Contributor: Gregg Wright
Written by Scott Buck
Directed by John Dahl
It may come as no surprise to hear this, but storytelling is an art of deception. The aim of good storytelling is to sell the viewer on the believable nature of unfolding events, and also to ensnare the viewer on an emotional and intellectual level. Of course, behind the scenes, stories are planned. The extent of that planning varies, depending on the storyteller. But generally speaking, the better the planning, the better the story. But this is also where you run the risk of problems.
There are a variety of tricks and techniques that writers use to create the illusion of truth in their stories. The problem arises when you begin to poorly disguise these manipulative techniques, perhaps by overusing them. A deus ex machina might work once, but you can’t use it all the time, or the audience will start to get wise to the fact that this story is, in fact, the creation of a writer, and not something that’s actually happening to actual people in an actual world.
“Dexter” has suffered heavily from this problem throughout its run. With each new season, Dexter faced new threats to his attempt to maintain his secret lifestyle and continue living something resembling a normal life. And in each new season, Dexter almost always managed to escape the consequences of his actions. One notable exception was the death of Rita, which marked the end of what many fans (including myself) considered to be the best season since the first.
But the coincidences and contrivances continued to pile up, becoming more and more staggering as the show went along. It’s easy to become tired of a show that continues to throw the same tricks at you and expect you to be amazed, but I stuck with it. Because when “Dexter” is good, it’s really quite good. It’s an eternally frustrating show that is often compelling and suspenseful enough that it’s hard to put down. But always, the fear remained that “Dexter” would continue to string me along, offering no meaningful changes to the status quo and no truly dire consequences. I’d seen the man behind the curtain one too many times.
Then finally, a ray of hope appeared: the announcement that the season 6 finale would mark the start of a story arc that would last two more seasons, and then bring the show to a close. When it’s beginning to feel like a show is simply biding its time, with no real sense of forward progression, setting a concrete end date is probably the very best thing that could possibly be done with it. It certainly helped “LOST”. So naturally, I started to feel optimistic about the show again. Finally, the show might have the freedom to do some truly daring things; the type of things it should have done a long time ago.
And in the final moments of the season 6 finale, we got exactly that. Normally, this would get swept under the rug somehow. But comments from producer Scott Buck seemed to confirm to us that this was not something Dexter would be wriggling his way out of, and that this was always intended to be part of the show’s endgame. At first, it does seem as though the full weight of Deb’s discovery is being pushed aside. I fully expected Deb to learn the full truth before too long, but I didn’t expect her to figure it all out so fast.
In fact, it’s almost off-putting how quickly Deb puts everything together. It’s as if someone behind-the-scenes finally switched on the “reality” button. It’s something of a jarring transition from how the show normally operates. One gets the feeling that: if this can happen so easily now, why hasn’t it happened before? It seems petty of me to criticize the show for this, since I’m still rather pleased with this direction. But it’s a bit telling that the show’s biggest attempt to shake up the status quo seems nearly as contrived as attempts to maintain it have been.
One might also see Dexter’s killing of Victor as being another overly transparent attempt to shoehorn in a “kill-of-the-week” where it doesn’t belong. But by the end of the episode, it’s clear that the killing of Victor will have far-reaching consequences. This is no ordinary “kill-of-the-week”. This is the introduction of the season’s “Big Bad” (or one of them anyway). I’m not quite as intrigued by this as I am by Louis, who remains absolutely strange and cryptic. He is undoubtedly part of the show’s big, closing story arc.
Some of “Dexter’s” usual problems remain. It still often lets sensational plotting get in the way of the details, but I haven’t been this optimistic about the show in a long time. Deb’s discovery of Dexter’s true nature is just the shot in the arm that this show needed. But I hope that this is just the first of many bolder storytelling choices that “Dexter” needs in order to have a proper send-off. Will Dexter be caught? Will Dexter die? The fantastic thing is that either of these things now have a fighting chance of actually happening over this season and the next. For the first time in a great while, the stakes are real for Dexter.
Score: 8/10
