lazarus Project, Orville, Way Home; Tokyo Vice; True Detective; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Dexter 8.7: Two Different Codes?

This is a season of Dexter like no other - not only because it's the final season of this one-of-a-kind series, but because it has moved so quickly, so profoundly, in the first seven episodes, as to seem like many more than one season in this season. Probably it was done that way because this is indeed the final season, and the producers want to give us a taste of everything - the old and the new.

The old, of course, is Dex and Deb, still not completely resolved, and now Dex and Hannah, who in their own ways truly love each other. I always thought she was the best for Dexter, even though Deb of course thinks otherwise.

The new is Zach, bounding off of Dex's table to become his accomplice, as Dexter tries to teach him Harry's code. This something Dexter has never attempted before, and something we have never seen before, either. It's no easy job, to say the least, and not least because Dexter is no Harry, as Dexter realizes near the end of Dexter 8.7. After all, Harry was a normal person teaching a psychopath to survive in society, whereas Dexter is psychopath trying to teach a psychopath, which is very different. Though - Dexter doesn't really seem like a psychopath to me, either, to tell the truth, and that's part of the power of the show.

So it's no surprise to Dexter when it seems that Zach, angry and tired of waiting for another kill, bludgeons Cassie, Dex's attractive neighbor, to death. Dex has also already realized that since Zach already killed someone, Zach is not the same as Dex when Harry taught Dex the code. It would be nine years from that teaching, Dexter tells us, that he took his first human life.

And just as Dex is pulling close to Hannah, after he disposed of her husband killed by Hannah in self-defense, he gets called to the scene of the crime in his apartment building. But did Zach kill Cassie? That's certainly what we're supposed to think. But having not actually seen the killing, I'm not 100% sure.

This is, after, Dexter, where chilling misdirection is often the name of the game.

See also Dexter Season 8 Premiere: Mercury in Retrograde, Dexter Incandescent ... Dexter 8.2: The Gift ... Dexter 8.3: The Question and the Confession ... Dexter 8.4: The "Lab Rat" and Harry's Daughter ... Dexter 8.5: Just Like Family ... Dexter 8.6: The Protege

And see also Dexter Season 7.1-3: Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 7.4: The Lesson in Speltzer's Smoke ... Dexter 7.5: Terminator Isaac ... Dexter 7.6: "Breaking and Entering" ... Dexter 7.7: Shakespearean Serial Killer Story ... Dexter 7.8: Love and Its Demands ... Dexter 7.9: Two Memorable Scenes and the Ascension of Isaac ... Dexter 7.11: The "Accident" ... Dexter Season 7 Finale: The Surviving Triangle