It seems any of those drawn to watch Dexter have also been watching AMC’s Breaking Bad. What’s interesting about it is that we’ve got two villain-heroes at work here: one is a serial killer who’s “doing good” by only (usually) offing guilty murders; the other is a once-chemistry-teacher/now-meth-dealer “doing good” by providing for his family. Both are (or, at least, have been) brilliantly written, quality shows, though one wonders why the draw of the villain-heroes is so compelling.

By drawing in viewers with similar tastes, each show was — perhaps unknowingly — drawing comparisons to the other, especially during its final season. This has not worked out in Dexter‘s favor in the least.

Before this last season of Dexter, I thought the show had gone downhill since season five or six. I had grown invested in the show and still wanted to be sure to watch every week, but the excitement of it being Sunday night had waned. The show took a serious downhill turn at least partway through season seven, only to continue to tumble through its final, eighth season. The writers didn’t seem to know what direction they were going to go (Deb’s love for Dexter? What the …), and they all but gave up in the show’s final moments. Perhaps the writers moved on to the rumored Dexter spin-off? Did they give up, too, when they had to drastically switch gears from that really, really odd Deb-loves-Dexter story?

See that image of Dexter, above? That’s pretty much how I’ve felt about this entire season, and I cannot be alone. Here are just a few odd-ball things that’ve gone on this season that made no freakin’ sense:

• Introducing Vince Masuka’s daughter, Niki Walters. It seems this was merely put in place because, well, the writers had no other ideas for Masuka this season. There’s no other purpose for her being on the show, unless … (see later).
• Det. Angie Miller, the woman who Angel advanced to Sergeant in place of Quinn. Was that really the only purpose for her existence? OK, fine … then why even bother going with that plot point at all? Was it to further press Quinn into what he eventually turned to in the series finale? Is it to again set up … (again, see later below).
• LaGuerta was a clearly beloved character on the show and was a member of the family since day one. Characters on the show bemoaned Doakes more than LaGuerta, and he was the suspected Bay Harbor Butcher!
• Angel Batista’s sister, Jamie, was an even worse waste of a character. She did nothing to move stories along, only serving as a convenient reason why we didn’t need to see Harrison all the time and how Dexter could go out all night and continue to feed his Dark Passenger. Only very few times did Jamie even question Dexter’s late-night jaunts, when she clearly could get answers from Dexter’s boss — her own brother — as to whether he really did have a boatload of work to do … at night …. alone.
• Batista, Quinn and Matthews really had no idea about Dexter all this time? Death followed him everywhere, and then they witnessed him making a kill just about in front of their eyes.
• Why the hell was it fitting to give Deb the same burial he gave many of his kills? What was the point of taking her body away from the hospital?
• That final shot of Dexter. Er … what?

Those aren’t the only head-scratchers from this season. The sloppy re-introduction of Hannah to the story, for one. The actions of Vogel’s son, framing Zach and then immediately un-framing him. It was as if one writer would run with a storyline, and then another would decide to take it away. It was a rotten mess.

As for what I would get to later, it’s this: they’re gearing up for that reported Dexter spin-off. Since they may not have a clear path to follow, they’ve introduced several new characters to the show such that they might be re-used in a new series with expanded roles. Quinn’s already got a relationship with two out of the three of those newer women, so if they decided to continue the story with him (please … don’t), there’s that.

In contrast, we have Breaking Bad‘s final season; I don’t think anyone can fault it at all. I’ve been a huge fan of both shows, and this final season of Breaking Bad has been near flawless. But this isn’t really about Breaking Bad. My question was whether one show’s clear success in execution causes the other to pale even more. It’s possible, though I’d say it’s unlikely had much effect. As a fan of both — and them both airing on the same night — not comparing the two is nearly impossible. If these weren’t the final seasons of each show, I’d maybe be less judgmental. Breaking Bad, though, shows how you end a series on a high note: with few punches pulled and with every second counting. Like Breaking Bad, Dexter‘s final season was a planned one, though it failed to capitalize on those final, precious hours of a show we’ve followed for eight seasons.

