Sunday, November 10, 2013

A Negative Review: Dexter Season 8 Sucks


How the mighty have fallen...

There was a time when Dexter was one of the best things on television. Long gone, that time is... now all that remains of this once great show is the sort of joke that some drunken asshole would make at a party while spilling his beer over the girl he's trying to fuck. If you ever wanted an example of a show that went from good to bad to absolutely horrendous, Dexter may well be the textbook example. 

So, where did season 8 go so, so wrong...?

THE SEASON OPENED WITH BATISTA NOT GIVING A SHIT ABOUT LAGUERTA BEING DEAD. I'm actually all for this, myself, since Laguerta was the shittiest character on the show, but it makes no sense for Batista not to care, given their history together. First they were into each other, then they were married, then they were close friends, and then, BAM, she's dead, and he doesn't care, unless giving up on that terrible restaurant subplot counts – but, oh, wait, despite claiming to have left that life and coming back to the force in order to avenge Laguerta's death (never happens), the show still decides it's going to reap the benefits of having Batista own a successful restaurant, because we're constantly showered with scenes in it.

THE QUINN/DEB/JAMIE LOVE TRIANGLE. Pointless. Filler. Stupid. Boring. Amy Garcia bouncing up and down Desmond Harrington for about 3 episodes. It didn't help much that it was centered around some of the worst characters of the show, either: Jaime and Quinn!

DOCTOR ELLEN VOGEL, COMPLETELY WASTED AS A POTENTIAL SUPER-LUNDY. Oh man. When Dexter first cornered Dr. Vogel and pushed her up into that wall, the look in her eyes was fantastic – she wasn't scared, because not only did she know about it, but she had created it. Unfortunately, a few episodes later, she goes all gooey for Dexter and all the fun goes out the window. And then her throat gets slashed, or whatever.

DEBRA, THE SURVIVOR OF PTSD, ALCOHOLISM, PILL ADDICTION, AND SEX BINGING WITH MURDERERS. Bonus points: she also tried to kill herself and her brother. But anyway, you know what the thing about PTSD, is? Soldiers can't even cope with it, and yet Debra, in a mere 3 episodes, completely recuperates such that she can go right back to being a dumb bitch and let Hannah back into her life. The Debra of season 1-4 would have immediately arrested Hannah. Speaking of which...

HANNAH. This character brings almost nothing good to the show. In fact, the only thing Hannah does end up doing is serving as the catalyst for Dexter's move away from his very defining characteristics of sociopathy. And with that, we have:

DEXTER THE IDIOT. DEXTER THE MORON. Because of Hannah, the stupid, venom wielding femme fatale, Dexter eventually comes to reveal to a number of persons not named Debra/Hannah in excess of zero about his involvement in several, ongoing homicide investigations. Also, for whatever reason, Dexter now stalks his victims like this. Yes, that's right – a neon blue shirt, in the middle of the day, outside the restaurant window, pressed up against the glass. Oh and maybe this is more of a minor thing, but he also lets people go.

THE BRAIN SURGEON. THE BIGGEST CLICHE TO EVER BEFALL DEXTER. Dr. Vogel's son is not only a genius, but also a serial killer, that faked his own death, got a new identity, then ended up in the same city as Dexter, precisely when Vogel thought she'd move in.

THE DIALOGUE. ALL OF IT. Hell, just go back and watch the entire video.

THE SERIES FINALE. A FUCKING LUMBERJACK? There are no words.

It's inconceivable how this ever came to be. The way Scott Buck systematically destroyed this show, the CIA should hire him as their lead interrogator – all he'd have to do to get those terrorists to keel over is to read them his scripts. Dexter had the potential to be one of the best things to have ever been, but ended up being worse than Family Guy after season 1. It's embarrassing.

To Scott Buck: I hope you never have anything to do with television ever again.

1 comment:

  1. I know this is like, 5 years old lol but boy this season. To me, what started the shitshow that ended in season 8 was actually a single off-character choice in season 7 of Debra not calling the police on him. She would NOT react that way, she would trust the institution she devoted her life to, period. Everything since has been an attempt to fix the plot hole that this particular bad choice created. And ultimately, the biggest fault in season 8 was that every.single.o e of the characters are off-character. They spent 7 fucking seasons with the slowest character development and world build ever, to just make a complete 180 in s8 like no one would notice. Dumb, dumb move, whoever decided on the plot for this season

    ReplyDelete