The Enemy Within 1.4: Microsoft AI

My wife and I have been watching The Enemy Within and enjoying it - always good to see Dexter's Jennifer Carpenter - but I haven't yet a chance to review it.  Tonight's 1.4 had such an impressive ad for Microsoft AI - woven so well into the story - that I figured, hey, why wait.

First, the overall set-up of the series is good - in fact, a wrenching moral dilemma, or series of interlocking dilemmas.  Erica Shepherd (Carpenter) decides that, in order to save her daughter, she has to betray a whole bunch of American agents, who are killled by the mastermind terrorist Tal.  One of the agents killed is FBI special agent Keaton's fiancee, who was with the CIA.  Three years later, Keaton (played by Goliath's Morris Chestnut, who's always excellent) is focused on getting Tal, and to do so, he brings Shepherd, shackled, onto the team.  The rest of the team is split on whether that's a wise thing, and the team also has at least one active Tal mole.  The storylines and action are sharp.

But what stuck me tonight was the way that Kate the technical analyst uses Microsoft AI to help the team foil the kidnapping of a Senator and his daughter at the airport.  As she explains to Keaton after we see her deftly weave her way through three-dimensional images on her and our screen, Microsoft AI allows her to "stitch" together images from the airport to create a clear flow of three-dimensional images that show exactly what lies below and ahead of where the agents are running.   And right after that cool demonstration in narrative action and subsequent explanation in character, we get a real commercial for Microsoft AI and what it can do for human pursuits other than crime fighting - like display of sheer beauty.

Hey, The Enemy Within is on a commercial TV network - NBC - so, if  you have a commercial sponsor, like Microsoft, why not flaunt it by putting it right into the plot?  I'm all in favor, and I'll be back here sooner or later with another review.

 

Limitless TV 1.2: Genghis Khan Gene

Limitless was a fine movie, released in 2011, starring Bradley Cooper as a guy whose intelligence is augmented to genius+ level by a drug NZT.   The movie was fast, funny, serious, and mainly featured Cooper's character Eddie Morra using his enhanced intellect to best a mobster, get back the love of his life, and turn the tables on a brilliant corporate exec played by Robert De Niro.

Limitless the television series, which debuted on CBS last week, shows signs in its first two episodes of being even better.  First and foremost, the series tells the story of Brian Finch, who also takes NZT, and his work with FBI, in particular with Agent Rebecca Harris, played by Dexter's Jennifer Carpenter.   The pace of the series is also fast and funny - Brian puts together a video compilation to help solve a crime, and puts in a little background music, because it's "cooler" - and takes on some cutting-edge issues, just the other side of the real into the realm science fiction (which makes sense, given that NZT is itself science fiction).   The story in episode 1.2, for example, features a virus designed to target descendants of Genghis Kahn, a prolific breeder.

But what makes this television series really notable is the way it integrates the movie.  The story of Eddie Morra - still played by Bradley Cooper, itself a real coup for television - indeed picks up on TV right where it concluded in the movie, with Morra a US Senator from the state of New York.   He supplies Brian with an injection that makes Brian immune to the destructive physical consequences of longterm NZT use, and proceeds to use that to run Brian.  But Morra's ultimate agenda is not yet clear in the TV series - which adds a layer of suspense and tension above the difficulties Brian has with his family and the FBI.

I can't recall a spinoff or sequel or remake ever set up or rolled out like this, and that alone would make me want to see how all of this develops.  But Limitless the TV series on its own is first-class viewing, and I'll be back with reviews throughout the season.  (Thanks to my Facebook friend Cie McCullough for calling my attention to the series.)

#SFWApro


all about genetically engineered viruses

Dexter 7.8: Love and Its Demands

There were great, pathbreaking scenes in Dexter 7.8 just about as often as there were scenes, period.  Where to start?