Let’s forget about how the final episode “should have” ended and whether Dexter should have been caught or had gotten away — that’s beside the point. I’m not sure who should be to blame for this crappy season of Dexter, though it’s likely whomever was wrangling the writers’ room. We shouldn’t have felt like that image above — this season should have kept Dexter in the record books as one of the all-time greatest shows of cable television. Instead this season did the show a great disservice, causing it to be unmemorable (at least in a good way). Sadly, when someone asks me of past shows to watch on DVD or on-demand, I’d have a hard time recommending Dexter anymore, because I couldn’t put someone through these last few seasons. I’m not even sure ending the way I suggested would have helped.

So, goodbye, Dexter. Maybe we wouldn’t have been so hard on you if Breaking Bad was so good, but that doesn’t mean your last season didn’t stink. Look on the bright side: at least people won’t compare your final episode with Breaking Bad, since they’ve still got another week to go.

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Let me start out by noting that, yes, this is a theory I’d had; I don’t really know who framed Zach. I do, however, love to speculate and cast theories about like I’m some sort of expert. Hey now — I’ve been right before!

Let’s get this out of the way right now: Quinn did not set up Zach. It makes no sense, based on Quinn’s questioning Cassie’s boyfriend later in the episode. It’s remotely possible he was there hoping to gather a sliver of evidence to help make his case, but that’s simply just weak. Quinn would be an easy suspect for setting up Zach if it wasn’t for this scene alone.

This brings up Cassie’s boyfriend. In that same scene, while Quinn is interrogating him, he has the opportunity to easily reel Zach into the trap he would have set … except he seems to have not set it. Instead, he simply and quite honestly says Zach “looks familiar” to him. This makes sense, as he did see Zach outside Dexter’s apartment quite recently! More on this part later. …

So, who set up Zach? Vogel? Nope. The real Brain Surgeon? Nope; doesn’t make sense.

It was Angel Batista.

Yeah, I know it doesn’t add up, but hear me out. And this is only an”imagine if” theory. Let me lay out the evidence for you and it will all make sense. First of all, let’s go with how the episode was shot. We have a scene where Dexter, Hannah, Zach and Vogel are discussing the Cassie case and who could be framing Zach for Cassie’s murder. Right off the note of Zach’s “why would someone [frame me]?” we cut to a rather unnecessary scene with Angel coming home to greet his sister and Harrison. The Dexter writers have done this before — they fucking love to play games like this, always trying to be clever to slide one right under our noses without us noticing. Well, that worked out pretty poorly two seasons ago. Here, they’re doing it again, with these two scenes.

Think also about Batista’s motive here. He knows Quinn has been all over Zach as being one guilty son-of-a-bitch, and he knows Matthews is very well aware of the situation as well. Matthews has done nothing but chastise Angel for the high opinion he has for Quinn, going so far as to say he has absolutely no good traits about him. To top things off, Quinn is now shacking up with Angel’s sister, which in the eyes of Angel means Quinn’s likely about to become a hell of a lot closer to the family soon, as in IN the family. So the motive here is clear: Angel wants Quinn to succeed and succeed big. So what better way for that to happen than to further set up the person he’d been publicly gunning for with another murder?

I get that it’s completely out of character for Angel, but don’t we need another “holy shit” moment on this show? It’s about time.

Here’s where I said I’d get back to. If Angel really did set up Zach … ho boy. Not only is that a huge development in the show by itself, but think about what Angel now knows. First of all, Angel knows Zach was in the apartment building visiting Dexter; he’s got to wonder what the hell that was all about. Secondly, he knows Dexter lied about the blood analysis done on the fingernails. That’s a lot for him to be holding inside now, even as he’s saving his ass from being discovered as the framer.

