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I feel last season I was perhaps a tad overly critical of Dexter, Showtime’s surprisingly engrossing serial-killer drama. I got on board late and was forced to catch up over the course of a weekend having read all of this press about how brilliant and edgy the show was. Maybe my expectations were too high, or perhaps I secretly didn’t believe anything of cultural consequence to be shown on Showtime. By the season’s end I was a fan, but still had reservations. The supporting cast was too flat, and the season’s big revelation carried so much emotional weight I doubted they could ever find a story that would be even close to approaching the level of personal intimacy achieved. Going into this new season, I’m extremely optimistic, not the least of which is due to the very awesome Dexter posters plastered all over this city. Much more after the jump…

The setup for the new season is Dexter needs to get his groove back. Slightly over a month since he killed his brother, the dreaded Ice Truck Killer, he has yet to kill again and it’s starting to eat away at him. In this first episode back, he attempts to rectify this problem twice. Once by going after a blind Voodoo priest who is poisoning people he puts under a “death curse” (for those new to the series, Dexter only kills people who are in fact killers themselves). Later he tries again with a murderous gang-leader. Both attempts at quenching is blood-lust are failures. The first from lack of nerve, the second from lack of tape. By the hour’s end, he finally appears to be getting his nerve back, or at least “feeling” again, after learning his off-shore body dumping site was accidentally found by a group of scuba divers. He likes being chased perhaps more than he likes the killing. It’s not the act so much as knowing what he’s doing is wrong — like standing against the wind at the top of a building, attempting not to fall.

Again, Michael C. Hall’s performance is brilliant. He’s playing a guy who spends much of his life acting and we’re able to see that. Around his co-workers and friends and sister and girlfriend we see what appears to be a sensible, nice, caring human being, but we know that this persona is not the true nature of the character. What’s fascinating is his actual self, the self we see when he’s killing, is as affable and witty and determined as the version of himself he projects toward others, only with an actual soul peering out behind his eyes. It’s truly remarkable.

My biggest complaint with season one was with the supporting cast. Here, a lot of these problems seem to have been rectified. Deb, in particular, attempting to come back to work after being nearly drained and chopped into bits by a rival serial killer, is a far richer character this time around. She used to be an annoying puppy yipping in the corner, going head first with careless glee toward even the faintest sign of action, but now she’s seriously damaged and without the ability, like her brother, to maintain a projection of happiness.

Doakes is problematic, and the one aspect of the show I get restless watching. Aside from the one episode last season that briefly went into his backstory, explaining why he’s such a wet blanket, the character still comes off as a man who is angry for the sake of being angry. There’s no there, there. With a whole season to look forward to, and a recent track record of really fantastic drama, I’d like to think this problem will be rectified in weeks to come. Until then, it remains the one scuff on an otherwise pristine series.

Sunday nights finally have a drama worth writing about.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 1:08 pm and is filed under Dexter, Showtime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.