Dexter Reaction: Slack Tide

"Dexter Morgan wants to be a family man," is what this episode screams at you. There's never a moment in the series where it seems like only love is guiding this, though, and it appears he's only worried about looking "normal" to the rest of the world. I'd like to tell him to get over himself, that nobody is paying all that much attention to him, except for Quinn, and fuck Quinn! In America, it's a shade more "normal" to have an ex-wife and a kid to pay child support for. But I can't tell him these things, and his shambling marriage to Rita persists. Oh well.

I don't have a major hard-on (mentally) for this series like I did for the last half of each of the previous seasons, nor a hard-on against the series like I did for the first half of each of the previous season, so yeah it must be the middle of the season. I'm pretty sure I will be sucked into the unraveling of the show's juicier plot strands in the coming weeks, but there's a pronounced lack of urgency to get me there, as far as the show is concerned. I'll use this episode to prove that.

Exciting tidbit #1: Debra is closer than ever to painting a clearer picture of Harry Morgan, the real man, rather than just her vision of fatherhood. The one thing that's stayed true for Dexter in the last few years is that family is supposed to be number one. Why else would you allow a nay-saying apparition of your father to tell you what you should be thinking? But the show tells us this more than it shows us. In a previous episode, Dexter drops everything to rush to the scene where Debra was shot; it was convincing. But other than reacting to situational dangers, all Dexter usually does when Debra's around is internally bitch that his sister is able to figure things out on her own.

In this show, Debra tells Dexter that Harry was a gigolo, and her concern is real. Later, she tells Dexter she is able to begin an official investigation into the Trinity case. In both cases, Dexter, as per usual, just sort of glumly says, "Oh, yeah?" and quickly ends what should really be two long involved conversations. The audience knows that Dexter is in on everything (and if we didn't, we're told on several occasions), but Debra doesn't. I would be extremely suspicious if I told my sister my dad fucked around on my mom, and she reacted like I told her who won the Stanley Cup the year she was born. I understand we don't need to see long conversations rehashing established facts, but Dexter could act interested at any given point. I'd kind of like to watch the show Debra, because at least she's getting shit done. I don't think they would have started down this road if Debra won't eventually find out more than she should, namely that the Ice Truck Killer and Dexter are brothers, but I could be wrong. Maybe it's all a ruse.

Not really exciting, but potentially dangerous tidbit #2: Quinn is all over Dexter. The bad blood between the two is boiling up, and you just know something bad is going to happen. It isn't all that fresh of an idea (does anybody at Miami Homicide remember Sgt. Doakes?), but I can't stand Quinn, and hope to see him laying under plastic wrap really soon. The show sort of makes this seem important, but Dexter and Quinn look like school children when they have run-ins. The only way this could blow my mind is if Quinn finds out Dexter is a murderer, and then actually tells people instead of being his own detective.

And this isn't a tidbit, so I'm not even going to number it. I don't know what to think about Lithgow's Trinity Killer. In promoting Dexter's familial need to relate, a lot of the wind beneath Trinity's sails smells like poo gas. In rounding out the character, they've turned him into a fatherly pacifist. Dexter's "Kyle Butler" persona is extremely uninteresting, and a middle aged man should want nothing to do with him, much less cut down trees with him and shed tears over the death of a deer. Dexter is trying to learn how to share time both with his kids and the murderous part of his personality. Here's a clue: get rid of the kids. Instead, Dexter takes Trinity's advice and tries to find hobbies for Astor and Cody. He gets Cody into a Young Sailor's club, and even takes the boys out on the ocean in his boat. Ghost stories are shared, and fun is had. Wait, is this 8 Simple Rules for Entertaining My Pre-Teen Stepson? Nope. It's a horror dram-com on cable.

Here's my soapbox speech to the show's writers. Dexter wants to blend in, I understand that. It doesn't mean add a naggy family though. All it takes is three seconds of research into serial killers to find out that all of them were "quiet and normal" and only got caught when the stench from bodies under the house alerted people. Considering how neat and detail-obsessed Dexter is, that won't be a problem. Plus, he's a cop. Except for other cops, who really delves into the lives of cops? Most of the guys I went to school with that ended up being cops? Good guys, but I don't need to know about them. I tend to stay away from cops. Maybe if I knew a blood spatter expert, I'd be interested in finding out more about his job, but not his personal life, which revolves around zero hobbies. What the fuck do I want to know about a guy with zero hobbies? Maybe replace Rita with a Playstation 3, and replace the kids with Resident Evil 5. Millions more people bought that game than watch this show on a weekly basis. I'm just saying. Or maybe stick Rita in the middle of some danger. Make her more than a tool with breasts. I've got more suggestions, and I'm going to put them in a box, the one that Justin Timberlake's dick was in.