As we head into the final five episodes of?Dexter‘s seventh season (or the ‘Oh shit, another?plot twist’ episodes, as I like to call them), I think it’s important to take a look at what has been going wrong this year. Don’t get me wrong, this season is a thousand times better than that religious tosh we had to put up with last year, but there are still a couple of things bothering me.
If the rumours are true, and the next season of the show is due to be its last, then these problems need to be out the way for the show to end well. After all, I’m not going to give up on a show I’ve invested years of my life in, only to be disappointed by rapidly declining quality. Nobody needs another?Weeds …?
SPOILERS AHEAD, LOSERS!
The first glaring problem I would like to address in?Dexter?is the sudden disappearance of Harrison, Dexter’s son. ?Since Rita’s death at the end of the fourth season, Harrison has appeared sporadically throughout the show. His whereabouts is usually written sloppily into the narrative, most notably with the inclusion of Jamie Batista, Dexter’s live-in nanny who essentially raises the child for him.
Dexter’s status as an absentee parent has only gotten worse in the seventh season. In fact, Harrison was proving to be such a distraction for Dexter, that he has apparently sent him away to live with his grandparents instead. That’s nice, I’m sure little Harrison will be fine with knowing that his father abandoned him to kill people and bang murderers instead. Hey, I guess that’s what therapy is for.
My next objection is with Hannah King, Dexter’s new love interest. Of course, she is a serial killer as well as a professional gardener. Dexter covers up her crimes in order to bang her, and thus gets himself into another giant pile of shit.Hannah doesn’t come off as scary though, she’s just annoying. Personally, I can’t wait until the dramatic final episode in which?Dexter finally kills her. Come on, we all know it’s going to happen.
Furthermore, hasn’t the show already explored the whole ‘femme fatale’ crazy lunatic thing before? Yes they have. That girl Lila in the second season bears a striking resemblance to Hannah. Except that she was a brunette. And British. And a serial arsonist. You get what I mean …
When I heard that the main antagonist for this season was going to be the Eastern European mob, I wasn’t too thrilled. The whole organised crime thing has been done to death on television in the past decade, and Dexter is one of the shows that used to stay away from that generic bullshit. Isaak Sirko, the leader of the organisation, has a vendetta against Dexter for killing one of his associates. Despite being in an Eastern European crime syndicate, Isaak speaks like an upper-class Englishman, which is pretty off-putting when you’re trying to get invested in a story.
The organised crime narrative has given crooked cop Joey Quinn a lot of screen time. Sadly. Quinn has been on the show since the third season, and I have waited with baited breath since then for someone to just shoot him in the face. He constantly sticks his nose in where he souldn’t, and I believe he does all of this specifically to annoy me. I don’t like it.
There are some things that I love about this season. Mostly Deb. Her filthy vocabulary and fabulous hair make her one of the series’ only saving graces. Plus, there has been less of a focus on one story thread, allowing more to develop. That’s about it though. It’s enough to get me through until the end of this season, but the peeps at Showtime are going to need to do a lot of changing if they want me to come back for next season.
Tanya says
I’m watching Dexter on Netflix & am midway through season 8.
I agree, Deb is the only saving grace. Her character is interesting & not annoying. Also, she is the best female actress on the show. Lila & Hannah, both so similar, both so annoying, both have annoying voices & ways of speaking. Dexter became so annoying when he broke his code & didn’t kill a killer. His relationship with Hannah is annoying & makes the show boring. I would love to see him kill her. Would make it more interesting.