lauren stern enjoys a good bowl of serial …
It’s officially the beginning of the end and as John Lithgow said, “All good things must come to an end and all good series must come to an end too.”
I’ll try to keep this in mind over the next 12 weeks as I watch the last season of one of my favorite shows — Dexter. It’s crazy how much has gone on in this show from the moment I started watching until now, and even with the first episode down, I’m still on the edge of my seat theorizing about how it will end. But for now, I’ll be going through the motions, enjoying this as much as I can for as long as I have it.
Season 8 starts off six months after LaGuerta’s (Lauren Velez) death, and we learn that Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) is literally a mess. She’s in Ft. Lauderdale now, spending her time having sex with a random drunk dealer, doing drugs, drinking, and smoking. She’s completely off the radar for everyone in Miami Metro including Dexter, the one person who used to be her salvation when things went sour. Apparently, this is all for a case, but it’s clear she’s using these vices to control her twisted psyche after shooting LaGuerta in last season’s finale.
As for Dexter (Michael C. Hall), who was a witness and almost a victim to the shooting, it seems he was totally fine until he really found out what Deb’s been up to her and her feelings towards him post-shooting. Now he’s snapping at everyone including Harrison, strangling random strangers for cutting him off, and generally losing his shit for no reason. Throughout the episode he tries to warn Debra of who and what she is involved in, and winds up destroying her more by killing her new guy (in self-defense, surprisingly). This kill, of course happened to be right before Deb reached a break on the case, a situation that involved her new beau and a dangerous hitman named El Sapo.
Though it seems like Season 8 will continue a lot of ground from last season’s finale, there’s a lot more on the table than expected. The biggest twist is Dr. Vogel (Charlotte Rampling), who seems to know everything about Dexter, including Harry’s code. It’s still unclear about how she obtained all this information, but now that she’s working with Miami Metro on a new case it’s going to be even more difficult for Dexter to maintain appearances. Though she may surprise me in the end, I have a feeling that Dexter “keeping her close” is going to be a bad idea two, three, maybe four episodes from now. She seems very, very untrustworthy, even though it seems in the season preview she is somewhat supportive of Dexter’s serial killer lifestyle.
Along with all of this, we have a few other story lines including Quinn (Desmond Harrington) and Jamie’s (Aimee Garcia) relationship, which I kind of called last season. It’s very much on the DL right now, but I’m routing for them in the end. Despite how I felt about Quinn over the last few seasons, I’ve always believed he deserved a great girl like Jamie. We also have Angel (David Zayas), who is clearly distraught after the loss of LaGuerta. Nothing definitive has happened yet but it would be really interesting to see him follow in LaGuerta’s footsteps by tailing Dexter for the Bay Harbor Butcher case.
Overall, Season 8 is shaping up to be a great one. There’s so much that is going to happen and I can’t wait to have anxiety attacks over the twists and turns throughout the next few weeks. It’s going to be one hell of a roller coaster ride and despite how much I’m going to miss Dexter, I’m looking forward to see it go out with a bang.
http://youtu.be/6ckzE5vT0wc
All photos credit: Showtime