What will also be a shit-hitting-the-fan moment is if Cassie’s boyfriend comes back to Quinn to tell him he remembered seeing Zach with Dexter one night. If that were to happen, one way Dexter could get out of it would be to say Zach had caught him following him one night and confronted him at his apartment. It’d be flimsy, but flimsier stories have flown for Dexter before.

The question now is: would Angel really be that desperate to convince Matthews that Quinn is cut out for a bigger job? Would it really make that much of a difference for Quinn anyway? And what if it’s not Angel who killed Cassie, but it was … Angel’s sister, Jamie? She does want Quinn to do well. Now I will admit I didn’t see THAT coming.

Unfortunately, it’ll just wind up being Cassie’s boyfriend, and we’ll be left wondering why the hell he went out of his way to setup Zach, when he was just out to kill him in the first place. Unfortunately my theory will just be something akin to fan fiction, and Occam’s Razor will win once again. …

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Season 7 of Dexter hasn’t exactly fit the formula the previous seasons established for the show, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Despite its sometimes awkward pacing, this season has brought up a few major questions in the Dexter universe. How would Deb react if she found out the truth about Dexter? Is Dexter capable of love and sharing a future with someone? Will his “code” survive the loss of his Dark Passenger? And most importantly, what is happening with Quinn’s hair? Seriously, half the time he looks like he’s auditioning for the role of Kramer. I have a theory why Nadia left …

Up until now, the seasons of Dexter have followed their own “code.” There is an overarching “big bad” that Dexter discovers, investigates, and ultimately introduces to his table by the final episode. In some cases that formula has been underwhelming (I wasn’t a fan of the Jimmy Smits’ season), but others — like the season with John Lithgow’s Trinity — had me on the edge of my seat anticipating each week’s storyline. One of the benefits of this “code” of storytelling is that each week builds on the week before so that the screws are constantly being turned and the tension ramps up from beginning to end. This season, however, didn’t follow that paradigm but instead introduced mini antagonists for Dexter to deal with along the way, while hinting to the main opposition Dexter will have to face in this season’s finale. While I find it refreshing for the writers to shake up their style now that the series finale is set at the end of next season, I felt that by changing the overall structure of the season it drastically reduced the tension on Dexter and as a result there was no real sense of urgency this season.

I really enjoyed the first few episodes when Deb tried helping Dexter restrain his Dark Passenger, and I felt that pressure on Dexter to control his urges would be an interesting avenue for the writers to explore. Ultimately, though, Deb gave up, giving him a wide berth, allowing Dexter to sink back into his normal routine. This led the way for the parade of mini enemies, each of which pushed Dexter further from his original “code.”

I agree with most people who criticized the Louis Green story arc. It felt like the writers spent a lot of time setting up Louis as an intellectual antagonistic force that would really challenge Dexter because he didn’t fit the code and couldn’t be disposed of in Dexter’s usual means. I was convinced that Louis was tracking the search engine he recommended to Dexter and was therefore privy to the research Dexter performed during his vetting process. So for his story to end as abruptly as it did was a little disappointing to say the least, but it did allow Dexter the opportunity to show he could stop himself from acting on the urges of his Dark Passenger if he wanted to.

Each of the subsequent nemeses similarly forced Dexter down an unfamiliar path: Isaak made him question his ability to love, Sal Price made him question his moral limits (in that he knew Hanna killed Sal and he helped cover it up), and Hanna made Dexter question his Dark Passenger. This realization was my favorite since all it takes is a beautiful woman probing about the idea of his Dark Passenger for Dexter to go … yeah, I guess it’s kinda dumb. Now he has no one (or thing) to blame for his need to kill and that makes him a much more interesting character. He isn’t a slave to his desires anymore, but what does that mean for his “code?”

