Television Dexter

I'm glad they've done away with the Gellar is alive thing. It was really starting to get on my nerves because its been apparent from the first episode that Gellar was a figment of Travis's bat-shit crazy mind. Now, we can finally get along with the show and see how it proceeds but this is looking to be another season where all the sub-plots are really atrocious.

Why would Mathews confide what really happened with Laguerta of all people. Is anyone else slightly disturbed that Dexter was willing to give a shot at redemption to Travis who was an accomplice in 4-5 ghastly murders. Is this meant to be part of the writing to indicate that Dexter's code seems to be slipping or just another plot hole? Debra's shrink sessions are painful to watch, they should just call it 'State the Obvious 101'. I think they're planning on revealing Dexter's secret to Debra at the finale. Hopefully.

The only thing that could save this season is if we could get a serial killer who takes out Quinn, Laguerta, Mathews, Batista's sister in one night. Possibly the intern-guy. C'mon.
 
The_Red_Hope said:
I'm glad they've done away with the Gellar is alive thing. It was really starting to get on my nerves because its been apparent from the first episode that Gellar was a figment of Travis's bat-shit crazy mind. Now, we can finally get along with the show and see how it proceeds but this is looking to be another season where all the sub-plots are really atrocious.

Why would Mathews confide what really happened with Laguerta of all people. Is anyone else slightly disturbed that Dexter was willing to give a shot at redemption to Travis who was an accomplice in 4-5 ghastly murders. Is this meant to be part of the writing to indicate that Dexter's code seems to be slipping or just another plot hole? Debra's shrink sessions are painful to watch, they should just call it 'State the Obvious 101'. I think they're planning on revealing Dexter's secret to Debra at the finale. Hopefully.

The only thing that could save this season is if we could get a serial killer who takes out Quinn, Laguerta, Mathews, Batista's sister in one night. Possibly the intern-guy. C'mon.
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The Matthews/La Guerta thing goes right to the beginning of the season where La Guerta gave Matthews the black book back and got promoted to captain because she blackmailed him. What's happening now echoes to back then. As Matthews knows that La Guerta knows that he has been with hookers he wants her to make sure that the case is closed so that he's not incriminated further.

I can understand the Dexter/Travis thing. Though Travis was an accomplice in the murders Dexter never thought that Travis actually did the murders himself and that it was all Gellar so if Gellar died then Travis would 'be free'. What happened with Brother Sam made him think that he needs to give some people second chances and he did that with Travis though as we saw at the end of the last episode it wasn't the smartest thing to do.
 
Someone made an interesting point about the intern on another forum:

There have been several references to the ice truck killer this season: the hand, Brian returning and Debra referring to Brian herself. Now we had Gellar found dead similar to how that ice truck killers victims were found and the latest victim of the doomsday killer had their hand cut off. With the intern in possession of the hand and his fascination of Dexter, maybe he has some link to Brian and with the latest similarities between ITK and the last episode perhaps he has been working with Travis?
 
Damien1990 said:
The Matthews/La Guerta thing goes right to the beginning of the season where La Guerta gave Matthews the black book back and got promoted to captain because she blackmailed him. What's happening now echoes to back then. As Matthews knows that La Guerta knows that he has been with hookers he wants her to make sure that the case is closed so that he's not incriminated further.

I can understand the Dexter/Travis thing. Though Travis was an accomplice in the murders Dexter never thought that Travis actually did the murders himself and that it was all Gellar so if Gellar died then Travis would 'be free'. What happened with Brother Sam made him think that he needs to give some people second chances and he did that with Travis though as we saw at the end of the last episode it wasn't the smartest thing to do.
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Fair points. I got all of that but how ethical is it to give a man who he thinks was an accomplice to 4 gruesome deaths a second chance. I see the Brother Sam angle but personally I don't see how Dexter can forgive Travis his role in the deaths. They're painting Dexter pretty dark there, don't know if its intended or not. If they're consciously going down that route, I can accept it.

