Well, those marriage-therapy sessions on this week’s Dexter were almost as painful as enduring a seat on the analyst’s sofa yourself, didn’t you think? Oh, right: SPOILER ALERT: DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE “IF I HAD A HAMMER.”Now: If I had a hammer, I’d have been tempted to use it to at least warn Rita not to ask me to go buy more bread or milk whenever she’s mad at me. Once we got into the therapist’s office (and didn’t Roma Maffia look positively relieved to be away from Nip/Tuck?), it only took a few sessions for needy Rita to realize (“Duh,” as everyone was saying this night) that it’s hard for Dex to talk about his feelings, and that he still needs some space. Literally. “I need space to keep my stuff.”
By the end of the hour, she was happily handing him a padlock for his newly built back-yard shed. To me, this stuff, plus the LaGuerta-Batista official break-up subplot, took up time I wanted to be spending with…
Trinity — or rather, Arthur Mitchell, family man, teacher, church deacon, all-around good guy with a freakish attachment to his dead relatives. He’s proving to be a beautifully well-rounded character, isn’t he? The scenes of Arthur singing in church, squeezing his wife’s hand affectionately, and helping to build houses for the needy played to the gentler side of John Lithgow, an actor who can fine-tune the intelligence he radiates to portray suburban satisfaction.
That old theme — villain is the flip side of hero — is given a nice fresh twist in Dexter. That’s because Dexter is, all by himself, both hero and villain. So to have him encounter a man who’s done the Two-Face thing in some ways even more successfully than Dex, well, that’s unnerving for him, and thrilling for us.
And besides, the real core of this series isn’t death or crime, but the keeping of secrets – that’s what we identify with most intensely in Dexter Morgan. If we, like Dexter, are forced to acknowledge that there’s also a little Arthur “Trinity” Mitchell in us, that’s a dark place I want to keep exploring each week, don’t you?
By the way, a number of you Commenters were right when you wrote saying I should have given Jennifer Carpenter a lot of praise last week for her strikingly emotional acting in the parking lot where Lundy’s body had lain. Her distraught cry to her brother — “I’m broken!” — not only shook Dexter to his core, but also shook us as well. It was a great performance.
All the more reason, therefore, to see this week the way Deb has been brought back into danger as she pursues a clever but erroneous theory about who killed Lundy. As Dexter said in voiceover, now he has to worry about Deb coming into Trinity’s deadly view.
Did you watch Dexter this week? What did you think?
(And follow me on Twitter.)
Poor Dexter, he can’t kill Trinity before he first learn all his tricks about being “normal”.
how fun for us!
To Ken Tucker,
You have a hard job of practically having to watch everything on TV and giving a discriminating review of it.
But, but, but- I want to say – I don’t think you’re in your element with Dexter here. You just started blogging about him like 2 weeks ago, and this makes me think- have you watched any of the previous seasons (fully)??
Every season, every episode of Dex is filled with small time problems in the lives of the other Dexter characters- LaGuerta, Batista, Rita, etc. If you look back, they always had small roles which took time away from him killing his bro, or taking care of Doakes, or taking care of Miguel Prado.
Complaining about how they’re wasting time with the other stories on Dexter is like complaining why milk is white. This is Dexter, the series, and it has always been like this! They haven’t changed any of the structure of this show since episode 2, and they never will.
Writing about these things really makes me wonder – why are you bothering us with such useless comments?
I don’t think Ken is so much complaining about the shifting subplots than how lackluster those subplots are. When you’re left saying “just get on with this so we can reach the good parts”, that’s never a great sign.
I agree with Ken on this, and think last year had worse subplots. Besides Miguel and Dexter, I hardly cared about anything in season 3. Seasons 1 and 2 did a much better job in comparison. Season 4 is starting to get as sluggish as season 3, but I hope it doesn’t fall through the cracks.
Some great one-liners this week! “We run out of milk a lot, are you going to get me a cow too?” “I want to make sure I don’t step on my dlck” Love this show!