When the series first began, Dexter (with the exception of his relationship with Deb) was completely detached from society and only tried to look the part of a regular human being to mask the monster underneath. He had a singular focus of survival before, where his appearance of normalcy was all part of his “code” to continue getting away with his need to kill. His relationship with Rita, initially, was basically a sham, since Rita’s relationship baggage created a nice wall for Dexter to hide behind, preventing the two from getting significantly close. But as the seasons have progressed, his relationship with Rita developed, which spread to her children and even bore Dexter a child of his own. And with each step along the way, Dexter’s life evolved from just his Dark Passenger routine into a life balancing his urges as well as the needs of his family.

Balancing those two sides of his personality, however, has proven difficult (and costly) to Dexter’s life. His obsession with Trinity’s 30-year “career” while maintaining a family caused him to deter from his routine and ultimately cost Rita her life. With her death, more responsibilities fell onto to Dexter’s plate and as a result his Dark Passenger had to take a back seat to midnight feedings and diaper changes. On a side note, he’s been called a bad father in a lot of comments/message boards, and it’s true that at this point Jamie (who apparently has no personal life of her own) is more of a parent to Harrison than Dexter. But the reality is that we don’t tune in each week to watch Dexter read to his son or play with him at the park. Those scenes, much like scenes of action stars reloading their guns, are not interesting to film or watch so they are omitted in favor of more story driven scenes. Regardless of his sometimes absentee nature in raising Harrison, that responsibility of having someone that depends on him has forced Dexter to consider the other people in his life over his own needs. Satisfying his Dark Passenger’s need to kill is no longer his top priority, it is what he does in between his new life as father (and at one time husband).

But splitting his focus has made him careless. In season 4, he nearly exposed his secret after sleep deprivation from staying up with newborn Harrison caused an auto accident, where his bag of knives were thrown from the car. In season 5, strapped for time looking for a nanny for his son, he didn’t search Boyd Fowler’s house effectively, missing the fact that Lumen was trapped inside watching him perform his kill. Now, his feelings for Hanna — because of his ability to share his entire life with her — has given him the false hope of an actual future where they can grow old together. But he is too busy looking at his possible future to see the danger currently encircling him. It’s because he’s spreading himself too thin that he keeps missing details that he would have noticed in season 1. Every time he sacrifices his “code” in order to fulfill some familial responsibility he risks the truth coming to light. If Dexter can survive LaGuerta’s investigation, I think season 8 will involve him choosing which man he wants to be: father or killer, because he can’t do both … at least not for much longer.

In that spirit of narrowing focus, two other questions arose for me during “Do You See What I See?” Did Deb poison herself to frame Hanna? And does Matthews know Dexter’s secret? I’m on the fence about the poison. I feel like the writers set it up to go either way. Does it make sense Deb would risk killing herself in an accident when she was convinced she could get the evidence she needs from Arlene? She did tell Hanna she would do whatever it takes to protect Dexter from her. And I feel Matthews has some inclination about Dexter’s involvement; perhaps Harry confided in him before he died. This would explain LaGuerta’s comment, “you’ll get what’s coming to you” when Matthews asked her about his pension. What do you think? Did Deb spike her own water? Has Matthews been looking the other way all of Dexter’s life?

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After Sunday night’s episode of Dexter, Deb and I got to discussing what those final scenes mean for Dexter’s future. My first thought was that by Dexter deciding to kill Hannah’s father (Supernatural’s Jim Beaver!), he will no longer adhere to Harry’s code, killing only those who’ve killed; he’d basically open himself up to kill whomever he felt the need to kill, without having to prove anything to himself first. Deb, on the other hand, thought this was only partly true; it did mean he wasn’t going to follow Harry’s code anymore, but it wouldn’t mean Dexter would kill just anyone he felt like killing — he’d still have some sort of moral compass to follow.

With those thoughts in mind, I wouldn’t say that Dexter is going to simply kill people for the hell of it. Instead, he’s going to kill who he needs to kill, and that just might mean simply anyone who threatens him or gets in his way — including LaGuerta and Matthews.

