Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing 3 Body Problem; Bosch; Citadel; Criminal Minds; Dark Matter; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; House of the Dragon; Luther; Outer Range; Outlander; Presumed Innocent; Reacher; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Surface; The: Ark, Diplomat, Last of Us, Lazarus Project, Orville, Way Home; True Detective; You +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

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

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Dexter Series Finale: Solitude, Style, a Modicum of Hope

One of the first reviews I ever wrote about any television show on Infinite Regress was First Place to Dexter in December 2006, where I said Dexter was the best show on television that Fall. And it's never disappointed since.

This last season and very last episode in particular was graced by brilliant, darkly logical plot development, as has been the entire series. A hurricane is hitting Miami, which gives Dexter cover to do all kinds of things.

I hated to see him take Debra off life-support, but I can understand how he couldn't bear to leave her in Miami in that vegetative state. And I hated to see Dexter make Hannah and everyone think he was lost in the storm, but that made sense, too.

And, for those who think Dexter at long last deserved at least a modicum of happiness, there's hope for that, too. Dexter's alive. He can find Hannah and Harrison whenever he wants to, and Hannah can do the same, too. He may come to rethink his driving motivation - that he deserves no happiness, because he always endangers those who give him happiness, like Debra.

Hannah's exit was great, getting the jump on Elway. She, like Dexter, is not a person to be trifled with. The tender moments between Quinn and Deb - and Dexter and Deb - were wonderful, too. Dexter needed to be thought of as dead if only to not be hunted by Quinn, who won't accept Deb's disappearance lightly.

And Dexter didn't miss a beat, outsmarting Elway at the airport and Daniel in the police room. To the very end, he's one of the quickest thinking geniuses we've ever seen on television.

So this remarkable show about a serial killer we can admire and even love comes to a close. Dexter did manage to grow out of his psycho path and achieve a better state of mind and life. And that life still exists. Let's hope that someday in the future we'll see perhaps a movie that tells us the next chapter in this one-of-a-kind anti-hero's life. Because, for all his talking to himself in the form of Harry all of these years, Dexter is not a loner. He thrives in the intensity of give and take with people. First place to Dexter indeed.