I don’t see how Jennifer Carpenter is skipped over each year for an Emmy. She’s fantastic as Debra. SO FLAWED. Go great to watch.
Well I must admit that Jennifer Carpenter was not so great in the first one or two seasons. However, she has greatly improved as the show has progressed and I am very impressed. She totally rocked last week.
Jennifer Carpenter absolutely deserves an Emmy-she is fantastic. I think Micheal C. Hall deserves it every year too.
It’s weird that Deb’s actions are always more interesting after she survived a near death experience; first with the Ice Truck Killer and now after getting shot in episode 4. As cruel as this sounds, almost dying is the best things that could happen to her characters.
I’m not Rita’s biggest fan but this episode really showed me y Rita is so important to Dexter…Rita is there as catalyst for Dexter’s evolution just like Trinity had 2 learn 2 evolve because really if Rita and the kids were no longer in his life he would be lost
Yeah, but can we have MUCH less of her in the episodes? I’m so sick of her whining.
When Deb said “I want to make sure I don’t step on my dick” and Dexter was like we don’t want that, I was cracking up. Deb always has the best one-liners. But after she was shot and she whispered to Lundy “stay with me” I actually cry. Deb is the reason I continue watching this show. I think the irriating thing for me about Rita is her whiny tone. If she didn’t seem like a whiny 12 year old child, she wouldn’t annoy me. They can get rid of the reporter and Quinn storyline. Boring, unnecessary.
I do agree that Rita is annoying, but it serves a purpose and without her the show would lose its backbone. We’re supposed to feel that way about her, so just deal with it. Plus every moment we get to watch Julie Benz is a gratifying one for me. Also, I think you should give additional praise to JC for this week’s jail scene. She was Phenomenal. And Lithgow’s sudden outburst was genius. The one major weakness is the pathetic LaGuerta-Batista romance. There’s just no chemistry there, and it doesn’t further the plot at all.
In contrast to everyone else I always like JC’s performances until that parking lot scene, which I thought was hammy and predictable. Also the revelations about Trinity, that he’s recreating the deaths of his sister, mother and father, were easily figured out weeks ago, which I thought was a little below the usual level of Dexter. Does anyone else think this is going to end with Trinity killing his family (a new cycle of three, although the genders are off). John Lithgow is the best thing about this season, you’ve got to love this guy.
I don’t think he’s going to kill his family. The genders aren’t off though. 2 females and 1 male. I’m kind of hoping he kills the reporter chick in the bathtub, makes Rita fall from a building, and kills Quinn by blunt force trama.
That was not hammy, it was sad. Hardcore Deb getting like that. You are crazy.
totally agree, deb breaking down was heart wrenching to watch. i love her character and how she plays tough against vulnerable so beautifully…..perfection!
I am just excited there is a TV Watch every week for my favorite show. I heart Dexter
It was a good episode. I liked that we learned more about why trinity kills in the way that he does.
I’ve liked seeing Dexter evolve through both Trinity and Rita. The writers have found a great way to make someone who doesn’t have feelings progress as a character. Not easy stuff to do!
I agree w/Wills, didnt like the Debra charactor 1st season, actually stopped watching after season 1 epp 2 because of her.. but gave season 2 a chance and have been watching since…
Rita’s charactor IS annoying.. but do you blame her after the whole ex hubby abuse?
John Lithgow- SO excited he’s this seasons killer. Been a fan since “Harry and the Hendersons”!!
I liked the Ep, but some of the characters are acting stupid. Deb predicts where the last trinity murder would happen, and Quinn just says she shouldn’t chase ghosts… dumb dumb dumb.
I was thinking the same thing – why didn’t Deb point that out to Quinn?
Please, please let Trinity kill Rita and that disgusting Asian DNA guy before Dexter dispatches him. I really don’t know how much longer I can take these two.
Jennifer Carpenter really does deserve an emmy nom
Oh and Rita is by far the most excruciatingly annoying character ever… Kudos to Julie Benz for being a great actor. Deb is HILARIOUS – “don’t want to step on my dick”