Also, Travis does confuse me. What exactly is the nature of his delusion. He seems to switch only when the plot and situation require him to. Couldn't he have done away with Dexter at multiple points in the motel/church. He switched during the elevator scene and when he had him trapped in the church. So we wanted Dexter to learn the truth before killing him. These serial killers are seriously nuts.
 
I think that there is a small possibility that Gellar is actually alive as a plot twist even though it has seemed very obvious that he isn't for a while now. The IT nerd having that hand is interesting.
 
Wibble said:
I think that there is a small possibility that Gellar is actually alive as a plot twist even though it has seemed very obvious that he isn't for a while now. The IT nerd having that hand is interesting.
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I assume you're joking?

Average episode, which makes it better than most of this seasons other episodes.

It's still watchable though.
 
The intern could be a killer, and has information about Dexter. We have seen that he has money and doesn't need a intern job at a police station, he is there for a different reason thats not a game. Maybe some kind of information he found with his IT skills or had contact with Brian or maybe he was the one who helped Brian find Dexter.
 
cina said:
I assume you're joking?

Average episode, which makes it better than most of this seasons other episodes.

It's still watchable though.
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I remember watching the first two seasons of this show in a week when I finally got around to giving it a chance, now it's getting to the point where there are many other (frankly middling) shows I'd rather watch than this.
 
evra said:
I remember watching the first two seasons of this show in a week when I finally got around to giving it a chance, now it's getting to the point where there are many other (frankly middling) shows I'd rather watch than this.
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Personally I'd still rather watch Dexter to The Walking Dead or Boardwalk Empire.

The show has deteriorated massively and pretty much every character in it is shit now (apart from the dude from Chicago, I like him). They've even made Masuka crap, he's not funny anymore. But they still do have Dexter himself and M. C. Hall still does a great job, he's what makes me still want to watch the show.

The plot lines this season have been really poor through, and completely disjointed and full of ridiculous holes. It's even worse than 5 which says something. God only knows what the next 2 will be like.

Still, I'll keep watching, at this stage after nearly 70 episodes I just can't give up.
 
evra said:
Dr: Would you expect a chair to become a table?

Deb: No.

Dr: Why?

Deb: Because a chair is a ...

Dr: Chair. [SMUGLY]

Deb: Dexter can't change, you're good. [IMPRESSED]



The script is an abomination.
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Its not always this bad, but you are correct, this bit was incredibly poor.
 
evra said:
Dr: Would you expect a chair to become a table?

Deb: No.

Dr: Why?

Deb: Because a chair is a ...

Dr: Chair. [SMUGLY]

Deb: Dexter can't change, you're good. [IMPRESSED]

The script is an abomination.
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Aye, that was embarrassing.
 
Solius said:
Also

Twist was obvious of course. They need something big to happen I think. Not sure where the Lewis thing is going after it showed he has the hand. Also it's just retarded that Miami Metro has to rely on an intern to realise they can track an IP. Everyone's just like 'derp well the blog won't help'. The whole department are retarded.
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It's ridiculous how stupid the whole department is. It's like they're trying to solve murders only using technology that existed 500 years ago. Tracing an IP is hardly ground-breaking detective work. Also rather silly that none of them took a quick look at the area and spotted a fecking abandoned church.

The guy who owned the wireless router also got off way too easily to make it even remotely believable.
"Your internet has been used by a potential mass-murderer"
"Yeah, but it's unsecured wi-fi"
"Oh, OK"

What the feck?
 
Well you can't punish someone for their wi-fi being open......

Rest of it I obviously agree with though, as I've always said, the shows always had shoddy writing if you pay too much attention, which I don't as it's just my train journey show now.
 
It's also hilarious that basically every single new character that has joined the police over the years has something fecked up and/or dodgy about them. I mean seriously, this is the main homicide in Miami and they will just let these people in?