• Dexter and Isaac have one of the great conversations between Dexter and antagonist, sitting at a bar.   Dexter is so impressed with Isaac's understanding of life, Dexter-style, that Dexter even offers that he and Isaac can just let it ride.  But Isaac, of course, won't have that.  The love that he explained to Dexter, and which Dexter now pretty much feels for and has with Hannah, won't let  Isaac relent in his quest for revenge.   This season could be seen as the season in which the main threats to Dexter are motivated by revenge on Dexter, for taking their loved ones.
• Which brings up LaGuerta.  No great scene with her per se, but every scene in which she appears is bringing her closer to the ultimate confrontation with Dexter which will surely be in this season's finale.   Just as Isaac is driven by love and loss of Victor, so LaGuerta is driven by love and loss of  Doakes.  And Dexter's responsible for both.
• But back to incandescent scenes: what a conversation between Dex and Deb, who at last tells her brother that she doesn't just love him, she's in love with him.  Now, just to make sure we're all on the same page, Deb and Dex are not biologically related - they're brother and sister in the adoptive way only.  Still, Dex is weirded out by Deb's confession.   And Deb isn't even sure she feels that way anymore herself.  She was pretty sure at the end of last season's finale, but now she's not, even though a true passion love for Dexter could explain her support of Dexter's murderous ways, as Deb realizes.  That's more than a sister would be likely to do.  Indeed, she even wanted Dexter to give Hannah the serial treatment - she's accepted Dexter almost to the point of becoming him.  Once again, kudos to Jennifer Carpenter for a memorable performance.
• And I left Hannah for last.  "I'm not killing Hannah MacKay," Dexter says to Debra early, and that's the least of it.  There's a magic between Dex and Hannah, not only when they're together alone, but even when Hannah goes to see Dex and the kids at the beach.  In many ways, that was my favorite scene, as Hannah smiles almost like a kid on a date, and says, without wanting to intrude, that she'd like to meet Dexter's family.  Yvonne Strahovski's Hannah MacKay is the best woman by far that Dexter has ever romantically, erotically loved - in fact, she may be the only one he's ever loved this way truly.

So, here's what I'd like to see.  Dexter with Hannah's help dispatches Isaac, which Hannah has already offered to help Dexter do.  Dex said no, but he usually agrees with Hannah's point of view, sooner or later.   Dexter will probably need Debra to take care of LaGuerta, and Deb will be probably come through.   But what of Hannah vs. Debra?  Well, Deb has at least realized that maybe part of the animus she feels towards Hannah is just old-fashioned romantic jealousy.   That's a good first step.  But will it be enough?   The future of Dexter will depend on the answer to that question.

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

And see also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Gellar Is ... ... Dexter's Take on Videogames in 6.10 ...Dexter and Debra:  Dexter 6.11 ... Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ...Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

And 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 ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

And 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 

Dexter 7.4: The Lesson in Speltzer's Smoke

As I said in my review of the first three episodes of Dexter season 7, this may be the best season of Dexter, ever, and certainly the best since the last superb Dexter season - which would be the Trinity season.  It's so satisfying that Deb now knows.  Her struggle to come to terms with that knowledge, and Dexter's struggle to in turn deal with that, is story with Shakespearean potential.  And so far the season its living up to that.

Episode 7.4 can be considered an act in three parts, in the unfolding story of Debra and Dexter.

Act 1 finds Deb unaccepting of who Dexter is, an emotion which is strengthened by Deb's success in breaking Speltzer - getting him to confess - with a brilliant interrogation.  If the system works - if it can put monsters like Speltzer away - than you don't need a benevolent serial killer like Dexter to do job.  Riding on this wave, Deb even tells Dexter that Harrison is not safe with him.

Act 2 begins with Speltzer set free because the clumsy cops who arrested him didn't recite his Miranda rights in a way that indicated he understood them.  It's all on video.   The system may be not so reliable after all, and Deb is torn.  When she sees Speltzer lording it over on the sidelines after his latest victim's funeral, she almost loses it.  Later, she and Dexter talk about her feelings.  She's moved from being horrified by what Dexter does to being pro and con - she can see its value, but still can't accept that Dexter is a serial killer.  It's one of many especially superb scenes between Deb and Dexter this year - powerfully acted by Jennifer Carpenter and Michael C. Hall (formerly a couple in real life).   The conversation concludes with Dexter turning the tables on Deb - after assuring her that he hasn't changed, he'll always still be there for her, he wonders if she'll be there for him.  Her answer is ambiguous.

And that brings us to Act 3, in which Dexter gets the better of Speltzer and sends him on to his just desert in a crematorium.  Several things are different about this kill.   Not only is Speltzer incinerated, but Dexter includes his slide collection in the fire.  This is not the first time Dexter realized he'd be better off - less vulnerable - without his trophies.   But this time it could be different.  The slides are what gave Deb the most revulsion - brought her the realization that Dexter was not just a vigilante, but a true serial killer, who took pleasure in his kills to the point of keeping trophies.   When Dexter says goodbye to his "friends" - the slides - he's saying goodbye to the part of him that caused Deb the most pain, and put the most distance between them.

Deb doesn't know that Dexter did this.  But she picks Dexter up in her car, and Dexter points to the smoke rising above the crematorium, and tells her the smoke is Speltzer.  And when Dexter asks her how feels about Speltzer in that smoke - the smoke that Dexter made - Deb says she feels "glad".

