Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing Black Doves; Dark Matter; Dept. Q; Detective Hole; Dexter: Resurrection; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; Memory of a Killer; MobLand; Outlander; Paradise; Presumed Innocent; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Smoke; Star City; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Tehran;The: Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Last of Us, Night Agent; Your Friends & Neighbors +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

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

Showing posts with label David Zayas. Show all posts

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Dexter: Resurrection 1.7: Batista and Dexter in the Car

Well, as I said last week, Batista at this point is easily Dexter's greatest danger -- more than Detective Wallace and company, more than Prater and Charley. I mean, he knows about Dexter as much as I and you do.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

So my favorite scene is episode 1.7 is at the end, when Dexter warns Batista, who is then thrown out of Dexter's car (told to get out by Dexter), after planting a tracking device that presumably Dexter doesn't know about. My only question is why Dexter didn't kill Batista right then and there, or at least try to. And, actually, I'm also wondering why Batista got in the car with Dexter, knowing how deadly Dexter could be.

I guess the answer to the first is Dexter needed to think about the best way to kill a detective. And the answer to the second is Batista wanted to plant the tracker. But there's now a very volatile situation between the two, to say the least.

Over on Mastodon, where I post links to these reviews (I do on all my social media), David Scott Moyer, whom I didn't know before now, commented on my post there of last week's review, "I suspect one of Dexter's upcoming kills will either save or avenge someone close to Batista." I replied "that could be something that could save Batista," which I'd like to see happen, because Batista has always been a great character, and David Zayas gives him a great portrayal. But it was crystal clear in episode 1.7, in that scene in the car, that the hatred Batista feels for Dexter for killing all those people that we the viewers also loved runs pretty deep. (Btw, as Dexter's inner voice reminded us a few episodes ago, it was the Trinity Killer who killed Deb, of course not Dexter.) But I can't see anything Dexter now does slaking Batista's need to bring his former friend and colleague to justice.

And I think Dexter got to realize that in the car ride. (Tour de force acting, by the way, by both Michael C. Hall and David Zayas in that car.) So I'd say, the only thing that could stop Dexter from killing Batista is someone else -- maybe Prater? -- kills Batista first.

I expect some powerhouse episodes ahead.

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

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Dexter: Resurrection 1.1-1.2: The Imposter

Dexter: Resurrection debuted on Paramount Plus Premium/Showtime yesterday with two outstanding episodes which scored on many levels:

[Spoilers ahead ...]

My favorite was the introduction a Dexter imposter: a serial killer in New York City who calls hims the "dark passenger" because he preys on taxi-drivers. Dexter (Michael C. Hall is still perfect in the role he defined), in town to help/save his son Harrison, is a "multi-tasker" -- as he tells his father Harry, whom Dexter once again carries around inside his brain -- and he can't help wanting to get his namesake on the table, a guy who's really not at all like Dexter, who only goes after killers, preferably serial, not hard-working cabbies.
As a point that deserves its own bullet, the imposter wears a hoodie that prevents people taking his photograph. First I hadn't heard of that, but it's real, and it shows a TV series about serial killers can have all kinds of educational benefits.
It was great to see Batista, now a captain, back in action, and now one of Dexter's worst enemies. And David Zayas looks better than ever!
Harrison kills his first badguy, a rapist. Dexter takes pride in how good his son is in their father-and-son trade.
Uma Thurman has some kind of nefarious role in this story, and it's always good to see her on the screen.
The music was excellent. Ok, my favorite song in these two episodes was "Stayin' Alive", and the Bee Gees never sounded better.
The song was played by Claudette Wallace, a police detective investigating the killing of the rapist killed by Harrison, and my favorite new character. She's played by Kadia Safia, who looks familiar because she was also in The Better Sister and Law & Order: SVU.
And in addition to Harry, it was also great to see The Trinity Killer, Miguel Prado, and Doakes -- or at least their ghosts -- come to see Dexter in his hospital room. Just like Batista, they all were looking good.

See you next week with my review of the next episode.

