DEXTER
Season 2 Episode 1
`It’s Alive!’
Written by: Daniel Cerone
Directed by: Tony Goldwyn
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

My favorite blood spatter expert/serial killer is back! (Sorry, Dex. I say “my favorite” like there’s another blood spatter expert/serial killer out there…)

The sophomore season opens with a play on the Pilot’s opening, where we see Dexter in the process of taking down a victim.
Here though, going on almost 40 days of an enforced moratorium, due to Doakes’ overriding suspicion of Dex, the poor guy’s got nothing to do but bowl (with the department’s bowling team, Bowl Till You Bleed). Fortunately, Dex turns out to be rather good at knocking down the pins.
And when Dex finally gets the chance to make a kill (a blind voodoo dude who poisons the victims he’s “cursed”), he hesitates, then lets the guy go.
But a chance encounter with a murder victim’s mother gives Dex hope, as the grief-stricken mother asks him to kill her son’s murderer, a hulking man mountain named “Little Chino.”

Meanwhile, Deb is walking a thin line, not getting any sleep and harassed by the insensitive public (“Hey! Mrs. Ice Truck Killer!”), as she returns to work.
And Paul pleads with Rita one final time to find the shoe which will help him incriminate Dex in setting Paul up for the arrest. But Rita refuses, and Paul is killed in an “inmate altercation.”
Oh, and Angel finds Oprah (in the same way that some people find Jesus).

The episode’s flashbacks involve young Dex trying to “feel alive,” to get his heart to beat as if it was fit to burst, a feeling very alien to him.
And back in the present, just when Dex hasn’t dumped a body in his favorite patch of ocean for over a month, a pair of treasure hunters find the gruesome remains of his past victims, and seeing the reported discovery on the news, Dex feels that mad beating of his heart…

The season opener is a good one, and I’ve missed Dexter, but seeing the opening credits, I note the absence of Michael Cuesta, and his will be a presence I will continue to miss as this season unfolds.
Incidentally, this episode’s directed by Tony Goldwyn (who played baddies in Ghost and The Sixth Day, and voiced Tarzan for Disney), who was a guest in Season 1 and did some directing there too.

(Dexter Season 2 ad courtesy of fanpop.com.)

DEXTER Season 1

Dexter Morgan is a forensics expert who specializes in blood spatter analysis. He’s also a serial killer. And he is one of the most fascinating characters on television at the moment.
Though I’ve not actually seen it thus described, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some critic out there labeled Dexter as “C.S.I. meets Silence of the Lambs.” And in a manner of speaking, I suppose it is, but to glibly describe it that way is ultimately reductionist and unfair.
Yes, Dexter capitalizes on the public’s fascination with forensics procedurals and serial killers, but it is also a show that explores the dense and complex psychology of sociopaths.* Based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, Dexter is one of those riveting shows that is pushing the boundaries of the television medium. It is a show that is dark and darkly humorous, with scalpel-sharp writing that cuts all the way to the bone.
It’s fascinatingly subversive the way the show gets you to actually root for a serial killer, for a self-confessed monster who has the greatest difficulty fathoming human emotions and interactions, and emulating them so as to appear “normal.” We actually sympathize and care whether Dexter’s mask is slipping, whether there are cracks in the façade he presents to the world.
And not only does Dexter succeed in delving into how love (which can take very bizarre forms) helps stem the tides of violence that surge within a cold and calculating killer, it also features a title character who is the darkest logical endpoint for all those socially maladjusted TV forensics experts (such as the ones in Bones) on display week in, week out. I mean, those guys are weird, right? You’re thinking no one normal could have a job like they do. Well, Dexter’s the King of Weird. Dexter is what each and every one of those labrats could very well be behind closed doors.
Having mentioned love, it’s interesting to note that love and betrayal are two themes that intertwine around each other and through season 1 like its genetic code, and there’s a wealth of secrets and lies planted through its dozen episodes for many a future season to come.
Aside from all of this, Dexter has also helped me formulate a theory that Miami is one seriously effed-up city. I thought all those psychologically damaged people who float through McNamara/Troy were bad, but Dexter trumps them all. Even Ava Moore and the Carver have to bow down to King Dexter. And please keep in mind, though Dexter is an excellent piece of evidence to support my theory, there is one irrefutable bit no one can argue with: David Caruso.
What did I say? Miami? Effed-up.


* Most forensics procedurals are so caught up in the how, they merely skim over the why (as if motive were purely incidental).


Parting shot: Dexter has the most strangely hypnotic (and unsettling) opening title sequence I have ever come across in a weekly TV series, which is notable considering all we’re really seeing is Dexter going through his morning rituals as he prepares for a new day…

Parting shot 2: I came to Dexter because I missed Six Feet Under and wanted to see Michael C. Hall in his new gig. He does not disappoint. (Another Six Feet Under alum on Dexter’s payroll is Michael Cuesta, who directed a handful of episodes of Dexter, as he did on Six Feet Under, and whose feature films include the caustic and moving coming-of-age tale, Twelve and Holding.)

(Originally posted 012807)