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- Review: Dexter -- "The Dark Defender"
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- Review: Dexter -- "The Dark Defender"
Review: Dexter -- "The Dark Defender"
- By Seanan McGuire
- Published 11/11/2007
- Dexter
- Unrated
Seanan McGuire
A freelance author, poet and musician living in Northern California with an assortment of books, toys, and Siamese cats, Seanan McGuire specializes in folklore, fandom, and preparing for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
View all articles by Seanan McGuire
Everybody's keeping secrets. Sometimes people take those secrets to the grave. And sometimes, the dead start talking.
Previously on Dexter, the secret of our dear, dismayed Dexter's (Michael C. Hall) private dumping ground came out, thanks to some scuba divers with bad taste in locations, and FBI Special Agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine) has been called to scenic, frequently deadly Miami to head up the search for the so-called 'Bay Harbor Butcher', since the good people of Miami are beginning to feel like they have more than their fair share of serial killers. Dexter's own sister, the delightfully disheveled Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), is a part of that team, as is the filthy-minded Vince Masuka (C. S. Lee), whose own forensic skills may be enough to sink poor Dexter's battleship. Oh, and Rita (Julie Benz) has a few issues of her own. Not only is her ex-husband dead, but she believes Dexter's a heroin addict, her mother (played with some serious Mommy-knows-best wickedness by JoBeth Williams) has come to stay, and Dexter's sponsor in Narcotics Anonymous, the lovely Lila (Jaime Murray), is perhaps a little too much the spice to Rita's sweet for Rita to be exactly comfortable with her. Sorry, Rita, babe. You started it.
That's a lot of 'previously on' for the fifth episode in the season, especially when you consider the number of storylines I've left off entirely, like the fact that Sgt. Doakes (Erik King) closed episode four by shooting a man, or the part where Lt. LaGuerta (Lauren Velez) literally just slept her way back into her old job. I mean, let's get real, here: if I recap the entire season at the start of every review, eventually, I'm going to run out of funny ways to introduce the names of the various actors. That's the trouble with truly serial dramas. There's nothing that exists in a vacuum.
Now that we've reestablished our connection to the show's present-day, let's get started on examining the episode itself. Context is king around here.
Dexter -- the character, not the show -- is really at his best when doing one of two things: killing people in horrible and creative ways, and regarding the rest of the human race as if he were an anthropologist and they were his topic of study. I understand the decision to humanize the character as the show settles in for the long haul. I just don't necessarily support it, because my favorite Dexter is the one that opens the episode, standing in line for coffee and commenting inwardly on the people around him. It's just so much fun. But the fun can't last, and before too terribly long, it's down to business, as he grills darling Debra on the algae Masuka found on the rocks Dexter himself used to sink the bodies of the Bay Harbor Butcher's victims. Ah, the trials and tribulations of maintaining a secret identity.
Debra is too distracted with her own fledgling relationship to notice that Dexter's starting to fray around the edges. Gabriel may be closer to 'Mr. Right Now' than 'Mr. Right', but that's okay; they're taking things slow after their racetrack beginning, and spending a lot of nights 'cuddling'. Dexter, who just wants to be sure he'll never see his sister naked again, is pretty much okay with that.
Touching as these little personal moments can be, they won't sustain an episode: bring on the plot. Or, at least, bring on a crime scene. In a comic book store, no less, where I amused myself by playing 'spot the title' with the set dressing in a vague effort to determine when the scene was filmed. They were actually a lot less mocking about comic fans than TV dramas tend to be, and their lack of company-specific swag can be forgiven, given rights issues, but I do have to wonder: how is it that every would-be comic creator on television is not just immensely talented, they're somehow able to conquer giant color posters of their creations out of nowhere? Seriously. The 'Dark Defender' poster was a great conceit, and it opened a lot of opportunities throughout the episode, but it would have worked just as well (and been a lot more realistic) as a sketchbook of pen and ink drawings.
(Am I complaining about realism as regards a show about a man who kills criminals for fun? I suppose I am.)
The case gives LaGuerta a chance to grill Doakes a bit about the shooting from the last episode, and it's clear that this episode is going to be a lot less careful to keep its storylines distinct. The whole season has been trending that way, so it's not all that jarring. Doakes assures her that he's fine, which she seems dubious about, but the scene is pretty well covered, so it's time to return to the station. Only not, because we're actually going to follow the plot to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, where Lila and Dexter are trying to look less terminally bored than that actually are. Dexter takes refuge in sleep, and a dream sequence where he takes on the character of the Dark Defender, and saves his mother's life. It's painful. It's perfect.
Lila wants to know about his dreams. Maybe it's the boredom, and maybe it's the recent stress, but Dexter actually tells her, which marks, I believe, the first time he's admitted to anyone other than Brian that his mother was murdered. Lila says he needs closure. Dexter's expression seems to imply he'd be happier with a chainsaw.
