Season seven and eight of Dexter proved to be fairly easy to watch over
most of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend and I had finished off the
last six episodes by the following Saturday. If you have not yet seen these episodes (or the series as a
whole) and wish to avoid spoilers you should probably not read any further in
this post.
The last two seasons focused on Debra Morgan’s awareness of and
complicity in the crimes of her brother. This called for actress Jennifer
Carpenter to have an even greater involvement in the series, and based on my previous
comments regarding her talents as an actress, this was clearly a problem. I may
have to reassess whether or not my problems with this character are related to
the actress’ performance or the way the character was written. I’m pretty sure,
based on the way they tied up her story line, that the writers hated Debra
Morgan.
These seasons also featured Hannah McKay (Yvonne Strahovski) as Dexter’s latest love interest, who was
little more than a poor shadow of Rita (Julie Benz) and Lumen (Julia Stiles). As
others have pointed out it seems as if Hannah was shoehorned into the last
season to give Dexter the possibility of a happy ending, a new distraction for
him to deal with and something for him to make a noble sacrifice over at the
very end. And the last scene of the series, the reveal that Dexter was still
alive and working in the timber industry (in Portland?) was rather pointless. Dexter
is no better off alive than he would have been having died in the storm aboard
the Slice of Life (his boat).
Although not quite as good a series as I was led to believe, Dexter is
clearly entertaining and compelling television. For those with the stomach to
deal with the blood and the darkness, it is an excellent way to spend a free
afternoon.
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