I am glad others are finally seeing my way as to how poor the show has gone, seeing as how I was blasted on here for my criticism of season 5 :cool:
 
Zen said:
Well you can't punish someone for their wi-fi being open......

Rest of it I obviously agree with though, as I've always said, the shows always had shoddy writing if you pay too much attention, which I don't as it's just my train journey show now.
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No, but I don't really believe that actual detectives would just say "OK" and move on. I'm pretty sure they'd actually search the house for any possible clues and quiz the owner a bit more than they did. I know it wouldn't mean anything story-wise, but it's sloppy work like that, that makes it hard to believe that the people working at Miami Metro are actually detectives.

cina said:
It's also hilarious that basically every single new character that has joined the police over the years has something fecked up and/or dodgy about them. I mean seriously, this is the main homicide in Miami and they will just let these people in?

I am glad others are finally seeing my way as to how poor the show has gone, seeing as how I was blasted on here for my criticism of season 5 :cool:
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I still don't think the plot holes and such are much worse than previous seasons tbh. Dexter has always got off way too easy when it comes to his involvement in cases since the start. In Season 1 he just happened to track down the Ice Truck Killer on his own and have a head thrown after him when he just happened to be out roaming the street in the middle of the night. Then it turns out that the Ice Truck Killer was his brother and still nobody (apart from Doakes) suspected a thing. Stuff like this happens every season. Miami Metro have been useless all along.

Dexter manages to solve crimes on his own that the rest of their staff (despite having the training and being more people) can't solve. Yes, the police can't gather evidence in the way he does but they never ever actually put the pieces together, and if they do it's way after Dexter has done it.

I think some people are exaggerating how much worse this show has gotten. I agree that this season is below par, but it's not as bad as some people say imo.
 
Wowi said:
I think some people are exaggerating how much worse this show has gotten. I agree that this season is below par, but it's not as bad as some people say imo.
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It haas. Season 4 is regarded as soon of the best seasons of TV of all time by many. Compare that to 5 and 6. The writing has gotten awful, none of the characters are likable anymore, the plots are boring.

It is a shadow of its former self.
 
cina said:
I assume you're joking?
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I wasn't.

Your response made me suspect that I had fallen asleep and missed the end. And I had. I'd missed the last five minutes. My missus had fallen asleep even earlier so we started half way through again. Before we got to the the bit I'd missed my missus said "have we got to the bit with the old bloke in the freezer yet?"

feck
 
cina said:
It haas. Season 4 is regarded as soon of the best seasons of TV of all time by many. Compare that to 5 and 6. The writing has gotten awful, none of the characters are likable anymore, the plots are boring.

It is a shadow of its former self.
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Season 4 was special, but that was mainly because of Lithgow adding something extra. Him and Hall were absolutely brilliant together. But Dexter still managed to find the Trinity Killer very quickly, although a former top FBI agent had been unable to for decades. The Miami Metro were of course as useless as ever.

I'm not disagreeing with you, that the current season and the last haven't been of the standard we've seen in the previous seasons, but I'm just saying that some of the stuff people complain about has happened all the time. The writing of each scene, and the characters involved has just gotten worse, which makes people focus more on the bad things. Most of the characters didn't really annoy me before, because the writing was good and the show in general was very fecking excellent, so that outweighed the negatives by several miles. Now that the writing of each scene has gotten worse they're all pissing me off and I find myself focusing more on the negative bits. I still think the show is excellent though, but that's because the story lines still keeps me interested and because Hall is fantastic.
 
Wowi said:
Season 4 was special, but that was mainly because of Lithgow adding something extra. Him and Hall were absolutely brilliant together. But Dexter still managed to find the Trinity Killer very quickly, although a former top FBI agent had been unable to for decades. The Miami Metro were of course as useless as ever.