This is a signal moment in Deb's coming to accept Dexter.  It will be crucial as this season's story unfolds, and Laguerta increasingly looks into the one slide that escaped fires.

See also Dexter Season 7.1-3: Sneak Preview Review

And see also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Gellar Is ... ... Dexter's Take on Videogames in 6.10 ...Dexter and Debra:  Dexter 6.11 ... Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ...Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

And 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 ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

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 




"As a genre-bending blend of police procedural and science fiction, The Silk Code delivers on its promises." -- Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

Dexter's Take on Video Games in 6.10

Well, Dexter weighs in with his take on violent video games in episode 6.10 tonight - namely, Masuka's assistant's creation of a new video game where the player can be a real serial killer.  Much to Dexter's discomfort, the list of serial killers includes the Bay Harbor Butcher - aka him, Dexter - real as can be in Dexter-land, and, for that reason alone, Dexter rips the assistant a new one for his video game.  Even without the Bay Harbor Butcher, Dexter would no doubt have been nonplussed about the video game - serial killing, for him, is never a game.

Dexter also vents his rage at the part of him that is Harry, sick and tired of the advice that has gotten him almost nowhere this season.   He's determined to get Travis all on his own, an understandable reaction to having been fooled by him - "he's mine" - though Travis' plan to kill not one but a whole bunch of people at the Miami Metro precinct may give Dexter no choice but to work with his team.

Debra's arc this season remains the most interesting to me.  Jennifer Carpenter was on both Dexter and The Good Wife tonight from 9-10pm Eastern - giving new meaning to Edmund Carpenter's observation  (no relation, he was a media anthropologist, a co-worker with Marshall McLuhan) in Oh! What a Blow that Phantom Gave Me! that only arch angels and people on television can be in more than one place at the same time.   Carpenter (Edmund) was talking about the image on a television show being on millions of screens at the same time.  But Carpenter (Jennifer) was on two different shows, and thus twice as many millions of screens at the same time.

Anyway, though it fun was to see Carpenter on The Good Wife, her character there was no comparison to the irrepressible Debra, who has the best foul mouth now on television.  I also still think - and I have no advance knowledge of this - that Debra's en route to finally beginning to find out who Dexter really is.

We'll see in the next two episodes, which will conclude this season.  In the meantime, the following are my views about violent video games, given in a debate with anti-video-game crusader Jack Thompson, on CNBC a few years ago.





See also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Gellar Is ...

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ... Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

And 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 ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

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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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Dexter's Sister on The Good Wife 3.10

Television has come a long way from the days when a star could not be on more than one series in the same season.   Tonight, Dexter's sister - or, more precisely, Jennifer Carpenter, who plays Debra so well on Dexter - was not only on Dexter, but on The Good Wife, at exactly the same time.  I'll review Dexter in my next post.

On The Good Wife 3.10, Carpenter plays a "Professor of English" who is fired by the Provost, who's accused by Alicia's firm of sexual harassment, pc-bigotry (the professor is a conservative), and religious bias (she's a fundamentalist Christian outspoken in her views against abortion).   The story line was factually inaccurate about what provosts of universities can do - they cannot summarily fire professors without faculty and dean concurrence, unless the prof violates the university code of conduct, and even then, the prof is entitled to some sort of hearing.  And the mix of offenses was jumbled.   Only Michael Fox as Canning made this weak segment at least a little interesting, and then-

All hell broke lose with an unexpected twist that shook up the fundamental set-up of this season's Good Wife, and will likely change it forever more.   The creators of this episode deserve big kudos for not starting the episode with the apparent shocker, and instead lulling us into a sense of tedium and even irritation with the story line about the professor that made the shocker that much more of a punch in the solar plexus.

Alicia, on a break in the professor/provost arbitration proceedings, discovers that her daughter Grace has tried to call her 12 times.  Alicia returns the call, gets no answer, and within seconds we're pitched into a frantic search for Grace.

Canning is truly helpful, Peter mobilizes the police, but it's Kalinda who finds Grace - being baptized. Grace's phone was in her back pocket - she ass-dialed her mother, happens to everyone.  Alicia, Peter, and Grace hug - which Will, who has come over to Alicia's house to help, sees.   He thus doesn't protest when Alicia later tells him, in the office, that it's "just too much" for the two of them to continue with their affair.   The thought of what could have happened to Grace, when she was missing, has put her heart in keen touch with her family - including Peter.

