Dexter S08E01 "A Beautiful Day" Recap

Finally! The eighth and last season of "Dexter" has launched. Excited to find out about the final destiny of Dexter Morgan? The final question of this season will be if Dexter is going to pay for killing all those murderers over the years or if he will get away? In the end it's likely that it boils down to four different (simplified) scenarios:

1. He dies.
2. Alive, but jail.
3. He is getting away with it.
4. The viewer is left in the dark.

So what's the first glimpse of what Dexter will have to face in the final season? It's a recap, so: duh...

Six month after the incident, in which Deb was faced with the impossible choice between killing the Captain of the Miami Metro Police Department or her own brother and decided to take out the former, we meet a very relaxed Dexter, happy that the death of La Guerta solved all of his problems. Not even worrying that his sister killed an innocent who didn't even begin to match Harry's code...

Sign 1 that the final season won't end well for Dexter Morgan.

To emphasize the contrast between Dexter and his sister, the next scenes show Debra's way of handling what happened in that trailer: taking cocaine, smoking weed, living off anti-anxiety drugs and getting in too deep with a drug dealer and jewelry thief called Briggs, that she is just supposed to bring in for her boss, since she's working now as a private investigator.

After Dexter realizes, that something's very wrong with his sister, he tracks her down in a convenience store and confronts her about her way of handling her feelings. Her answer to this is both heartbreaking and devastating for the viewer (and her brother): "Cause I don't wanna talk to you. And I really don't wanna f*cking see you. [...] Because you made me compromise everything about myself that I care about. And I hate you for it. [...] I shot the wrong person in that trailer."  (Sign 2) 

Dexter is agitated and about to loose control, when on his way home a guy is cutting him off on the highway. He walks up to the guys car and begins to strangle him... Only after spotting a little boy in the back of the guy's car, Dexter is brought to his senses. (Sign 3)

Little relief in between the whole Dex-Deb angst: So Joey is f*cking Angel's sister behind his back... That's not gonna end well... (by now we also learned that Angel returned to Miami Metro after La Guerta's death)

After that we meet Evelyn Vogel, a Neuropsychiatrist specialized on psychopaths. Why? Right... Forgot to mention, the new serial killer in town removes the anterior insular cortex of the victims. The portion of the brain, that makes people feel things such as empathy. Yes, exactly. One of the human emotions Dexter can't wrap his head around - making Evelyn Vogel the immediate potential enemy of this season, if that place is not yet reserved by Deb. (no sign - we had that in nearly every season...) Later this feeling is emphasized even more, when Vogel asks Dexter about his opinion on the nature of the Bay Harbor Butcher. 

When Angel meets Dexter in his office to give him a peace-offering on behalf of his deceased ex-wife, Dexter slips again telling Angel that Maria "died because she couldn't leave things alone". It's probably not gonna take long until Angel re-opens the investigations on Dexter (Sign 4).

After learning that Deb might be the target of a hitman, Dexter tries to convince her to let this case drop and come with him. Again in vain, since Debra "doesn't f*cking care" if she dies. When Briggs catches the both of them fighting, Dexter tries to pull Debra away, which Briggs doesn't really appreciate. In the following struggle Dexter kills Briggs, again hurting Debra who "felt okay around him". When Dexter wants to convince her that she is lost, we again see her struggling with remorse: "I am not lost. I know exactly where I am. I'm in some shitty f*cking hell, which is exactly what I deserve. But you... you are lost! [...] All my life, I thought I needed you. That I couldn't survive without you. It was the other f*cking way around." (Sign 5) After that Debra is calling it in to the police, refusing to let Dexter get rid of the body.

Meanwhile, Harrison, who Dexter took along on the ride, is vanished from the car. He only went around the corner, but to me this scene is only meant to reassure the viewer that Dexter truly is lost and is not in control of his life (anymore). (Sign 6)

The episode ends with Evelyn Vogel showing Dexter his childhood paintings. When he takes her to task and threatens her, she merely replies knowingly: "You can't kill me. [...] Because I don't fit Harry's code." A risky thing to say, now that Dexter is loosing it noticeably. 

The signs (I counted six...) do not point to a happy end for Dexter Morgan. He is increasingly loosing control and more importantly starts ignoring his own twisted morals (aka Harry's code).

The question remains: Can Dexter survive his last season?

Preview of next week's episode:

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True Blood S01E01 "Who are you, really?" Recap

Caution.

First question: Did I like it? 

Well, the first half was actually kind of terrible, to be honest. The second half was better, though I'm not quite sure if this is due to better quality or the champagne that I had to drink to get through the first minutes.

Within the first minutes of the show, we loose the first main character, Luna. I'd love to say I'll miss her, but I probably won't. She was always a little annoying to me and didn't bring much into the show. To be completely fair, I think Ball didn't handle very well the werewolf storyline. Alcide is okay, but overall we have either characters that nobody cares for or that are plain dislikable. Maybe her little daughter in combination with her guardian-to-be Sam will build a bridge between this part of the show and the one that circles around Sookie.

Apart from that, the first 10 minutes of the episode are filled with painfully bad special effects and make-up and the action doesn't feel agitating at all. It's actually so bad I started to regret spending my time watching this episode. I don't care for Billith, don't care for Jason. Actually, Jason... What were they thinking? He is just annoying. I don't feel him at all. I don't feel his reasoning or his pain. He's always been like a stupid teen, but somehow he was charming or you could relate to him in some way. He's not even that anymore - he's just plain dumb. Not even his conversation with Warlow (Niall?) could change that for me. IMO it would've been much better to introduce Warlow through another character of the show, but not Jason.

Coming to yet another character, that I didn't care about: I never was very interested in Eric's sister and Pam's weeping and wailing doesn't really help much with that. Where is the strong Pam that we saw in the first seasons of the show and that would've never feel intimidated by another female she just met? What's the purpose of Nora anyways (maybe I'm just annoyed, because I didn't want Eric to jump from Sookie right next to his sister)? Anyways, thanks to Pam for the best line of the episode: "I hate the beach. Fish piss and sand in your cooch." 

Okay, after so much hate, I also want to appreciate the good things about this episode. The strongest character of this episode for me was Jessica. I really understood her. I could feel her pain. Her loss. Her fear. Her reasoning. (Again: contrast to Jason). She had the best scenes - first her talk with Sookie, then her conversation with Bill after she chose him over the other vampires. 

As for Bill. I think he delivered quite well and I'm quite intrigued what will become of him, though I'm not really a fan of religion and its shortcomings. 

I liked, when Sookie staked Bill. Not because I want to get rid of him, but it finally creates some real tension between characters. It was also put into perspective within the following minutes when we watch her rescinding Eric's invitation. By that, you clearly see her being sick of all the vampire sh*t (and not just Bills transformation) and her need to get back to "normal" (whatever that means for her as a half-fairy). The same scenes include Eric showing his affections (indirectly) for Sookie, which might or might not be just for the fangirls at home to keep them on the hooks. (Yeah, I feel betrayed by Charlaine Harris' end of the book series' and I'm suspicious.)

What might be interesting plot-wise in the following episodes: Warlow being Lillith progeny has some potential. Also, the buy-in of Louisiana governor Burrell into the TrueBlood factories and the relationship between Bill and Jessica. In contrast, not interesting for me at all are the werewolves, which are just bat-shit crazy and not connected to the vampire story-line at all and the Jason/Sookie relationship.

Oh yeah, and I won't ever comment on Andy Bellefleur. I just couldn't care less.

On a scale from 1 to 10? Probably a 5 for me (given that it was the season's premiere).