Thoughts about Dexter’s fourth season, one episode before the finale

I was talking with my brother, and we imagined the following exchange in the writers’ room during the initial stages of writing the fourth season.

WRITER #1: Okay, so Dexter’s got a wife, he’s got a kid. He’s trying to “have it all” and I think a good theme will be not just how he manages to juggle all of these lives, but also which parts of these lives he’s willing to sacrifice for parts of other lives.

WRITER #2: I think that’s a great idea for Dexter. Okay, we’ve got these other characters, too. What can we do?

WRITER #1: I’ve kind of been throwing this idea around for Deb for a while, privately. I’m just putting it out there; if it doesn’t do anything for you, just let me know.

WRITER #2: Sure.

WRITER #1: I’m thinking we should give her a new career.

WRITER #2: Wow, interesting. What have you got in mind?

WRITER #1: We make her a cop.

(silence)

WRITER #1: I’m sorry I brought it up.

WRITER #2: No, it’s just … Wow. It’s so out of left field. It’s a direction we’ve never considered taking her before.

WRITER #1: I know! That’s what makes it so exciting. Think about all the possibilities.

WRITER #2: It’s a complete change for the character. I’m liking this idea a lot. Okay, I think we’ve got everything we need here. Let’s get to work on outlining.

WRITER #3: What about Batista and LaGuerta?

WRITERS #1 and #2, together: Oh, shit.

I would say this season has been skippable if it weren’t for Deb. Now that Deb is an honest-to-God cop, I like her as a character much, much more. It makes her a threat to figuring out Dexter’s lie, which makes us respect her – makes us wonder what she’s up to, what she’s thinking.

Because, more than anything else for her character, I want Deb to know Dexter’s secret. Deb’s arc has been to worship her father, then realize her father isn’t a platinum standard to which she must hold herself, and now we’re seeing her surpass her father. I want Deb to surpass Harry in every way – I want her to be a better cop, a better person, but I also want her to see Dexter for what he is and not be overcome by it.

Harry only knew Dexter the Monster. He didn’t know Dexter the Human – indeed, Dexter the Human didn’t exist. This vulnerability is what killed him: when he saw Dexter the Monster in full form and didn’t have a broader, or at least alternate, vision of Dexter – Dexter the Human, the identity he was laying the foundation for – his perception of his son wasn’t robust enough to defend against the horror.

Deb doesn’t have this problem. She only knows Dexter the Human. (She has the advantage of Dexter the Human becoming real over the past several years). When she learns Dexter’s secret, she will have a fuller picture – Dexter the Monster counterweighed by Dexter the Loving Husband, Dexter the Loving Father. She could withstand it, and then Dexter would have that connection that has been so elusive to him – what he has with his victims, what he had with Doakes in the final episodes of the second season, what he had with Miguel Prado in the third season. Unlike those fleeting connections, though, his connection with Deb wouldn’t be temporary. Dexter’s secret wouldn’t be the death sentence it has been for so many others.

This isn’t without problems, of course. How does Dexter explain Doakes’ death? “That was an accident; I was only trying to frame him so he would get the death penalty,” doesn’t strike me as very defensible.

I could also see the writers’ trying to make exactly the opposite point: Dexter connecting on that level is unhealthy. It is, in fact, impossible: that side of Dexter is a killer, and is in fact so strong a killer that just seeing this side of him will kill. Rather than trying to connect on this level – what Dexter sees as his true person, his core – he needs to re-define his core and work on making what were once false connections into genuine connections. This seems a perfectly valid way to tell the story.

Under this paradigm, Trinity would basically be a case study in someone who was either not willing or not able to redefine this core. He’s got a lot in common with Dexter – a lot of death in his immediate family, with Trinity being at least partly responsible (like Dexter). His rituals are like Dexter’s – he is recreating the death of his loved ones. He is an example of what Dexter would become if he makes these genuine connections with people while retaining his identity as strictly Dexter the Monster – if he cannot change what these real connections are really connecting to.

This theory isn’t mutually exclusive with Deb knowing, though. I think the two narratives fit together well. His connection with Deb would be one of these connections that once was fake and now is real; the connection isn’t anchored in Dexter the Monster, but Dexter the Human. Coincidentally, almost unrelatedly, she knows the Monster exists.

As for Batista and LaGuerta: Who cares? What a waste of words, film, time. I get the angle: Batista’s genuineness and heart will be a salve to LaGuerta’s politicking, and LaGuerta’s cunning will protect Batista’s ingenuousness. But it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t do anything for me. The writers didn’t provide enough contrast with LaGuerta’s compromised, calculated life to make Batista-as-oasis all that compelling. Further, one of the only interesting parts of the story of their relationship would have been to see who brought up marriage first – Batista or LaGuerta. My guess is that the writers thought if we showed the actual conversation, it would reinforce what we already thought about the characters. If we don’t see it, though, we just appear in this situation of them being married without hitting us over the head with the idea that Batista means it and LaGuerta doesn’t.

(By the way, after I heard the captain’s assessment of the marriage, and said he hoped their marriage wouldn’t be as amoral as the decision that led to it, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Captain is right.”)

I’ve been predicting (read: hoping) that Deb, not Dexter, would be the one to finish Trinity. This is looking pretty unlikely after Dexter framed Stan Bodri so well. I wanted this for a lot of reasons:

• I want Dexter to see that as his priorities change, as he becomes human, that the control being lost is not necessarily being ceded to forces that will harm him.
• I want Deb, not Dexter, to be the one to catch Lundy’s prey.
• I don’t imagine a pre-killing table-talk with Trinity would be that insightful or exciting.

Right now, my perfect finish to the season would be: Dexter and Trinity square off, but because Trinity never yielded his Monster Essence to his Human Essence, he is the more effective killer. He overwhelms Dexter. Deb, however, has figured out that Arthur is Trinity – and busts in, killing Trinity and saving Dexter. His human connections are what save him from this future version of himself.

Bonus if she’s figured out Dexter is a serial killer.