I'm not disagreeing with you, that the current season and the last haven't been of the standard we've seen in the previous seasons, but I'm just saying that some of the stuff people complain about has happened all the time. The writing of each scene, and the characters involved has just gotten worse, which makes people focus more on the bad things. Most of the characters didn't really annoy me before, because the writing was good and the show in general was very fecking excellent, so that outweighed the negatives by several miles. Now that the writing of each scene has gotten worse they're all pissing me off and I find myself focusing more on the negative bits. I still think the show is excellent though, but that's because the story lines still keeps me interested and because Hall is fantastic.
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I think this is the problem - that Lithgow was so electrifying and the ending so unexpected that it left an awful lot to live up to
 
evra said:
Dr: Would you expect a chair to become a table?

Deb: No.

Dr: Why?

Deb: Because a chair is a ...

Dr: Chair. [SMUGLY]

Deb: Dexter can't change, you're good. [IMPRESSED]



The script is an abomination.
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No not really, it perfectly highlights how fecking retarded Debra Morgan is.

But seriously, everything good in this show has seriously gone tits up. It's done, basically. I actually found myself fast forwarding parts of the episode because I couldn't stand the dialogue.
 
Wowi said:
I still don't think the plot holes and such are much worse than previous seasons tbh. Dexter has always got off way too easy when it comes to his involvement in cases since the start.
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I agree that for me they haven't been getting worse. The big one for me is one that's always been there; the fact that he sits on his work computer, checking up fingerprints and DNA samples in their databases of people that his work has nothing to do with. He's been doing this for, what, six years, and nobody's caught him searching for stuff he doesn't have anything to do with? Not to mention the fact that some of these people go missing just a few days later?

I mean, surely there would be an IT department there who would catch onto that? At least once in six years somebody should've said; "Hey, this dude is searching for fingerprints and DNA samples that nobody else is looking for. Why is that? Oh hey, that guy just fecking disappeared! What's up with that?"
 
Snow said:
Why surely?
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Err, because all places containing classified information has an IT department that monitors its users' movement in their databases to ensure that they don't access information that they aren't allowed to access.

For example, all hospitals have a "tracking system" that shows which journals you've accessed since you're not allowed to access journals of people that you don't have a patient-carer relation with. Surely a homicide department should have one too?
 
Makki said:
I agree that for me they haven't been getting worse. The big one for me is one that's always been there; the fact that he sits on his work computer, checking up fingerprints and DNA samples in their databases of people that his work has nothing to do with. He's been doing this for, what, six years, and nobody's caught him searching for stuff he doesn't have anything to do with? Not to mention the fact that some of these people go missing just a few days later?

I mean, surely there would be an IT department there who would catch onto that? At least once in six years somebody should've said; "Hey, this dude is searching for fingerprints and DNA samples that nobody else is looking for. Why is that? Oh hey, that guy just fecking disappeared! What's up with that?"
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Actually Miguel Prado did. But that's the only time. I agree though, that it doesn't make much sense. As you say in your other post I assume it's pretty standard for police to keep track of who accesses what, and given how many searches Dexter makes (especially when you consider he's a blood analyst) it's a bit odd that no-one has questioned this at all. In S2 they even assumed that the butcher was a cop, but they never checked their records to see who accessed the files of the people gone missing.

Edit: I think Zen sums up my feeling about the plotholes and such in the following posts. I do think Dexter has been on the same level as the best though, but that's a matter of personal taste on how important you think a bullet-proof plot is.
Zen said:
There were endless plotholes im the first few seasons, especially in Dexters killings, despite how careful they made him out to be, that is nothing new. It's never been on the same level as the best, because it relies heavily on its gimmick. Still obviously a lot of fun like 24 and others heavily reliant on a gimmick and having solid writing at least with a strong lead.

Anyway onto last nights ep

They seem to be making it so obvious that Geller is fake, or well Travis' dark passenger that he should be real at this point.....but then again, they made it so obvious something would happen at the end of season 5 with Deb or even Quinn finding something on Dexter....then what happened, oh yeah nothing. So you never know with these crazy writers
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Makki said:
Err, because all places containing classified information has an IT department that monitors its users' movement in their databases to ensure that they don't access information that they aren't allowed to access.