Quick flash on Debra, who has clearly never had a healthy relationship in her life, because she thinks the way to deal with dating a sane, stable guy who lets you handcuff him to the bed on the first date is to go through his things at the first possible opportunity. Hint, Debra: no.
Gabriel takes it with better grace than most would, maybe because she's both hot and has those handcuffs, and assures her he didn't know she was the Ice Truck Killer's ex. Awwwwww. Bonding. Also cuddling. Let's leave these crazy kids and see what's on the other side of yet another scene-cut -- this is a jumpy episode.
It's an armadillo! I love Miami. It's an armadillo in Rita's living room, which is understandably stressful, although not as stressful as Rita's mother confronting him with a bunch of NA brochures and telling him, in very polite terms, to get the hell away from his daughter. Since Rita clearly has a type, and Dexter's neither beating her nor stealing her purse to buy more smack, this seems very short-sighted, but hey. The woman's not here for her fine grasp of logic, she's here to make Dexter's life hell, and she's doing an awesome job.
Dexter is so not having a good day, and it just gets worse as he heads for the station. The algae results are in, and those rocks came from one of only three marinas -- oh, and right, one of those marinas is the place where Dexter docks his boat. His search for his mother's killers leads him to a name, Santos Jiminez, an address for the man in a town not all that far from Miami, and a series of case tapes featuring none other than Harry Morgan himself, interrogating the lovely Laura Mosley (Dexter's biological mother) about a shipment of cocaine. Dexter's mother wasn't a drug dealer; she was a police informant. And the man who swore to protect her? To keep her safe? Was Harry. Dexter is, understandably, not pleased. I can't blame him.
(Normally, I try to split the various plots as much as possible. This episode is making it impossible. Please forgive me for my uncharacteristic linearity.)
Our case of the week has a suspect. It turns out the victim was a blogger, and, as everyone knows, bloggers kill each other over online disagreements all the time. LaGuerta assigns officers to stake out the suspect's residence, while she and Doakes will stake out his job. Because going on a stakeout is so much fun. Actually, for LaGuerta and Doakes, it just may be; seems they used to kill time while waiting for suspects by getting frisky. That's...disturbingly easy to picture. And kinda neat. Alas, there is no hostile police sex this episode, as they have to stop chatting to go and apprehend their guy. Sadness. Maybe next time.
Lila, meanwhile, hits the station looking for Dexter, and sweet-talks her way inside, by way of Angel, who's always been susceptible to that sort of thing. Dex is having fun with blood-splatter testing, and isn't all that pleased to see Lila (who is, frankly, being a little bit creepy with this whole illicit sneaking into his workplace thing). She pressures him about getting closure on his mother's death, which is also a bit creepy, given that he only just admitted it to her. He says he's found the one surviving man involved. Bad plan, because one thing leads to another, and before you can say 'Rita's not going to like this very much', he's agreed to take a road trip with Lila to Naples, the town where Jiminez can presumably be found. As he's on the way out, Debra catches him to say that the Butcher may be using Coral Cove Marina, and that he should really move his boat. Because he didn't have enough to worry about.
So we have Debra snooping on her new man, Dexter and Lila on a road trip that Rita knows nothing about, Rita's mother trying to get rid of Dexter, and Dexter getting ready to confront the man who helped to kill his mother. Can any of these threads end well? The answer to that is pretty plain. The fun is getting there.
"The Dark Defender" seems set on raising questions about as many relationships and situations as it possibly can, not hesitating between blows to give the audience a chance to recover. Did Harry have an affair with Laura Mosley? If he knew her before her death, and promised to take care of 'her boys', why did he only save Dexter -- why didn't he honor that promise with regards to Brian? What's the deal with Doakes and LaGuerta? When is Dexter actually going to get to kill somebody again? And perhaps most importantly, and most worrisomely, what will the twist at the episode's end do to our dearest, deadliest dark defender? I guess we'll need to wait and see.
This episode is Tim Schlattmann's third (the prior two, "Truth Be Told" and "Return to Sender", focused heavily on Dexter's interactions with the Ice Truck Killer; maybe that's why he handles Laura so very well), and his second collaboration with director Keith Gordon, who was also responsible for "Truth Be Told". Their experience working together has definitely paid off, especially considering that they had previously worked with a large portion of the returning cast: the dialog is crisp and natural, and while the episode jumps scenes with sometimes surprising frequency, it never becomes jarring.
I appreciate the depth of this season's multiple mysteries, although the lack of a real, concrete villain -- how are they supposed to catch the Bay Harbor Butcher when he's also our hero and title character? -- and comparatively low body count are beginning to worry me just a bit. Not so much because I fear the show will lose its way as, well. It just means that when things go wrong, they're gonna go really wrong.