Diane is of course happy, though Will doesn't correct her when she says he did the right thing to end it with Alicia.  Kalinda asked Grace not to tell her mother that Kalinda found Grace, but you just know that sooner or later Alicia will find out, which means her relationship with Kalinda should be repaired.

And speaking of repair, how long with it now take for Peter and Alicia to get back together - in bed, and even as a fully married couple?

One person who's incorrigible in all this, though, is Canning.  Once he learns that Grace is ok, he uses Alicia's absence to look through her papers, and gets evidence which wins him and his client the arbitration.  (Poor Deb always has problems with legalities.) That was about the only good thing in the arbitration case, in an episode which was otherwise superb, and was especially superb because of the sudden contrast with the arbitration.

See also The Good Wife 3.1: Recusal and Rosh Hashanah ... The Good Wife: 3.2: Periwigs and Skype ... The Good Wife 3.7: Peter vs. Will

And see also  The Good Wife Starts Second Season on CBS ... The Good Wife 2.2: Lou Dobbs, Joe Trippi, and Obama Girl ... The Good Wife 2.4: Surprise Candidate, Intimate Interpsonal Distance ... The Good Wife 2.9 Takes on Capital Punishment ... The Good Wife 2.16: Information Wars

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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, Garden.com, eMusic

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

Tina and I just got back from a special screening of the Dexter Season 5 finale at the Sheraton in New York City - courtesy of Showtime.   Jennifer Carpenter, David Zayas, and Lauren Vélez were there, but I'll tell you about that later. First, here's what I thought about the finale.

Superb, with one of the most momentous scenes in the entire series, and an amazingly mostly very happy ending, with Dexter's loss not arising from the death of anyone he loves (not a physical death, at any rate).

The scene gives us Deb, gun drawn on Dexter and Lumen, except she doesn't know it's them, since they're both behind a curtain.   They've just killed Chase, who almost killed them, but for Dexter keeping a knife to himself in hiding.  Deb figures, correctly, that the two are the vigilantes, consisting of Victim #13 and her partner in revenge.  She's a cop who mostly plays by the book.   She sees Chase's body.  But she gives Dexter and Lumen - not knowing it's them -  and the series as we know it a chance to escape.  A brilliant, well-motivated scene - since we've already seen how deeply Deb was affected by the videos of the brutal rapes of the barrel girls.   It wasn't 100% clear, at least to me, how Dex knew that Deb wouldn't call in the body, when she told the two behind the curtain that she would give them an hour to get away before she called in the police to the scene, but it was still a moment of Deb at her very best.

In the aftermath, Dex covers for Quinn (saying Liddy's blood on Quinn's shoe wasn't), Laguerta and Batista are back together, and the kids want to stay with Dexter for the summer.   This is about as good an ending as ever we gotten for Dexter.  But it's tempered by Lumen leaving:  her killing of Chase has satisfied her "dark passenger," who will need to take residence now along with Dexter's in Dexter's psyche for at least the near future.  As for the distant future, who knows ... But it would have been too much now for us to accept that Dexter was giving up his dark passenger - his life of righteous serial killing - just for Lumen.

It all adds up to a highly satisfying season finale, and a good balance to the gaping wound that was left open at the end of Season 4.

Now as to the screening:  I shook David Zayas' hand and told him how much I enjoyed his performance.  I only got a chance to smile at Jennifer Carpenter and Lauren Vélez.   The hors d'oevres were delicious.   And in some ways my favorite part:  The screening started a little late.   A few of the people in the audience were grumbling.  So I started singing the beginning of the Dexter theme.  And a woman sitting two seats over from us came in with those high violin lines ... Solidarity in Dexter theme music, you gotta love it...

And here's a great interview with Michael C. Hall in New York City, on the day of the finale!

See also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ... Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers

And 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 ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

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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                 Special Discount Coupons for Angie's List, Avis, Budget Car, eHarmony, eMusic, Mozy, Zazzle

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The Plot to Save Socrates



"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Dexter 2 Superb Finale: All's ... Well//Deb's Great Line About D's D//Free Dexter Posters (See End of This Post for Contest Question)

A powerful, tough, believable finale to this great second season of Dexter on Showtime tonight, which wrapped all the bloody and singed loose ends convincingly.

I say singed - as well as bloody - because this was Lila's finale as much as it was Dexter's, even more so.

First, she brilliantly incinerates Doakes after she finds him in the cell in Dexter's cabin, and Daokes tells her Dexter is the Bay Harbor Butcher. This shocks and inspires her - makes her love Dexter more than ever before - and in a split second she rises to the moment, and figures out a way to get Doakes out his cell and blown to death in the fiery explosion she sets in the cabin. (I had always admired her intensity and devilish genius and devotion to Dexter.) Had Daokes died in his cell, this would have tipped off the authorities that Daokes was not the killer.