I believe that Dexter’s new path is not only what could save him from the advancing threat of the law breathing down his neck, but it may very well lead to his downfall. The thing is, this is probably the closest the law has come to having concrete evidence against Dexter since Doakes, and we all know how that ended up. The difference, though, was that Doakes wasn’t exactly an angel. LaGuerta and Matthews, on the other hand, would seriously go against the code of Harry. So, with Dexter’s new outlook on what qualifies as a worthwhile kill, in my eyes it means he may not care about whether or not these are bad people he’s about to kill, just that he has to kill them.

If it winds up that Dexter does resort to killing LaGuerta and/or Matthews — just because they threaten him personally — I don’t think it could be any clearer that the writers intend for Dexter to be brought to justice, not that he lives happily ever after and in safety, whether or not he stops killing.

I’d love to hear other theories on how Dexter’s going to get out of this one. The show has one more season left, and as quickly as LaGuerta and Matthews are narrowing in on Dexter, that’s a whole lot of episodes of him running away from the law. Matthews ended his discussion with LaGuerta, saying he’d talk to Dexter before she “fucks it up;” does anyone else think he’s been onto Dexter’s secret all along, and is moving ahead to throw him some warning and advice? Or will Dexter just have to take everyone out?

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This thought didn’t come to mind until watching the “Q&A” episode. As the newcomer to the show, Peter, is grilling Brody, he notes that he’s able to keep Brody there because of the laws put in place by his department of government.

“I’m a United States Congressman. You can’t just kidnap me and shackle me to the fucking floor!” – Brody
“Actually, we can. Thanks to your colleagues in Congress, we have very broad powers to detain and interrogate.” – Peter

It’s ironic, but then it occurred to me that it could be the whole point of the show.

Another rather direct example has been the placement of video and audio surveillance placed on Brody, even before he had concrete evidence against him. There have been a few other instances on the show that weren’t so spelled out. There have been scenes in airports that have shown the usual TSA stuff going on, for example. That doesn’t seem so unusual, since anyone who’s air-traveled recently has gone through all of that. So why go through showing it off? The same came with Brody having to go through scanners to enter a government building — why bother pointing it out?

What’s more interesting than whether or not the show’s serving as a commentary on the power the CIA and other government agencies have in regards to homeland security: what point are they trying to make? Are they for or against them? So far it seems most likely that the show’s not picking sides. Instead, it’s presenting these things to the viewers for them to make up their own minds, and in a way that doesn’t lean in any direction; it is what it is. Though Homeland is about fictional events, it seems to be taking time to point out procedures for how homeland security is — and may very well be, behind the scenes — carried out in this country.

It will be interesting to see if Homeland continues to follow this rather subtle trend, growing to become more obvious as the series rolls on. How will Brody’s position with the CIA play into that?

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You might recall that last season I published some thoughts on who the thorn in Dexter’s side — and intern for Vince Masuka — Louis Greene might be. He appeared out of nowhere and seemed to have Dexter in his crosshairs, first having asked him for help with his serial killer video game, then messing around with Ice Truck Killer evidence. It wasn’t clear if Louis was out to get Dexter or just attract his attention, but there sure seemed to be something more to his actions than simply being a weirdo.

Last season, a commenter noted that Louis might be Dexter’s nephew — Brian Moser’s son — and I felt that was a pretty decent theory. It would’ve made for some interesting stuff for the series, going forward. Now, after this latest episode, we find that Louis’s purpose on the show was … well, pretty much nothing.

I won’t deny that I thought the thugs mistaking Louis for Dexter was pretty funny, but it ended with a bullet to the intern’s head — one he’s not going to recover from. But as I watched that scene unfold, I let out an audible “AW!” at Louis’s death, because it meant everything he’d been doing was really for nothing at all. Louis was just a creepy game programmer with a grudge, who was systematically pwned by Dexter’s retaliation. That’s it. Nothing more to see here.

What a disappointment. I would really love to know if there was initially more to Louis in the Dexter writer’s room at one point, and they decided to trash it all when they realized they couldn’t work it in with all the heavy stuff going on this season, and that they’d only have two seasons in which to use him. The whole thing really feels like an opportunity that was left on the cutting room floor, and Louis was instead killed off so we wouldn’t be distracted by him any more.