The dialog, direction, plot, and momentum, are all excellent, and we've hit the point where missing an episode is definitely a bad idea. The water's deep out here. Be careful you don't get in over your head.
Episode 2x05, "The Dark Defender"
Writer: Tim Schlattmann
Director: Keith Gordon
Guest stars: JoBeth Williams, Dave Baez
Previously on Dexter, the secret of our dear, dismayed Dexter's (Michael C. Hall) private dumping ground came out, thanks to some scuba divers with bad taste in locations, and FBI Special Agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine) has been called to scenic, frequently deadly Miami to head up the search for the so-called 'Bay Harbor Butcher', since the good people of Miami are beginning to feel like they have more than their fair share of serial killers. Dexter's own sister, the delightfully disheveled Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), is a part of that team, as is the filthy-minded Vince Masuka (C. S. Lee), whose own forensic skills may be enough to sink poor Dexter's battleship. Oh, and Rita (Julie Benz) has a few issues of her own. Not only is her ex-husband dead, but she believes Dexter's a heroin addict, her mother (played with some serious Mommy-knows-best wickedness by JoBeth Williams) has come to stay, and Dexter's sponsor in Narcotics Anonymous, the lovely Lila (Jaime Murray), is perhaps a little too much the spice to Rita's sweet for Rita to be exactly comfortable with her. Sorry, Rita, babe. You started it.
That's a lot of 'previously on' for the fifth episode in the season, especially when you consider the number of storylines I've left off entirely, like the fact that Sgt. Doakes (Erik King) closed episode four by shooting a man, or the part where Lt. LaGuerta (Lauren Velez) literally just slept her way back into her old job. I mean, let's get real, here: if I recap the entire season at the start of every review, eventually, I'm going to run out of funny ways to introduce the names of the various actors. That's the trouble with truly serial dramas. There's nothing that exists in a vacuum.
Now that we've reestablished our connection to the show's present-day, let's get started on examining the episode itself. Context is king around here.
Dexter -- the character, not the show -- is really at his best when doing one of two things: killing people in horrible and creative ways, and regarding the rest of the human race as if he were an anthropologist and they were his topic of study. I understand the decision to humanize the character as the show settles in for the long haul. I just don't necessarily support it, because my favorite Dexter is the one that opens the episode, standing in line for coffee and commenting inwardly on the people around him. It's just so much fun. But the fun can't last, and before too terribly long, it's down to business, as he grills darling Debra on the algae Masuka found on the rocks Dexter himself used to sink the bodies of the Bay Harbor Butcher's victims. Ah, the trials and tribulations of maintaining a secret identity.
Debra is too distracted with her own fledgling relationship to notice that Dexter's starting to fray around the edges. Gabriel may be closer to 'Mr. Right Now' than 'Mr. Right', but that's okay; they're taking things slow after their racetrack beginning, and spending a lot of nights 'cuddling'. Dexter, who just wants to be sure he'll never see his sister naked again, is pretty much okay with that.
Touching as these little personal moments can be, they won't sustain an episode: bring on the plot. Or, at least, bring on a crime scene. In a comic book store, no less, where I amused myself by playing 'spot the title' with the set dressing in a vague effort to determine when the scene was filmed. They were actually a lot less mocking about comic fans than TV dramas tend to be, and their lack of company-specific swag can be forgiven, given rights issues, but I do have to wonder: how is it that every would-be comic creator on television is not just immensely talented, they're somehow able to conquer giant color posters of their creations out of nowhere? Seriously. The 'Dark Defender' poster was a great conceit, and it opened a lot of opportunities throughout the episode, but it would have worked just as well (and been a lot more realistic) as a sketchbook of pen and ink drawings.
(Am I complaining about realism as regards a show about a man who kills criminals for fun? I suppose I am.)
The case gives LaGuerta a chance to grill Doakes a bit about the shooting from the last episode, and it's clear that this episode is going to be a lot less careful to keep its storylines distinct. The whole season has been trending that way, so it's not all that jarring. Doakes assures her that he's fine, which she seems dubious about, but the scene is pretty well covered, so it's time to return to the station. Only not, because we're actually going to follow the plot to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, where Lila and Dexter are trying to look less terminally bored than that actually are. Dexter takes refuge in sleep, and a dream sequence where he takes on the character of the Dark Defender, and saves his mother's life. It's painful. It's perfect.
Lila wants to know about his dreams. Maybe it's the boredom, and maybe it's the recent stress, but Dexter actually tells her, which marks, I believe, the first time he's admitted to anyone other than Brian that his mother was murdered. Lila says he needs closure. Dexter's expression seems to imply he'd be happier with a chainsaw.
