Cutting Remarks

The fifth season of Dexter wrapped up tonight. Though I haven't been commenting on it on a week to week basis as I have some other shows, I have been watching it all along.

This season was actually the first time I've ever watched the show one episode at a time like that. I first started Dexter just after season three had aired, caught up with that much on DVD, and then watched season four on a series of recordings a co-worker made. This time around, I'd decided I was going to spring for Showtime and watch it as it ran.

I have to say, I thought this season got off to a bit of a rocky start. The conclusion of season four necessitated some "wrap up" to occur at the beginning of this year, but for a few episodes I thought season five was feeling like more of an epilogue than a story unto itself. Of course, the fact that I wasn't able to just sit down and watch multiple episodes at a time may have to do with my sense that the initial pacing was slow.

This slowly began to pick up when Julia Stiles entered the picture. And there's a sentence I don't think I ever would have imagined myself typing. She's been the most bland thing in every movie I've ever seen her in, and I wasn't enthused to hear that she was a major element of the new season. Having taken in all of season five now, though, I have to say that she surprised me. Her character was well written, and she did justice to that quality.

In past seasons of Dexter -- particularly seasons two and four -- I felt that somewhere around episode four, things reached a tipping point where I just wanted to keep watching the series all the way to the end. In season five, that tipping point didn't occur until maybe episode eight or nine. But it did get there, and I definitely felt that thrill watching the final few hours.

I was even a little bit surprised at the conclusion too. For several episodes, the pieces seemed to be falling into place to suggest that Deb was going to discover Dexter's secret by the end of the season. Lots of suggestive conversations about her understanding the vigilante killers, that sort of thing. And when the moment came that she found herself at the camp with her brother and Lumen on the other side of the sheet, I thought: here we go. But no, the buildup was just to get Deb to the point where she'd let the killers escape, not that she'd learn who they were.

Instead, if anyone quite has Dexter's secret now, it's Quinn. Just how interesting that thread turns out to be is an issue for the recently announced season six to tackle next fall, I suppose.

Overall, I'd say that season five was not the best for Dexter. Still, it didn't fall terribly short of the mark. Other series -- say... 24 -- were really quite disappointing when they weren't at their best. Dexter was still a great show, even if it wasn't matching the heights of one or two past years. And it does seem like there's still more gas in the tank for another trip.