The only thing at this point that would be more disappointing than Louis being a nobody would be if Quinn never got closer to finding out the truth about Dexter. Though Quinn and Dexter have some sort of relationship now where perhaps Quinn sort-of owes one to Dexter, I’m not at all convinced he wouldn’t take him down the minute he found something more out about Dexter’s activities. And when he finds out that Deb knows about her brother? Hoo boy. There’s a very good chance Quinn will hear the name “Dexter Morgan” from his new Russian girlfriend; when that happens, watch out.

So, Dexter writers, please let this be the last time we see a good opportunity get wasted; it’ll make our theory making feel a lot less in vain.

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I know there were some people (*cough*Ivey*cough*) who were somewhat disappointed with last season of Showtime’s Homeland. In particular, there were those who felt Brody should have gone through with the task of blowing himself up to bits in the name of all he now believes in. Though that didn’t happen, there’s no doubt the scene where he came VERY close to literally pulling the trigger was one of the most tense scenes to watch on television in recent memory. I’m sure that scene lent some hand in Damian Lewis’s recent Emmy win, in fact. Despite any of that disappointment in what Brody did (or, rather, didn’t) do, the jumping off point to the series’ second season so far has not left much to be wanted. In fact, it’s been pretty damned stellar.

Because the season’s started off on such a high point, I realized recently that there are a few unanswered things from the show’s first season that haven’t been touched upon or even hinted at yet. Does that merely mean we’re in for a shocking surprise later in the season — or series — or do the writers find these things unimportant enough to keep them danglimg forever?

First up, the mysterious slipping of the razor blade to Hamid in the interrogation room. Recall that last season an old guard from Brody’s stay in Afghanistan, Hamid, was in custody by the CIA, and Brody had the opportunity to confront his once captor. There was a scuffle in the interrogation room, and shortly after Hamid was able to use a razor blade someone slipped to him to do himself in. The unanswered question, of course: who slipped Hamid that blade? Many assume it was Brody, as he had the most direct contact with Hamid in that fight. After looking over the interrogation video more closely, though, my money would be on David Estes. There’s a point where his hand slips under the table, where he could have easily placed a blade. After watching the first two episodes of Homeland, though, it’s starting to make a lot less sense that Estes would be any sort of internal mole, so I’m completely stumped. However, there is another suspect, which birings us to the other big question. …

What’s Saul lying about? Recall that he underwent a polygraph test, only to fail it spectacularly when asked about some things that make one unable to help wondering where his loyalties lie. Seeing Saul’s actions up to this point make me believe this is more of a red herring than anything else, and Saul really has no involvement in the assistance of terrorist activity against the U.S.. Will we learn why he failed that test, or will it become unimportant enough that we’ll never really know the truth?

Regardless of whether or not we’ll ever have these questions answered, I’m happy with the progressing of the new season so far. I’d be disappointed if these things remain unanswered when the series makes inevitable end one day — I won’t deny that. I believe they are important enough ones to not let lie. For now, though, it’ll be fun to try to figure them out.

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To celebrate not only the imminent return of Showtime’s Homeland (September 30, 10 PM) but the recent release of the show on Blu-ray and DVD late last month, we’ve been given a couple of copies for giveaway to two luck, random commenters to this post. They even threw in some Homeland-branded keychain/USB keys to go along with them.

Oh, and if you Tweet that you entered, with the following:

I’m entering the #homeland Blu-ray giveaway via @CliqueClack https://clak.us/p5j

We’ll pick two recipients completely at random and alert them after the giveaway ends on Monday, September 24th at Midnight ET (make sure your spam filters aren’t blocking mail from @cliqueclack.com!). Only one entry per person per method and you must have a valid U.S.-based mailing address. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents of 18 years of age or older only. Not following these guidelines voids your entry. Good luck!

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