Friday, December 20, 2024

Dexter: Original Sin 1.2-1.3: "The Finger is the Message"

Paramount+Showtime was good enough to put up both the second and third episodes of the prequel Dexter series -- Dexter: Original Sin -- and the result was double all the things we enjoy about Dexter. Including at least two prime pieces of interior commentary from Dexter (the young Dexter) with the older Dexter -- voiced by Michael C. Hall -- speaking the commentary.

[Some spoilers ahead ... ]

One comes when Dexter, now working in his father Harry's Miami police unit, hears their Captain, at a press conference, comment that they had received a finger of the boy who had been kidnapped, sent to them by the kidnapper, with no other message. Dexter thinks/says in internal dialogue "that's because the finger was the message". A nice homage to Marshall McLuhan, intended or not (and I put the quote in the present tense because I wanted to emphasize the McLuhanesque quality of the line).

Dexter has another especially apt interior line -- "hello darkness my old friend" -- borrowed from Paul Simon -- and Dexter is honing his skills, managing to get back the earrings he took as souvenirs from his first killing, which Debra gave to Sophia. Here I'll say I'm not clear why Dexter is shown rebuffing Sophia's advances. The adult Dexter certainly was not immune to the charms of women. So what's the point of making younger Dexter not interested? He's too much in love with discovering he's truest love, which is murder of those who deserve it? If so, I think this aspect of the narrative is being handled a little too heavy-handedly at this point.

But it was good to see young Batista get so much story, and young LaGuerta introduced. In many ways, they were the most important characters other than Dexter and Debra, in the original series -- well, everyone was important -- and Batista comes back in the Dexter: New Blood sequel. One of the great strengths of Original Sin is how much most of the characters look and sound like their older selves that we came to know in Dexter. That applies not only to Patrick Gibson of course as Dexter, but to James Martinez as Batista. At one point in Original Sin 1.2, his voice sounded exactly like David Zayas, which made wonder if Zayas actually did that voicing.

In any case, as of the first three episodes, Dexter: Original Sin is doing one fine job, and I'm looking forward to more.

in Kindle and paperback

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Dexter: New Blood 1.5: No Satisfaction for Serial Killers

Another outstanding episode of Dexter: New Blood -- 1.5 -- in what from the beginning was an excellent reboot, and is just getting better and better.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

In a headline, Dexter's new life is unraveling. And in many ways the most exquisite part of this is the return of Batista (great to see David Zayas back), at least for this episode. He's now a captain of detectives in Miami, and he tells Dexter's faked story to Angela -- that he's dead -- and the truth that he left a son by the name of ... Harrison. It's a fairly uncommon name, and it's enough, along with the rest that Angela knows (what Audrey told her Harrison said, that Jim is not Jim's real name) to search on what happened in Miami all those years ago, and come up with a picture of Dexter, who of course looks like Jim.

To be clear, the jig is my no means up for Dexter. He can and no doubt will come up with a plausible explanation for why he faked his death. Likely he'll say it was to protect his son. But Angela is sharp and tenacious police, and sooner or later she'll begin to realize more about Dexter. And there's no way that, to save himself, he'll kill her. That would be a violation of the code that would dwarf all the other violations Dexter has done, and, besides, he close to loves Angela, and maybe actually does,

Meanwhile, the other serial killer in town, Kurt, is in high sicko gear. Kurt kills another young woman -- not that way he wants to, so he gets no satisfaction -- and now he's briefriended Harrison. He kills women not men, but Harrison under Kurt's wing is no good for Dexter and his genuine fatherly love. Tonight, a combination of that love and Dexter's killer appetite got Dexter to kill the drug dealer, but not in the way that gave Dexter's dark passenger any satisfaction, either.

Dexter's best bet for taking Kurt out of action is Angela, who also discovered in New York that Kurt was lying about hearing from his son Matt in New York City. Should be an exciting five more episodes of this superb season ahead.

"challenging fun"
- Entertainment Weekly

e-mail received from a reader:
Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchildren. Thanks! Tom

I of course happily replied...

42 reviews of The Plot to Save Socrates!