For example, all hospitals have a "tracking system" that shows which journals you've accessed since you're not allowed to access journals of people that you don't have a patient-carer relation with. Surely a homicide department should have one too?
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This database is huge. It's not just for one department. It's a state wide thing. Him looking up dozens up people everyday isn't noteworthy at all.

I'm not sure what is going to be suspicious in all this. Even if the IT department, police stations there barely have one, see his log then what is it too them? They're not cops. It only shows a bunch of names. These people aren't dead. He dumps them in the water and gets rid of them. They are rather missing. And most of them are probably not police cases either to begin with so there is no file.

There's no obvious connect the dots thing here. It's not like he's killing every day. It's at most one person every two weeks.

Americans aren't fond of policing the police.
 
Snow said:
This database is huge. It's not just for one department. It's a state wide thing. Him looking up dozens up people everyday isn't noteworthy at all.

I'm not sure what is going to be suspicious in all this. Even if the IT department, police stations there barely have one, see his log then what is it too them? They're not cops. It only shows a bunch of names. These people aren't dead. He dumps them in the water and gets rid of them. They are rather missing. And most of them are probably not police cases either to begin with so there is no file.

There's no obvious connect the dots thing here. It's not like he's killing every day. It's at most one person every two weeks.

Americans aren't fond of policing the police.
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I might remember it wrong, but wasn't all the bodies recovered in Season 2 in the police system? That's how they identified them all. Most of his victims are either ex-cons or have been suspected in some case. I'm not really sure whether the police should've noticed Dexter's searches randomly, but I'd think the FBI team in Season 2 would request logs of who accessed the victims' files and when, when they suspected it was an inside cop. I'd think that Dexter is often the last person to check a file before that person is reported as missing, as most of his victims aren't involved in any open cases.
 
I agree with the IT things, in reality Dexter should have been caught from audit logs a long time ago.
 
Wowi said:
I might remember it wrong, but wasn't all the bodies recovered in Season 2 in the police system? That's how they identified them all. Most of his victims are either ex-cons or have been suspected in some case. I'm not really sure whether the police should've noticed Dexter's searches randomly, but I'd think the FBI team in Season 2 would request logs of who accessed the victims' files and when, when they suspected it was an inside cop. I'd think that Dexter is often the last person to check a file before that person is reported as missing, as most of his victims aren't involved in any open cases.
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That bit might be true. This is totally different then some random IT search. Perhaps the logs just aren't there with that detailed information. That or the person detailed on that search didn't connect the dots. That's plausible but poor work.
 
Snow said:
That bit might be true. This is totally different then some random IT search. Perhaps the logs just aren't there with that detailed information. That or the person detailed on that search didn't connect the dots. That's plausible but poor work.
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I'm pretty sure all major police departments keep quite detailed records on how accesses what, as it's not really that hard to do and the information could be very valuable (as seen in this case ;)). Putting it down to poor police work would pretty much describe the rest of the department, so that's a pretty fair bet. You'd expect a top-FBI-guy and his team to be able to connect those dots though.

championo said:
What if he is not using user name? He is careful and may have thought of this? No?
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Not using user name? Not really sure what you mean. Do you mean that he'd access the files without logging in? I highly doubt that is possible.
 
championo said:
What if he is not using user name? He is careful and may have thought of this? No?
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The other user would have been flagged, denied it then a trace on the source of log ins would have taken them to MM homicide.
 
Pretty good episode..

However, the scene where Dexter got back home and Jamie and the intern told him they were going out on a date was pathetic.

"You mean you can't stay here and watch Harrison? I gotta go out..."
"So hey Dex, whaddaya think of my game?"
"It's stupid"
...
"Jamie, I'm not feeling too well, I can't go to the concert [because Dexter didn't like my game]. Bye cyalater!"
"Still need a babysitter?"

How convenient...
 
The security guards chat :lol:

So Dexter made a 911 call from his own phone? Right then.
 
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