So Dexter's home free from Doakes, and enjoying it ... until he finds out he's not home free from Lila. Dexter plans on luring Lila to her death - even though she truly loves him, and even though he does believe, at least in part, that they are soul mates - until Lila gets what's going on, kidnaps Rita's kids, and almost kills them and Dexter in yet another blaze.

Deb plays a role in all of this, and she has had some of the best lines this season. (For example - tonight she puts it to Dex about Lila - "What did you do to make her so pathetically crazy for you? Does your dick dance?")* Jennifer Carpenter does a killer job - sorry, couldn't resist - and her performance as the trash-talking, fast-talking vulnerable sister of Dexter was every bit as good as Michael C. Hall's superb performance in the title part this year.

*Under the great-minds-think-alike-heading - see the discussion started by anniedeuce on Dexter-IMDB for this and other Deb gems...

Now back to Lila, I gotta say - and my regular readers know - that I wouldn't have minded at all had Lila made it into the next season. A dark, beautiful, counterpart of Dexter - willing, moreover, to take wild chances because of love - would have made a strong addition to the show. On the other hand, her knowledge of Dexter's secret, and her instability, would have made her as much a threat to Dexter as was Doakes, in his own way. And her threatening the kids, the totally pure, innocent recipients of Dexter's love, sealed the deal in Dexter's mind.

So ... well, the fade to black is followed by a classic Dexter scene - in Paris.

And this symbolizes the new leaf that Dexter must turn over. He can't be the Bay Harbor Butcher again, because that would invalidate Doakes' taking the fall. He'll have to kill another way.

Where is it written, after all, other than in our popular culture, that serial killers have to be 100% consistent....

We'll find out more, next year...

====

And now the contest: I have three posters of Dexter that Showtime was good enough to give me, and I am itching to give away. All you have to do e-mail me - at Levinson.paul@gmail.com - with the correct answer to the following question:

What 2007 motion picture bears a striking resemblance to Dexter - featuring a serial killer who is capable of powerful love for his family, attends AA meetings to keep his "addiction" at bay, and has a sarcastically commenting inner voice?

First three correct answers to the above each get a free poster in the mail.

Good luck - and all of you Dexter fans - there will be a lot of Dexter here when Season 3 comes back on Showtime, next year...

AND THE WINNERS ARE ... contest winners announced! (December 17, 2007)

Season 3 Sneak Preview Review - No Spoilers...

See also 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

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Dexter's Back! A Preview...

Dexter returns to Showtime for a second season this Sunday. I just saw the first four episodes, and I gotta say ... Dexter is considerably better than it was last year, which is saying a lot, because Dexter was easily the best show on television in its first season.

But this year has even more brilliant plotting, and the kind of unexpected twists you find only in a fine movie. Twists that are jolting and satisfying, make great sense in retrospect, and (of course) move Dexter one step forward to a better life, success, or safety, on the one hand, and one step back - being discovered - on the other hand.

I will reveal just one spoiler, which serves as the writhing backdrop of the first four episodes, and I'd bet of the entire second season. The burial ground of Dexter's victims, the place he has dumped their body parts in bags out in the sea, is discovered....

Other than that, I can tell you Sgt. Doakes (Erik King), Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), Rita (Julie Benz), Angel (David Zayas), Maria (Lauren Vélez), and Vincent Masuka (C. S. Lee) are sharp and more vivid than ever. Plus, Keith Carradine's in as a master Federal agent investigating the bodies that turn up in the bay, and dark-haired beauty Jaime Murray plays Lila who ... well, let's just say, she understands Dexter better than does Rita (not too difficult) and may understand him better than anyone.

Michael C. Hall is deft, just the thing as Dexter, as he was last year. His voice-over narration is sardonic and just the thing, as it was last year. The new season starts this Sunday.

But, if you'd like to see the complete first episode now, just click here for the VIP webite - and your password is Killer Shows.

I'll be seeing the first four episodes of Brotherhood tomorrow, which will debut its second season right after Dexter on Sunday.

But on just the irresistible strength of Dexter, I'd say Showtime can now lay claim to being the undisputed best network on television.


5-minute podcast of this review




See also my reviews of other Season Two episodes ... 5. Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out Of This? and 10. Dex, Doakes, Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and Season 2 Finale: All's ... Well

And see also my review of Dexter, Season One: First Place to Dexter

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The Plot to Save Socrates

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"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

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