Dexter - Fourth Season - Are Happy Families Really All Alike?

Mar

20

Dexter - Fourth Season - Are Happy Families Really All Alike?

≡ Category: Comedy, Drama, Horror, Movie Reviews By Country, Recommended, Suspense, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Drama/ Comedy/ Suspense/ Horror
Director: Various
Year: 2007

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE

As we begin Season 4, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) is clearly over his head. He has to deal with his high-pressure job as a blood splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department, his typically demanding American wife, a pre-teen stepdaughter and his newborn son Harrison, who never stops crying. Naturally, when Harrison wakes up in the middle of the night, it’s Dexter who stays up with him until he dozes off. (Considering he’s a serial killer, Dexter has a lot more patience than I would.)

When he catches up with the Trinity Killer Arthur Mitchell (John Lithgow), Dexter hesitates to take him out right away because he thinks he might be able to learn a thing or two about successfully balancing the Dark Passenger with the demands of work, community and family — after all, Arthur has been doing it for close to twenty years.

Season 4 of Dexter is compelling stuff, but not for the usual reasons. The architectural suspense ebbs and flows rather than building steadily, unlike Seasons 1 and 2. The different plot threads don’t comment on one another the way they did in previous seasons. For example, there’s a subplot involving Sergeant Baptista (David Zayas) and Lieutenant Laguerta (Lauren Vélez) which kind of lies gasping there on the screen like a beached marlin. It doesn’t really add anything to the main themes of the season, nor does it have any intrinsic interest to speak of.

Finally, although it was probably a deliberate choice by the show’s creative team, I’m not sure I liked that I didn’t really understand the Trinity Killer’s psychology much better by the end of the season than I did at the beginning. The writing of the Trinity Killer revolves around behavior and character, and avoids explanations.

Oddly enough, the main rewards of Season 4 are character-based. The comic relief of Matsuka (C.S. Lee) is gracefully written and played. I’ve never been a big fan of the profanity the writers put into the mouth of Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter). It could be funny if she were to use profanity in a clever way, the way George Carlin used to, but it’s really just dropping a bunch of f bombs. Still, against all odds, actress Jennifer Carpenter has a number of moving moments during the season.

Best of all, and the strongest reason to tune in to Season 4, is guest star John Lithgow. True, he’s played all of these notes before in his career, but as the Trinity Killer, he works panic, coldness, rage, glee, joy, playfulness, and all the rest into a glorious simphony. It’s one of the best roles of Lithgow’s career.

And there’s that suckerpunch of an ending, too. Enjoy.