Dexter is Less Deviated....
Sep. 23rd, 2013 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogIn under 48 hours, I finished not one but two seeming Dexter finales. The book arrived in our front door late Saturday afternoon, and I devoured it by the time the final episode of the Showtime series came along. I got through about half of the latter by the time I had to leave for court today, and, knowing I'd have a good 30-minute layover, transferred the ep to my tablet and watched it in the halls of federal justice late this morning. (That wasn't without minor embarrassment. One of the two judges' law clerks saw me watching video fluff outside the conference room, and said, "What, Ray, catching up on Miley Cyrus?" "Nah," I replied, "just catching up with my favorite serial killer." I'm half surprised I didn't see a federal marshal checking me out before the end of the hour.)
These two Departments of Dexter began diverging right after the original Jeff Lindsay novel and the first Showtime season, but by the end of both, they'd mysteriously realigned to a much greater degree than they'd been for years. To understand how and why will take spoilers, and I've got plenty for both. In order of my finishing:
It was hard reading some of the previous novels in this series, post-Series, because of the gear-grinding differences in the arcs. As we begin this latest Lindsay book, Rita is still Mrs. Dex; Astor and Cody are still annoyingly around; and Brian the Brother is still very much alive in a non-ghosty kind of way. LaGuerta, on the other hand, died much earlier in the Land of Lindsay, and his version of Dex's family produced much sicker versions of Astor and Cody, and a daughter (Lily Anne) rather than a Harri-son.
Still, it was fun to follow along in this almost parallel universe, and this installment really played with the crossovers, since it focuses on Dexter literally coming face to face with Dexter, or at least a very similar big-budget premium cable-ish crime show set in Miami starring a blood spatter expert.
Lindsay never really (at least not obviously) references the SHO crowd, but he takes on Hollywood tropes and trivialities in a relatable way, making Dex and Debs's "actors" (one last-named "Chase," perhaps a homage to the Sopranos' showrunner?) major parts of the "real-life" plot and its resolution.
By the end, we have, or at least had until 9 last night, a paper Dexterverse that was much closer to the SHO one. Finally, Rita was out of both of them (her death coming in an odd, off-handed sort of way); Dexter himself is obviously complicit in a number of the latest crimes and he is faced with the possibility of choosing prison for himself versus the protection of his loved ones.
It's unclear if Dexter is ever going return to who and what he was- and that's the prime similarity to how the cable version ended things.
Before I even saw a stitch of this episode, I put out the inevitable fake-spoiler, a la Cameron's Titanic, about Dexter's boat sinking.
Who would've guessed I'd have been right? That, until the final coda of the series, was all we had to go on, as Dex, convinced that he'd ruined every life he ever touched, determined to ruin no more, especially those of the remaining two he loved, and pushed his motorboat, in total Ahab mode, into the CGI-generated path of Hurricane Named For My Mommy.
Playing with "the boat sank" bit was just one of the Significant Series Finale Tropes that showrunner Scott Buck, and longtime EP Sara Colleton, got to work with in these final episodes. They'd already skewered the Sopranos finale by making fun of a jukebox in a diner and working that into a much more real and active plot point. But then, just as they did their own version of the final David Chase confusing fade-to-black? They blew us out of the water- literally.
....And into the wonderful world of,....
lumberjacks?!?
Yeah, I get it. A trade about as devoid of human companionship as you can get, which DexNotDex devoids himself even further from in those final minutes, by sitting at home, alone, with no family, no Harry, not even a Dark Passenger to chat with. He is alone. He is in a hell that neither Oliver nor Old Sparky could have delivered him to.
At last, eight years on, he is finally home.
These two Departments of Dexter began diverging right after the original Jeff Lindsay novel and the first Showtime season, but by the end of both, they'd mysteriously realigned to a much greater degree than they'd been for years. To understand how and why will take spoilers, and I've got plenty for both. In order of my finishing:
It was hard reading some of the previous novels in this series, post-Series, because of the gear-grinding differences in the arcs. As we begin this latest Lindsay book, Rita is still Mrs. Dex; Astor and Cody are still annoyingly around; and Brian the Brother is still very much alive in a non-ghosty kind of way. LaGuerta, on the other hand, died much earlier in the Land of Lindsay, and his version of Dex's family produced much sicker versions of Astor and Cody, and a daughter (Lily Anne) rather than a Harri-son.
Still, it was fun to follow along in this almost parallel universe, and this installment really played with the crossovers, since it focuses on Dexter literally coming face to face with Dexter, or at least a very similar big-budget premium cable-ish crime show set in Miami starring a blood spatter expert.
Lindsay never really (at least not obviously) references the SHO crowd, but he takes on Hollywood tropes and trivialities in a relatable way, making Dex and Debs's "actors" (one last-named "Chase," perhaps a homage to the Sopranos' showrunner?) major parts of the "real-life" plot and its resolution.
By the end, we have, or at least had until 9 last night, a paper Dexterverse that was much closer to the SHO one. Finally, Rita was out of both of them (her death coming in an odd, off-handed sort of way); Dexter himself is obviously complicit in a number of the latest crimes and he is faced with the possibility of choosing prison for himself versus the protection of his loved ones.
It's unclear if Dexter is ever going return to who and what he was- and that's the prime similarity to how the cable version ended things.
Before I even saw a stitch of this episode, I put out the inevitable fake-spoiler, a la Cameron's Titanic, about Dexter's boat sinking.
Who would've guessed I'd have been right? That, until the final coda of the series, was all we had to go on, as Dex, convinced that he'd ruined every life he ever touched, determined to ruin no more, especially those of the remaining two he loved, and pushed his motorboat, in total Ahab mode, into the CGI-generated path of Hurricane Named For My Mommy.
Playing with "the boat sank" bit was just one of the Significant Series Finale Tropes that showrunner Scott Buck, and longtime EP Sara Colleton, got to work with in these final episodes. They'd already skewered the Sopranos finale by making fun of a jukebox in a diner and working that into a much more real and active plot point. But then, just as they did their own version of the final David Chase confusing fade-to-black? They blew us out of the water- literally.
....And into the wonderful world of,....
lumberjacks?!?
Yeah, I get it. A trade about as devoid of human companionship as you can get, which DexNotDex devoids himself even further from in those final minutes, by sitting at home, alone, with no family, no Harry, not even a Dark Passenger to chat with. He is alone. He is in a hell that neither Oliver nor Old Sparky could have delivered him to.
At last, eight years on, he is finally home.