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“I’m sorry for your loss”
Put simply, the concluding scene of Dexter's fourth season featured one of the most affecting and shocking deaths that I have ever seen on television. Needless to say, it left things on a rather incredible cliffhanger, and the anticipation for this season has been greater than that for any previous season of Dexter. This premiere (‘My Bad’) achieved the level of emotional resonance required in the aftermath of such a huge event whilst providing Dexter’s reaction in a surprisingly realistic fashion. On the evidence of the opening episode, It seems that the fifth season of Dexter is off to a terrific start.
The only way that the show could possibly react to such an event is for it to have a real effect on its central characters. This effect cannot merely last for this hour, but must have an influence over the rest of the season, and perhaps the series. In ‘My Bad’, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) attempts to mimic what he believes to be a appropriate human reaction to his wife’s death, but he is unable to entirely fake his way through this particular situation and his detachment actually becomes all the more obvious to those close to him, including his sister Debra (played by Jennifer Carpenter, who has, inexplicably, still not received an Emmy for this role). Hall is beyond excellent in the scene where he tells Rita’s children of her murder, subtly capturing how Dexter is unsure of how to act while giving bad news.
I appreciate that the premiere picked up immediately where last season left off, and that the show didn’t take the easy way out by doing some sort of time jump and skipping the events that followed the discovery of Rita in a blood-filled bath tub. Another thing that I liked was that Julie Benz (who played Rita) was still slightly involved in the episode (even if this will be her last appearance on show), appearing in some flashbacks and revealing the first meeting of Rita and Dexter.
Another story arc that the premiere established is that Quinn (Desmond Harrington) has now become suspicious of Dexter, considering that he may have had something to do with his wife’s death (it certainly didn’t help that Dexter’s first words at the crime scene were “it was me”, although that is largely dismissed later on). I hope that the show isn’t setting Quinn up to be the next Doakes, both because the story has already been done before and there is really no comparison between Quinn and Doakes as characters (as Doakes was awesome, and Quinn is... well, Quinn).
The fifth season of Dexter will be vital in showing how the series reacts to what should be an event that alters the way this world functions. Watching the development of Dexter as he struggles to come to terms with things this season should make for very compelling television, and I’m sure that the producers will have a few tricks up their sleeves (as they usually do) to make the second half of it even more tense and captivating. Following the incredible Season 4 will not be easy at all, but if this premiere is anything to go by, Dexter seems that it’ll continue to be very impressive.
Watch a repeat of the premiere tomorrow at 10pm on FX, Dexter will continue on Fridays at 10pm.
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