Dexter Season Six: Time Heals All Wounds And Opens Some New Ones

Blood-sucking mosquitos, razor nicks, Canadian bacon, blood oranges, floss, shoelaces – does any close-up sequence of images make you more excited?

Yesterday, Showtime ran the highly anticipated season six premiere of their hit homicidal mystery Dexter, preceded by the distinctive title sequence described above. And while this week’s episode was light on action, it set various storylines into motion and prompted several interesting questions – who are those two scripture-quoting murderers? Why did  Lt. María LaGuerta divorce Detective Sergeant Angel Batista after they were almost fired for pursuing their relationship? Is Dexter’s confidence going to lead to mistakes and inquiries by the police? Season six, you have much to tell us.

This episode begins a year after season five. Lumen, Dexter’s partner-in-crime and love interest who left him in the previous season finale, is not mentioned once. Rita, Dexter’s murdered wife is brought up with little reaction from her husband. He is once again void of any emotion, fully focused on one thing: the kill. And kill he does — the show opens with one of his most intriguing captures yet, paralyzing and murdering two EMTs at once with a defibrillator. It was a risky move, but Dexter said he was feeling confident after a year of success. Two men at once seems too hazardous to meet the approval of his very strict “code” handed down to him by his worrisome father Harry Morgan — perhaps Dexter is putting less stock into his father’s will these days. Perhaps this overconfidence will lead to more chancy behavior, even sloppy behavior that could attract the attention of the Miami Metro Police. Dexter’s department may start investigating his own crimes again if he’s not too careful.

It seems the issues Dexter will be wrangling this season won’t pertain to his criminalities, but will be of a moral strain. His sister Debra convinces him to instill a sense of faith – any faith – in his son Harrison. Dexter has confessed in the past that he’s never had a “use” for spirituality, but he now sees the merit in imparting an ethical system in his son.  His attention will also be grabbed by a highly disturbing parallel storyline. Guest stars Collin Hanks and Edward James Olmos emerge as a mysterious homicidal duo bend on a perverse religious crusade, murdering a street vendor with a machete and sewing snakes into his emptied body cavity while quoting scripture. Olmos seems to be a mentor of sorts to Hanks, insinuating that something has “begun.” The apocalypse? Their serial murders? They only appear in two scenes, leaving more questions for viewers to juggle.  The intrigued Dexter is called to study the remnants of their crime scene, setting up another cat-and-mouse relationship between himself and the murderers, much like the power play with the Ice Truck Killer in the marvelous first season.

Time has affected other characters as well. Batista and LaGuerta ended their marriage, but LaGuerta is too busy blackmailing Captain Tom Matthews with knowledge of his frequent visits to madams to explain why. Things are getting serious for dating detectives Joseph Quinn and Debra Morgan, and Quinn even pulls out a ring. The eventual proposal will lead to the familiar and obvious plot line of Debra’s extreme anxiety of commitment and unsolved daddy-issues and end with her self-sabotaging the relationship. Frankly, this storyline doesn’t project to be too interesting. Viewers tire of being strung along through Deb’s relationship drama from season to season.

Things have progressed quickly for the characters, perhaps too much so. After the impact of what Dexter’s been through, there should have been some sort of nod towards the past. It’s as if neither Rita’s murder nor Lumen’s betrayal ever happened. After Lumen managed to elicit the most emotion ever experienced in his empty heart only to leave him, Dexter’s major emotional break-through of being able to care for someone so deeply is cast as irrelevant. The show is not only a record of those he kills, but documentation of his emotional journey. Lack of empathy is the reason why Dexter is the way he is and he’s spent his entire life trying to fake it for others to see. Once he finally achieved it, in increments with Rita and her children and then in a surge with Lumen, the writers disregard this major breakthrough.

The writers may be forgiven this transgression, as Dexter is a sharply-written and easily lovable character who many would resist to see change too much. The stories unwrap slowly each year, carefully crafting a tale that takes twelve episodes to conclude.  The season six premiere played with both the intimate and the menacing, foreshadowing amazing rivalry between Dexter and his religious antagonists and genuine human turmoil over his relationships and responsibilities. Excitement should be peaked for what is shaping to be a highly enjoyable new season.

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