DEXTER Season Premiere: “Our Father”

One of the great travesty’s of my life (clearly I’m feeling dramatic today) is that I missed out on watching DEXTER from the beginning.  I wish I had the time to get caught up, but I don’t…at least not right now.  But I heard your clamoring and who am I to ignore you.  So it’s with great pleasure that I introduce to you, Philboy – our new DEXTER expert here on GMMR.——————————-

Hello, kids! Philboy, your brand new resident “Dexter” obsessive, here with my thoughts on the awesomeness that was the “Dexter” season premiere. I can’t explain how excited I am to be talking about Dexter with all of you guys on GMMR this season. There were a lot of great plot threads presented here, so let’s get started!

The Code and Harry’s Memory…
One of the most compelling things about the show is that Dexter lives on the fringes of what we all would consider a reasonable ethical code…and, yet, we root for him. To see that he has lost his accidental murder virginity, it will bring a lot more humanity to Dexter as well as causing him to perhaps rethink the entire Code and how he must adapt it to fit his uses now. Plus, he has to find “Freebo” before Deb and the rest of the cops do to save himself, both from his breakage of the Code and his possible arrest.

Deb’s Promotion…
On the Deb front, by the end of the episode, she was back to the same old Deb that I love dearly. She may have made herself look nicer, much to Dexter’s ignorance, but, let’s be honest, clean and orderly Dexter wouldn’t be as interesting as he is without his awesomely crude sister. I thought the point that the newly-promoted Batista made was a good way to get her back to old Deb. Part of rising in a workplace like that is playing the bureaucratic game, i.e., not talking about victims in front of their high-powered District Attorney brothers.

Deb the Rat…
What’s with the Internal Affairs person, who NCIS fans will recognize as Special Agent (and seemingly new villain) Lee stalking Deb? Will Deb bite on her offer to secure her a promotion? Or, will her sense of brotherhood and family with her unit precede that? Again, I hope this is handled well, because I could see it getting very tenuous otherwise.

Prado, Dex’s new BFF?…
And that brings us to the newest addition to the Dexter-verse: the one and only Jimmy Smits. Yes, Senator Santos, Det. Bobby Simone, that not-so-good guy from that not-so-good show “Cane” is right back in Miami as ADA Miguel Prado. I thought the way that they have thrown Prado into Dexter’s world is brilliant, since Dexter has a) never really had a friend, which is what Prado seems to be angling towards and b) never gotten to know any of his victims’ family members. Plus, Smits is an amazing actor who rarely disappoints. I think if the dialogue keeps up with the intellectual level it has been at in the Prado/Dexter scenes, their relationship should be intriguing.

Laguerta Pressing Her Nose Against the Glass…
I’ve always liked Laguerta because, even at her most political, she is a heck of a cop and a friend to Dexter. She’s never been considered to be part of the team, and we’ve always know her as their superior, even when she got demoted. We might see her deal with that alienation that she has felt from the rest of the team this season, which could either be soapy or incredibly interesting.

Well, CRAP! That changes everything!…
Which brings us to the GIANT SURPRISE at the end of the episode. I had heard that we were in for something huge at the very end and that it was Rita-related, but I’m one of those guys who tries to stay away from all spoilers and analysis thereof because I love being knocked over like I was tonight. The news that Rita and Dexter are having a baby didn’t get me so much as what Dexter will be going through this season and how he will change. This thought hit me during one of the multiple sex scenes: We have really watched Dexter grow from the pilot to now. At the beginning of all this, Dex was really attracted to Rita but the idea of Rita and having that stability to hide everything that he truly believed. So, it should be interesting to see what this does to the new Dexter who, earlier in the episode, referred to life as “nice” and “normal.” Also, how will becoming a daddy himself shade Dex’s thoughts of Harry?

All in all, a great opener to what looks to be an amazing season!

Question: Especially considering how good he is with Astor and Cody, what kind of father will Dexter be?

— posted by Philboy

Philboy is GMMR’s resident Dexter analyst. He spends his days studying Communications at Purdue University and his nights trying to keep up with his TV schedule without a Tivo. He awaits the day when Jack Bauer will save us all, but can live with Dexter, Chuck Bartowski and Ned the Pie Maker until then. He idolizes Barney Stinson and hopes to, one day, be the cop who declares someone dead in a procedural crime show.