Dexter - "Dex, Lies, And Videotape" - 11/04/07
 

"Dex, Lies, And Videotape"

Jaime Murray - [borat]NIIIIICE![/borat]

For the first time, I am watching these as they air. I gave up early last year, and caught up over the summer. Myself and my wife are loving this show, probably one of our favorites on the air in quite some time.

While I don't like the Dexter-Lila relationship, they are building it well. I feel like Dexter and Rita should be together though, and I hope that's how it ends up.

Looks like Doakes has an even shadier past than thought, I feel he may end up in a terrible situation by seasons end.

I do not like the allusions to a Deb and Lundy relationship. I hope it doesn't turn into that.

Glad to see Dex Kill again. It'll be interesting to see how the BHB case unfolds. He cut it close and took a big risk. I don't think Lundy's as clueless as he came off this time.

This episode was a bit lazy. I know Dexter is "changed", but season one Dexter only touched Rita for her, and now he's a horndog. Also, would the detectives really not notice a huge gap in the time sequence on the tapes?

The only plus was that they didn't drag out Rita not knowing about Dexter sleeping with Lila. I'm definitely ready for Lila to go away, but I doubt that will happen for a long time.

I guess I'm the odd man out in that I'm enjoying the Dexter-Lila relationship. He's more genuine around Lila. We already see the side he presents to Rita in his work life, he stretches more with Lila.

I think Lila is more suited for Dexter, and have been waiting for the eventual hookup. I liked Rita the first season, but she is like a completely different person now.

I'm ready for Rita to be gone. She is a whiny beyotch!

And Dexter should kill Doakes! Enjoyed how he killed the wannabe bay harbor butcher

While I don't necessarily want Rita completely out of the picture, I like the Dexter-Lila relationship insofar as what it means for Dexter's character, and the possibilities of him questioning "The Code", and trying to find a different path (good or bad). To me, it's something that I've always been interested in the show exploring, and it's cool that it seems to be going down that route.

I don't think Lila "understands" him in the way Dexter thinks. When she finds out his real adiction... watch out.

I don't think it's fair to call Rita a whiny bitch either. She's a little damaged, but her heart is definitely in the right place. After the nightmare that she had with her ex she thought she had found a great guy with Dexter, and while he is a great guy to her it's really only him playing a role. As Dexter increasingly stops playing his role Rita gets to see the more frightening side of him.

Honestly, I'm interested in where this is going because I think Rita is good for him while I think Lila will be ultimately destructive.

:confused: Why? She did nothing but stick up for Dexter, even though she was burned by Paul in the past. And Dexter DID sleep with Lila, so she obviously has a right to be upset there.

I'd be angry if that happened. It would totally go against everything Dexter has stood for. Doakes might be a pain to Dexter, but he isn't a murderer or anything close to that.

I enjoyed his "on-the-edge" confrontation with Doakes in Dexter's lab:

"Back ... the fuck ... off"

May end up being a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome meeting some day --- "Two men enter, one man leaves ..."

Doakes is so intense...I find myself laughing every time he threatens someone.

I hope Dex doesn't kill him...his scenes are always pretty good.

Doakes needs more fiber in his diet.

That awkward hug by Deb of Lundy was hilariously inappropriate.

Lila and Dexter are going to make a crazy couple of killas.

Rita is going to blame herself for Dexter straying. I was waiting for Dex to use the "I thought we were on a break!" excuse if Rita came back asking when he was with Lila.

Good to see Haywire from Prison Break doing some copycat killings in Miami. I wondered how the windmill painting would affect Haywire.

Vonnegut once wrote, "Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be". Dexter keeps saying all these things like he's not the person he was supposed to be, and that he's who Harry wanted him to be. Well Dex, I got news for you, you'd be dead or in jail if it wasn't for old Harry, and then you wouldn't much of anyone. You may not be free, as a killer, but that hasn't stopped you from killing a ton of people in the meantime, and still managing to connect with a ton of people, inspite of your claims of being empty.

I think Dexter will make a major discovery this season and that won't be that he wants to be a known savage killer, but the exact person he always has been, a family man. That's why I think Lila is bad for Dexter, she is encouraging him to be "himself". That will just lead to sloppiness. Rita does allow Dexter to be himself, plus there's the kids.

I am concerned that Dexter seems to be questioning Harry and living under Harry's code. If he dismisses everything that Harry taught him, will that make him end up an indiscriminate killer? I can't imagine him abandoning that code, because despite Dexter's killer tendencies I think he is a moral person. He can't help the killer side of him, but Harry did him a great service by indulging that aspect of his personality and allowing him to channel it into a healthier way.

Mother Night, excellent quote.

I think it's natural for Dexter to start questioning the code, he's always thought of Harry as this perfect father - now he's realizing that he was human and made mistakes just like everyone.

I think eventually he'll realize what most kids do. Although parents often say one thing while having done another in the past - it's usually because they've learned from their experiences.

Harry's 'Code' - the precision, the "always be sure" creed, etc. Is what makes Dex morally ambiguous (not to mention difficult to catch), Dexter has to end up realizing that despite Harry's faults, his code has worked pretty well.

I'm 99% sure that Dexter will be back to The Code (and probably Rita) by the end of the season. I mean, it's pretty much the entire premise of the show, and I doubt that anyone behind the scenes wants to permanently drop it and just make Dexter a random serial killer. But until then, I'm interested to see where questioning it leads him.

Thinking about the scenes with Doakes (both in this episode and across this season), am I the only that thinks (this is just speculation on my part but I'll spoiler-tag just in case)

I'll admit they are handling the Dexter-Lila relationship a lot better than I thought they would be able to.
I am however still confident that she doesn't understand him as well as he thinks she does. If she finds out what he really is it's gonna get ugly.

I think the show is hinting that Doakes has a MUCH darker past. The things he had to do in Specal Ops may have damaged him in a similar way as Dexter.
Remember:
"The only real question I have, is why in a building full of cops... is Doakes the only one who gets the creeps from me?"

Doakes recognizes something familiar in Dexter.

If this show kills off a character, I'm convinced that it'll be Doakes.

The character seems like someone who will only achieve peace in another life (ie. troubled from military service, dark past we don't know about yet). He's the only person who suspects there's something abnormal about Dexter, and I bet he eventually finds out the truth about him but dies (NOT at the hands of Dexter) before he can tell anyone. It seems like a fitting end for that character, and another bullet that Dexter dodges. I don't think it'll happen until the last season of the series though.

I bet Dexter ends up killing Lila for some reason. Maybe she turns out to be a serial killer who preys on addicts she picks up at AA meetings.

If he kills her I think it might be to shut her up when she finds out he's a killer and flips out

I hope they don't go this route. We already had Deb dating the Ice-Truck Killer... having Dexter date a serial killer is too repetative and coincidental.