Quick flash on Debra, who has clearly never had a healthy relationship in her life, because she thinks the way to deal with dating a sane, stable guy who lets you handcuff him to the bed on the first date is to go through his things at the first possible opportunity. Hint, Debra: no.
It's an armadillo! I love Miami. It's an armadillo in Rita's living room, which is understandably stressful, although not as stressful as Rita's mother confronting him with a bunch of NA brochures and telling him, in very polite terms, to get the hell away from his daughter. Since Rita clearly has a type, and Dexter's neither beating her nor stealing her purse to buy more smack, this seems very short-sighted, but hey. The woman's not here for her fine grasp of logic, she's here to make Dexter's life hell, and she's doing an awesome job.
Dexter is so not having a good day, and it just gets worse as he heads for the station. The algae results are in, and those rocks came from one of only three marinas -- oh, and right, one of those marinas is the place where Dexter docks his boat. His search for his mother's killers leads him to a name, Santos Jiminez, an address for the man in a town not all that far from Miami, and a series of case tapes featuring none other than Harry Morgan himself, interrogating the lovely Laura Mosley (Dexter's biological mother) about a shipment of cocaine. Dexter's mother wasn't a drug dealer; she was a police informant. And the man who swore to protect her? To keep her safe? Was Harry. Dexter is, understandably, not pleased. I can't blame him.
(Normally, I try to split the various plots as much as possible. This episode is making it impossible. Please forgive me for my uncharacteristic linearity.)
Our case of the week has a suspect. It turns out the victim was a blogger, and, as everyone knows, bloggers kill each other over online disagreements all the time. LaGuerta assigns officers to stake out the suspect's residence, while she and Doakes will stake out his job. Because going on a stakeout is so much fun. Actually, for LaGuerta and Doakes, it just may be; seems they used to kill time while waiting for suspects by getting frisky. That's...disturbingly easy to picture. And kinda neat. Alas, there is no hostile police sex this episode, as they have to stop chatting to go and apprehend their guy. Sadness. Maybe next time.
Lila, meanwhile, hits the station looking for Dexter, and sweet-talks her way inside, by way of Angel, who's always been susceptible to that sort of thing. Dex is having fun with blood-splatter testing, and isn't all that pleased to see Lila (who is, frankly, being a little bit creepy with this whole illicit sneaking into his workplace thing). She pressures him about getting closure on his mother's death, which is also a bit creepy, given that he only just admitted it to her. He says he's found the one surviving man involved. Bad plan, because one thing leads to another, and before you can say 'Rita's not going to like this very much', he's agreed to take a road trip with Lila to Naples, the town where Jiminez can presumably be found. As he's on the way out, Debra catches him to say that the Butcher may be using Coral Cove Marina, and that he should really move his boat. Because he didn't have enough to worry about.
So we have Debra snooping on her new man, Dexter and Lila on a road trip that Rita knows nothing about, Rita's mother trying to get rid of Dexter, and Dexter getting ready to confront the man who helped to kill his mother. Can any of these threads end well? The answer to that is pretty plain. The fun is getting there.
"The Dark Defender" seems set on raising questions about as many relationships and situations as it possibly can, not hesitating between blows to give the audience a chance to recover. Did Harry have an affair with Laura Mosley? If he knew her before her death, and promised to take care of 'her boys', why did he only save Dexter -- why didn't he honor that promise with regards to Brian? What's the deal with Doakes and LaGuerta? When is Dexter actually going to get to kill somebody again? And perhaps most importantly, and most worrisomely, what will the twist at the episode's end do to our dearest, deadliest dark defender? I guess we'll need to wait and see.
This episode is Tim Schlattmann's third (the prior two, "Truth Be Told" and "Return to Sender", focused heavily on Dexter's interactions with the Ice Truck Killer; maybe that's why he handles Laura so very well), and his second collaboration with director Keith Gordon, who was also responsible for "Truth Be Told". Their experience working together has definitely paid off, especially considering that they had previously worked with a large portion of the returning cast: the dialog is crisp and natural, and while the episode jumps scenes with sometimes surprising frequency, it never becomes jarring.
I appreciate the depth of this season's multiple mysteries, although the lack of a real, concrete villain -- how are they supposed to catch the Bay Harbor Butcher when he's also our hero and title character? -- and comparatively low body count are beginning to worry me just a bit. Not so much because I fear the show will lose its way as, well. It just means that when things go wrong, they're gonna go really wrong.
The dialog, direction, plot, and momentum, are all excellent, and we've hit the point where missing an episode is definitely a bad idea. The water's deep out here. Be careful you don't get in over your head.
Episode 2x05, "The Dark Defender"
Writer: Tim Schlattmann
Director: Keith Gordon
Guest stars: JoBeth Williams, Dave Baez