TV Review: DEXTER S7E02, SUNSHINE AND FROSTY SWIRL (Or, Dexter And Deb Do Twelve Step)

Oh, Dexter. You started off this season so well just to immediately turn around and squander it all. After years of moping around about your Dark Passenger and all that jazz you finally kicked off Season Seven by asserting yourself and owning your true nature. No moping, just "Yes, I am a serial killer." And then ... blergh. We're not only back to being emo, we're more emo than ever before and lord knows the world does not need an Emo Serial Killer.

Here's how it goes. Season Seven kicked off with Deb finally realizing what Dexter is and confronting him about it. And Dexter, for his part, actually owned up. It was a strong move, one that set up any number of promising possibilities for future paths only to now have the participants choose the worst possible one. Not to mention that it's a road that we've actually GONE DOWN BEFORE back in Season Two.

Yes, now not only does Dexter have angst - and should that even be possible for a sociopath? - but so does Deb. And in her angst riddled mind what makes the most sense for Deb is not to arrest her brother, not to go along with him, but to make him go to rehab. Rehab being her house so she can watch him all the time. Oh, good. Now we can look forward to Deb constantly repeating "You're doing so well!" whenever Dexter fails to kill someone. Joy. As for Dexter, after a burst of initial resistance he pretty much buys in, never mentioning the fact that he's done twelve step before. Blech. Just blech.

Also blech is the reveal of who will surely be the primary villain of the season, that being a supposedly Ukrainian businessman who speaks with a strongly pronounced English accent and who also fronts a secret society of Ukrainian mobster assassins. Oh, Christ, this is just stupid ...

There are, however, two glimmers of faint hope. Quite faint, but they're there, holding out the possibility that maybe this was just a remarkably bad episode in what could yet turn out to be a decent season. Lord knows that's happened on Dexter before.

Up first is Louis, or particularly the fact that Dexter finds out that Louis was the one who sent him the prosthetic arm and has been fucking with his bank accounts. Confrontation? You bet, but Lewis isn't intimidated at all. Further confrontation? Damn straight, this being the time when Dexter gets all weepy and buys into the twelve step approach. It does make for an amusing conclusion to this round of the Louis confrontation, however, though if I were Dexter I'd have removed his pants as well.

Also holding out the possibility that the entire season won't be dumb as a brick is Captain LaGuerta putting two and two together and realizing - correctly - that not only is the Bay Harbor Butcher still at large but that it's someone within the department. LaGuerta seems less prone to twelve step solutions than Deb, so hopefully this will bear some fruit.

In conclusion, this final note to those overseeing Dexter from day to day: It's a show about a serial killer, you morons. We're going to stop watching if he stops killing people. And we'll stop watching faster if he gets all weepy about things in the process. Is that really so hard to understand?