Dexter Review: “Chemistry” (Season 7, Episode 7)

Moreover, his whole character has been made into a walking buffoon. He kept his other life secret from Deb for years, yet now he can’t even exploit the knowledge gap between the two of them with regards to blood spatter well enough for Deb to buy that this wasn’t all so he could have Hannah to himself. He’s displayed technical know-how in the past, yet he thinks all it takes to wipe Price’s files from existence is putting them in the recycle bin. We don’t even see him empty it and there are still ways to recover the files (which you have to imagine someone will try to do) if he did.

In earlier seasons Dexter being out-smarted felt like an accomplishment. Now it’s commonplace because he’s spent all his time lately in a glass case of emotion, thus leaving him too pre-occupied to be as exacting as he used to be. It’s reached the point where I’m anxiously anticipating the day he gets caught or dies. I always recognized that as the only logical end-point for the series and looked forward to it to an extent, but it suddenly feels right, like putting down a race horse that’s gone lame.

There was a time when Dexter could run circles around anyone, be it Deb or Hannah, but now there’s not a person in his life that couldn’t bring about his (literal or figurative) demise in one way or another. Heck, his baby-sitter could probably connect the dots when it comes to Louis’s disappearance if she hadn’t conveniently cut him, and all thoughts of him, out of her life.

While that sort of ever-present danger used to make for a considerable amount of tension, it didn’t use to be that it could come from every direction. Now it’s ridiculous to think of the innumerable ways in which Dexter could be found out and even more absurd to think that he’ll find a way out as he magically does each season.

As a result, I think I might go so far as to say I’m actively rooting against the guy. Like Gemma on Sons of Anarchy, Dexter’s become a source of endless frustration because he’s his own worst enemy, not Sirko or anyone else. He brought this shit-storm in on himself. Some may argue that that’s always the case, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but it was never quite as true as it is of this season.

What started out as promising, and a potential return to form, has devolved back into the show it was last season and I fear it’ll get worse before it gets any better. Partly because I can see them bringing back the Deb-Dex love angle before the end of the season, making for the perfect storm of shit.

Then again, I hope I’m wrong and that Dexter at least redeems itself enough that I won’t be watching the next and final season based solely on the fact that I’ve hung around this long and see no reason not to at least finish what I started when I’m so close to the finish. I’m not too optimistic, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Bits and Bobs:

• Batista’s really going to glance over Quinn as a suspect that fast? Nobody thought Doakes a killer, Batista included, and look how that turned out. You’re really going to give another person the benefit of the doubt like that? Do you not learn?
• How about you show us what it is exactly that LaGuerta’s looking out when she spots Dexter’s name and appears to have a revelation.
• Dexter was heard in a shouting match with Price moments before he dropped dead and all he gets is Batista acting like it was just unfortunate timing? Where’s the Batista that saw something fishy about the bartender’s suicide and tried his best to do something about those suspicions?
• Speaking of unexplained chemistry, what of Deb’s brief thing with Price? By the way their “dates” went, she was merely milking him for information. When she kissed him, as well as when she said she might let him pay next time around, it came relatively out of nowhere. Did the writers want to foster her attachment to him a little more in order to make her being so determined to have Dexter kill Hannah seem more believable? I hate to say it, but that sounds like the most likely explanation.