Dexter Season 5 Review

The fourth season of Dexter essentially changed the character's entire life in the final few minutes. The final episode of that season saw Dexter coming home to find Rita, his wife and mother of his infant son, murdered in the bathtub. Dexter had built his entire public life around being with Rita and over time she had become his tether to humanity. While she never knew of Dexter's murderous needs she still became the rock in his life, something he could depend on. When Dexter was finally able to sink his knife into the Trinity Killer he did know that same man had murdered his wife only hours before.

The fifth season picked up immediately from that point and started out extremely strongly. Dexter's world was in such a shambles that he nearly abandoned everything and fled Miami. While Dexter had been in danger of discovery in the past he never was one to make rash choices, and seeing him pushed that extreme by what happened to Rita was intriguing and refreshing. Once Dexter did decide to not flee it did seem at first that he was able to settle back into something that closely resembled his normal routine fairly quickly. At first it almost seemed as though the writers weren't going to mine the ramifications of Rita's death for as much as they could, however later events made it clear why Dexter had to be able to move forward within the first few episodes. For example Astor and Cody went to live with their grandparents and Dexter found a nanny which at first seemed like a cheat to keep the kids out of the show. However this really was necessary for the focus to be done properly on what happened to Dexter himself.

Once Dexter found and rescued Lumen Pierce (season guest star Julia Stiles,) who was to be a victim of Dexter's latest kill, the show really hit it's stride. The relationship between Dexter and Lumen was masterfully built up, starting from Lumen not trusting him and Dexter wanting her to just leave Miami and ultimately building up to their romantic involvement. Thankfully Lumen never feels like a forced replacement for Rita, their relationship is completely different right from the start. Dexter is able to relate and connect with Lumen in a way that he has never been able to do with anybody else. Lumen knows almost immediately what Dexter is and she never sees him as a monster for it. Even at the end when she realizes she can't stay with him she still doesn't judge him for who he is. It's also worth noting that she's the first to discover Dexter's serial killer nature and not end up dead at the end of the season.

The work done with Dexter and Lumen is extremely satisfying, both in their budding relationship and in their hunt for Lumen's killers. As they try to identify and then punish the men who hurt Lumen it's a new kind of prey for Dexter. He hadn't really gone after a group like this before, almost all of his other victims acted alone. Also the ring leader Jordan Chase was a new sort of target for Dexter to go after. Chase simply oozed confidence and while he rarely came across as a physical threat that confidence was intimidating. He always acted like he was five steps above and ahead of everybody else, including Dexter. He was also much more high profile and well guarded than Dexter usually would go after as well. Overall he made for an interesting variant for a season villain.

While the aspects of the show that were connected directly to Dexter and Lumen all worked wonderfully nearly everything else fell flat. It very much felt throughout the season that the writers were desperate for something to keep the supporting characters busy. First there were the Fuentes Brothers, a pair of decapitation killers. At first it seemed somewhat interesting but it never amount to much, despite taking up a heavy amount of time in the first half of the season. Dexter only entered into the investigation a few times and never had any interest in the Fuentes himself, it just felt like something to keep the precinct busy. This part of the story even went so far as to introduce a new character (a female beat cop) who helped the investigation, threw Debra under the bus for her own career and then promptly vanished from the show altogether. The only notable benefit of this entire case was Debra's shooting of one of the suspects and how it made her start to think about how some people deserve to die. This obviously played into her letting the vigilante's who killed Chase go (she of course didn't realize it was Dexter and Lumen) but it was the only part of that story to pay off well.

Another aspect that only half worked was Quinn's suspicion of Dexter. The first problem was that it came off a bit as a rehash of Doakes, who had a most general suspicion of Dexter in the first two seasons. It all ended up playing out very differently but it never really got out of the shadow of that superior story arc. On the other hand it did lend itself to some fantastic moments of tension that Dexter might be discovered. It was also interesting to see Quinn lose control of Liddy, the man he got to tail Dexter. Liddy himself probably wouldn't have been more than a plot point had it not been for a strong performance from Peter Weller. However ultimately this whole aspect of the season seemed to wrap up in a way that was a little too neat and tidy to feel right.

The single biggest offender of needless padding was the focus during the first half of the season on the recent marriage of Laguerta and Batista. First the relationship itself sort of came out of nowhere in the previous season but at that time didn't distract too heavily. Unfortunately it was such a major focus early on in this season that both characters became irritating because every time they were on screen it was dealing with their marital issues. Thankfully this aspect was toned down later on but overall it was just a massive annoyance throughout the season.

Overall it was a bit of a mixed season. The aspects of the story that focused on Dexter directly were some of the best in the whole series to date. However more than any other season before there was a heavy amount of needless material dealing with the supporting cast. It seemed like it was put in just to justify having the characters still present but all it really did was distract from the stronger material. The season ended in an interesting way that in some ways felt similar to how the show began in the first place with Dexter effectively on his own. That said what's been done with Debra seems to have opened up the possibility of her finding out and understanding Dexter down the line. It will be interesting to see if the next season happens during the summer that Astor and Cody stay with Dexter (which is what they arranged in the last episode.) In the novel series Dexter actually went on to train the children as Harry had trained him to kill and not be caught. However it's doubtful that the shows would take the same route as it only used the first book for story ideas and everything else has been original to the show writers. Regardless if future season can keep the focus on Dexter and avoid padding the season with pointless story arcs the show can continue it's strong run.