Just when it seemed like this season was growing into something special, it all comes toppling down.
Dexter, more than most antihero-led shows, has always fought hard to justify itself to viewers. We’ve been told Dexter kills because of an irresistible compulsion — a near-possessive force — called the Dark Passenger. And we’ve bought it — until this week.
“The Dark… Whatever” not only stands as the weakest episode of the season, it also shoots down what may be the crux of the whole show.
In an entirely cliched story, Hannah’s ex-con dad shows up and wants money to help pay his gambling debts. Dexter feels ready to snap after her dad blackmails her with information about an old murder he’ll turn over to the police.
“I can cut a body up into pieces,” Dexter narrates as he holds his crying girlfriend, “but how do I help Hannah put herself back together?”
The pair, acting like a regular domestic couple, talk about Dexter’s Dark Passenger throughout the episode, and Hannah continually tries to convince him that such a thing doesn’t exist.
Meanwhile, LaGuerta pieces together pretty much everything an investigator could possibly need to convict Dexter of being the Bay Harbor Butcher during her uneasy chats with Matthews. But she’s still not making any official moves. Get on with it!
And — oh yeah — Quinn shoots and kills Isaak’s former lackey, George, and uses Nadia to frame it as self-defense to a skeptical Batista. I’m relieved that story line is over — it’s been a mountain of cliches the whole time. What kind of writer thought it would be a good idea?
Finishing up the forced and pointless Phantom story line, Dexter conducts his own investigation of a Joseph Jensen after acquitting the arson investigator. He encounters Ghost/Hallucination/Conscience Harry.
“I gave you the code,” Harry says in his most (only?) important scene of the season. “The Dark Passenger was all yours.”
Dexter is in disbelief. (We are too.)
“I meant you were traumatized, Dexter, not possessed.”
Dexter begins to realize he’s responsible for all his kills, and Harry says, “It’s much scarier to think the Dark Passenger is no more real than I am,” before fading/disappearing/teleporting away.
Ready to kill Jensen on his table, Dexter hesitates and calls Miami Metro to the scene. It’s a breakthrough for Dexter, an admission of defeat and an acceptance of Deb’s (and the law’s) supremacy. It gives us hope.
But then Dexter goes and kills Hannah’s dad.
“You don’t have to do this,” he tells Dexter as so many other victims have throughout the show’s run.
“That’s what I’m realizing,” Dexter admits. “I don’t have to. But I want to. Even though you don’t meet my code, I really, really want to.”
What the hell?
“You got the devil inside you, boy,” the oafish-but-definitely-undeserving-of-death dad says.
To which Dexter replies, “Nah, I think it’s just me.” And stab.
“The Dark… Whatever” as a whole and this scene specifically drive a stake through the heart of any long-time viewer by essentially throwing out seven seasons of justification for the main character’s otherwise-reprehensible actions. Dexter has killed because of provocation and irrationality before, but premeditatedly killing Hannah’s dad — especially after discovering he didn’t inherently need to kill — just shows how Dexter is a serial killer, and a petulant one at that.
Early seasons of the show hinged on the tagline, “America’s favorite serial killer.” He was a lovable, if flawed, vigilante for justice. He had a strict code. There were exceptions, but those proved the rule. All the while, he has claimed fealty to an impulse he calls the Dark Passenger.
In a very real sense, the Dark Passenger has always been the audience surrogate. As viewers, we drool for more blood slides and savor each kill. We want him to find bad guys and cut ’em up. But we don’t want to just watch an asshole kill people he doesn’t like.
The montage that closed out “Argentina” tactfully showed the toxic effects Dexter has on everyone he knows. But that’s on a whole different level from making the protagonist of a show entirely unlovable.
I always wonder about the writing process whenever a show makes such a huge misstep. Michael C. Hall has a lot invested in his flagship show, which he’s been producing for a while now. Was he outraged when he got the script? Was this plot — gasp! — his idea? How did so many people let Dexter go so far astray?
There are many better ways to have handled the revelation that the Dark Passenger doesn’t exist, such as in the series finale, right before Dexter dies. (He has to die, right?) Now, we have to live with this jerk for many more episodes. I’m fearful for the future of this show.
The worst part about “The Dark… Whatever” is how it could be seen as a retcon of the stellar opening seasons. If Dexter’s been killing because he wants to this whole time, he’s just an insane menace to society. Sure, he’s been killing mostly bad people, but now he’s a monster. He needs to go.
And that’s a terrible way for a viewer to feel about the main character of a show with an entire season remaining. Maybe the title should have tipped me off. Whatever, indeed.
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