There's a reason why networks send out screener DVDs of TV shows several episodes at a time. Television is a serial medium of which a crucial aspect is judging a season as a whole, rather than by its first episode. I, myself, am not one of those lucky critics who receive DVD screeners of episodes (get on that, Post!), but I've thankfully waited two weeks before submitting a review of Dexter's fifth season.
Dexter, the ongoing tale of a serial killer who hunts other serial killers, opens its fifth season as sharp and strong as it's ever been. Thanks to some lobbying from Michael C. Hall, the star who plays the show's namesake, Dexter Morgan, the producers elected to begin season five immediately following the tragic events of season four's finale, as opposed to several months or years in the future. The effect is nothing short of brutally brilliant. The premiere, humorously titled My Bad
follows Dexter through every gut-wrenching moment that a person must go through when a loved one dies ... violently.
New show-runner Chip Johannessen (who takes over for former producer Clyde Phillips) takes the audience from the murder, to the police arriving, to the funeral home, to the informing of family members, to the guilt, to the funeral - all in 50 minutes. The painstaking attention to every dark detail recalls a similar sequence from the film Mystic River and may end up being the saddest and most brutal hour of television this season. The episode seems to pose the question which will serve as the basis for the fifth season: What happens when a hardened serial killer must actually face the death of someone he loves? It's a fascinating concept that My Bad explores in detail.
Sadly, this concept is almost all but forgotten in the second episode of the season, entitled Hello Bandit. Dexter's adopted children, Astor and Cody, opt to live with their grandparents rather than Dexter, immediately killing one of season five's most prominent potential themes: How does Dexter balance being a single father and a killer? Dexter also discovers a new serial killer to hunt, confirming once again that Miami in the Dexter-verse has a 1:2 serial killer to civilian ratio.
If season five of Dexter honors the thesis of its first episode, then audiences are in for a treat. But if it retreats back into a serial-killer-of-the-week formula, then a petition should be started to bring back John Lithgow's Trinity Killer ... by any narrative means necessary.
- Alec Bojalad is a junior studying journalism. Send him an e-mail at ab239807@ohiou.edu.
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Culture
Alec Bojalad
