Dexter, Season 3

Well, one nice thing about being sick over the weekend, I didn't feel like moving much, so I've now made it through all 12 episodes of Dexter's third season. I found several comments from people saying they didn't like Season 3 as well as the first two. I liked it at least as well as Season 1, and probably a bit more than Season 2. I just got sick of Lilah in Season 2, but I have to admit that the end-drama with Doakes was very well done. Warning: There are a few spoilers below the fold.

Season 3 finds Dexter and Rita with a baby on the way,while Dexter struggles with a botched kill which eventually leads him to a questionable partnership. I do notice a continuation of a theme here. In Season 1, at the very end he finds someone who can relate to him (almost) perfectly ... and has to kill him. In Season 2, he finds someone who can accept his darkness unseen, and still accepts him after it is seen, but he has to kill her. In Season 3, he finds someone who could be an equal partner in his darkness, and, well, ... Each time, the relationship is developed a bit more, but the theme is that Dexter is unique in his ability to maintain an ethical code around his darkness. Everyone else just gets consumed by the darkness.

There were a lot of awesome moments in S3, but one favorite is just before the wedding. Debra is wearing a dress for the first time ever on the show, and says, "I feel like a transvestite." Since that's about how I feel in a dress, I loved that. I also loved when Debra was desperately hunting through the case files for a clue to their latest serial killer, and was there all night. She found something and was trying to explain to her fellow cops. She sounded exactly like me when I've had too little sleep, too much caffeine, and cold medicine on top of it. When asked how much caffeine she'd had, she said something like "a mothertruckload" while sort of bouncing and pacing. She probably used a more vulgar term than that, but I found it amusing anyway.

One thing that is missing compared to the previous two seasons is that Dexter never seems to be in any genuine danger of being exposed, which cuts the drama factor down a bit, and that may be why some people didn't like Season 3 as well.

I've seen bits of the first ep of Season 4. My speculation is that this new Trinity killer will go after Rita or Debra towards the end of the season, and I would guess Rita just based on the tiny glimpse I've had of his M.O., and because Debra's been targeted directly already in Season 1. I have nothing to support this other than a gut feeling and the fact that it would add a lot of dramatic tension. The question would be whether Dexter could rescue Rita without exposing his Shadow Self to her. Pure speculation. Hmmm... anyone want to place bets? ~/^