Dexter 06x06 ‐ ‘Just Let Go’ So I think it’s now fair for me to say that this is the WORST season of Dexter yet, and also that you would be hard‐pressed to find a more laughably bad show on air at the moment, at least within reasonable limits. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy watching on some level, but I also have a good appreciation of how poor these episodes are. Anyway, moving on. This week is, again, weirdly inconsistent. The focus of the episode shifts from Dexter tracking Travis in order to find Gellar, to Dexter trying to gain some measure of revenge against Nick, who shot Brother Sam, who wasn’t dead after all (but now most certainly is). This is all well and good, until you realise that this just serves to pull Dexter further away from the Doomsday Killers, and allows them to continue doing their own thing while Miami Metro fuck about trying to find them. And, given Brother Sam is now dead, I feel a little annoyed. It’s now more than clear, in spite of Mos Def’s admirable performances, that Brother Sam was merely a device to prompt Dexter to question his value system, and to try to move away from the darkness. The show has tried to do this before, most notably in the second season, however it was always worked with far more subtlety and nuance than this. And this is made even more disappointing that they killed off Brother Sam, who was actually quite an interesting, albeit stereotypical, character. Another gripe I have is this: The entire premise of this season was that Dexter was going to be ‘feeling like his old self again’, and we were definitely led to believe that this meant he would be killing lots of dudes. The first few episodes stuck to this to some extent, and it’s not so much that I need Dexter to be doing his ritual killing, but the last few episodes have strayed into some seriously boring territory, and I’m not sure that even the writer’s know what they are doing at this point. Finally, on the Miami Metro front, Deb feels alienated from her old buddies now that she’s lieutenant (surely she could have foreseen this), and Quinn and Angel have to interview that girl Quinn slept with last episode as she’s now a material witness (happened in season 4). Oh and LaGuerta got a total of 29 seconds on screen this week. Nice one! So happy about this development! Eventually, Deb throws a party (sorry LaGuerta, you’re not invited), Quinn turns up drunk, angry that Deb wasn’t jealous when she found out that he slept with that girl, Masuka’s new intern flirts with Angel’s cute sister, Quinn interrupts and starts making cool jokes about her butt and how nice it is (‘I can’t help it, she’s got an outrageous ass’), and then Angel punches him in the face. What is wrong with these people? Oh and Doomsday Killers don’t kill captured girl because Travis has a conscience. Oh I almost forgot. BRIAN’S BACK. As in Rudy. Dexter’s dead serial killer brother. The reveal at the end is meant to be super shocking, but is really not. Vaguely surprising, maybe. I figure Brian’s back because Brother Sam’s now gone; Brother Sam represents the light, Brian the dark. So now, at roughly halfway through the season, my guess is that we’re going to be seeing a lot of Dexter having conversations with Brian about his ‘dark passenger’, and maybe abandoning his moral facade (but probably not). As stupid as this all is, I was kinda happy to see Brian, if only for the fact that it reminded me of the first season, when there was still hope for this show. Also, more hints that Gellar is a figment of Travis’s imagination: again, no one acknowledges him in the marketplace, and he just tells Travis what to buy; Dexter doesn’t get a glimpse of him; he’s absent in all the scenes where Travis is preparing the branding thing, as well as when Travis frees the girl. This may all be tenuous and the theory may be wrong, but I’m not seeing anything to make me think otherwise. RIP Brother Sam. I actually found that scene when he was in the hospital bed talking to Dexter kinda touching. That part with Quinn repeating the words ‘partner card’ was good. The Brian thing is also quite similar to the last few episodes of House season 5, when House starts hallucinating over Amber/Cutthroat Bitch because of some sort of moral conflict.

Dexter 06x06 ‐ ‘Just Let Go’

So I think it’s now fair for me to say that this is the WORST season of Dexter yet, and also that you would be hard‐pressed to find a more laughably bad show on air at the moment, at least within reasonable limits. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy watching on some level, but I also have a good appreciation of how poor these episodes are. Anyway, moving on.

This week is, again, weirdly inconsistent. The focus of the episode shifts from Dexter tracking Travis in order to find Gellar, to Dexter trying to gain some measure of revenge against Nick, who shot Brother Sam, who wasn’t dead after all (but now most certainly is). This is all well and good, until you realise that this just serves to pull Dexter further away from the Doomsday Killers, and allows them to continue doing their own thing while Miami Metro fuck about trying to find them. And, given Brother Sam is now dead, I feel a little annoyed. It’s now more than clear, in spite of Mos Def’s admirable performances, that Brother Sam was merely a device to prompt Dexter to question his value system, and to try to move away from the darkness. The show has tried to do this before, most notably in the second season, however it was always worked with far more subtlety and nuance than this. And this is made even more disappointing that they killed off Brother Sam, who was actually quite an interesting, albeit stereotypical, character.

Another gripe I have is this: The entire premise of this season was that Dexter was going to be ‘feeling like his old self again’, and we were definitely led to believe that this meant he would be killing lots of dudes. The first few episodes stuck to this to some extent, and it’s not so much that I need Dexter to be doing his ritual killing, but the last few episodes have strayed into some seriously boring territory, and I’m not sure that even the writer’s know what they are doing at this point.

Finally, on the Miami Metro front, Deb feels alienated from her old buddies now that she’s lieutenant (surely she could have foreseen this), and Quinn and Angel have to interview that girl Quinn slept with last episode as she’s now a material witness (happened in season 4). Oh and LaGuerta got a total of 29 seconds on screen this week. Nice one! So happy about this development! Eventually, Deb throws a party (sorry LaGuerta, you’re not invited), Quinn turns up drunk, angry that Deb wasn’t jealous when she found out that he slept with that girl, Masuka’s new intern flirts with Angel’s cute sister, Quinn interrupts and starts making cool jokes about her butt and how nice it is (‘I can’t help it, she’s got an outrageous ass’), and then Angel punches him in the face. What is wrong with these people? Oh and Doomsday Killers don’t kill captured girl because Travis has a conscience.

Oh I almost forgot. BRIAN’S BACK. As in Rudy. Dexter’s dead serial killer brother. The reveal at the end is meant to be super shocking, but is really not. Vaguely surprising, maybe. I figure Brian’s back because Brother Sam’s now gone; Brother Sam represents the light, Brian the dark. So now, at roughly halfway through the season, my guess is that we’re going to be seeing a lot of Dexter having conversations with Brian about his ‘dark passenger’, and maybe abandoning his moral facade (but probably not). As stupid as this all is, I was kinda happy to see Brian, if only for the fact that it reminded me of the first season, when there was still hope for this show.

  • Also, more hints that Gellar is a figment of Travis’s imagination: again, no one acknowledges him in the marketplace, and he just tells Travis what to buy; Dexter doesn’t get a glimpse of him; he’s absent in all the scenes where Travis is preparing the branding thing, as well as when Travis frees the girl. This may all be tenuous and the theory may be wrong, but I’m not seeing anything to make me think otherwise.
  • RIP Brother Sam. I actually found that scene when he was in the hospital bed talking to Dexter kinda touching.
  • That part with Quinn repeating the words ‘partner card’ was good.
  • The Brian thing is also quite similar to the last few episodes of House season 5, when House starts hallucinating over Amber/Cutthroat Bitch because of some sort of moral conflict.

Notes

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