jason stives looks at the return of the avenging angel …
The plight of the character of Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), the main character of Showtime’s hit series Dexter, has been very congruent with the development of his dark passenger persona. Over the first four seasons, Dexter was seemingly a miserable and chaotic killer living by a very constitutional code handed down to him. It was no doubt his own religious undertaking, a personal set of morals that prevented him from straying too far into his killer instincts and making his actions seem, well, justified. Season 4, by most fans’ popular beliefs, has been the best, with Dexter delving into the world of Arthur Mitchell, the alleged Trinity killer, leading to the untimely death of his wife, Rita, in the season’s final moments. Consequently, Season 5 may be the show’s weakest, lacking a straight and narrow direction to Dexter’s motives beyond grieving the loss of his wife and trying to keep his personal life in tact while feeding his murderous hunger.
Last night’s Season 6 premiere once again greatly delve into a different tone and direction, but thankfully seem to revive Dexter’s business as usual mentality. As he says in the opening murder scene, sometimes you just have a good year. Instead of grounding Dexter in a sense of humanity he was never intended to grasp, he is back to the killer with a secret heart of gold and to more humorous moments. Indeed, last night’s episode, “Those Kind Of Things,” played a dark comedic tone than expected, but it worked perfectly into reestablishing Dexter’s moral code (with James Remar returning more frequently last night as his late father Harry). The episode mainly focused once again on catching one murderer who got away, in this case a former jock that Dexter attended high school with who faked his high school sweetheart’s suicide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsvGslI_KcM
Dexter’s pursuit of said jock leads to his 20-year high school reunion, where some rather amusing moments ensue. Dexter is by no means a comedy, but it does always lay a comedic undercurrent to many situations and seeing Dexter pursue his pray while being bombarded by former classmates was pretty amusing. A special shout-out also goes to Dexter’s awkward dance moves and his notion of “I don’t know what Hammer Time is, nor understand why it’s different from regular time.” Michael C. Hall has always been able to bring a charm to his performances before completely burning it down by being his sadistic self, and the final kill of the episode no doubt played up both sides considering he had just come from a romantic interlude with a former classmate in the chemistry lab.
Now, I’m not as cynical as most critics, so most of this interwoven humor and the comical escapades of Dexter trying to get a blood sample of his prey during a flag football game I found to be very funny. As long as this doesn’t become regular, that’s fine, but what makes it work is how its firmly taken Dexter out of his normal comfort zone with him wrestling less with himself and being more focused on his mission in life. Missions in life play perfectly oddly enough into this season’s theme, which already saw its ground work laid last night.
It doesn’t go without saying that the show does have a theme beginning to unfold as the idea of spirituality and overall religious belief has come into play. Interwoven amongst the above business as usual, two religious freaks in the guise of Edward James Olmos and Colin Hanks are taking Holy Roller vengeance on the roadside fruit sellers of Miami. The motive of said murderer has not been identified, but this makes for a worthy adversary. Seeing how Dexter is someone who sees his motives as righteous and to have two murderers who share that sentiment but on a higher power belief should make for some interesting episodes. This helps with Dexter’s new found interest in faith brought on by his sudden desire to not see his son Harrison turn into someone like him, resulting in his questioning of the ideas of belief. Dexter’s quest for understanding doesn’t add much to him as much as it does to his love for his son, so expecting him to have a sudden understanding and acceptance of religion is less than likely.
There are of course those lingering subplots that move established characters along but seem to hold no heavy weight. Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) once again is still with Quinn (Desmond Harrington), but this time his erratic behavior is getting to Deb and her constantly suspicious mindset, even though his behavior is resulting from his failure to ask Deb to marry him. Wow! That was quick, and while we are at it, we have a divorce between Batista (Lauren Velez) and LaGuerta (David Zayas) apparently done to restore a civility to Miami Metro. Okay, don’t really see the purpose here and this storyline and Batista’s subsequent story with his sister (who is Harrison’s babysitter) doesn’t hold much clout in the long run.
It’s very hard to review Dexter, as each season is more or less a desire to see what new threat may come more than expanding Dexter Morgan’s character and the world around him. It’s nice to see they are trying to avoid a love interest for him this time, especially since it normally results in Dexter trying so greatly to confide his potential for humanity in them. Dexter will always be associated with his dark passenger, and it’s important not to try and develop what his character ultimately cannot be, and tonight’s premiere seemingly tried to go with that idea, and hopefully it will stay that way.
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Very good)
