Rating: 8/10
Dexter Morgan, blood spatter analyst for the Miami metro by day and vigilante serial killer by night, returns to face heartache and persecution once again!
Season 6 was a major disappointment, let’s just be frank about it. Even Edward James Olmos as a bad guy, who turned out to be a figment of another bad guys imagination and it wasn’t even Dexter’s, couldn’t save that totally weak plot. The only upshot to the entire season was the cliffhanger at the very end, where Deb walked in on Dexter in the killing room right as he did the deed. And that’s where Season 7 begins, thankfully, as Deb struggles to understand and accept this new information about her adopted brother. At first she tries to therapy or even cure poor Dexter, to stifle or at least control those urges his Dark Passenger demands. That doesn’t work at all, though there is a wonderfully tearful scene where Dex is about to do someone in and calls Deb up for help like an addict calling his sponsor. Meanwhile there is of course other stuff going on.
Introducing Hannah McKay, Dexter’s new love interest. I don’t particularly care that she’s acted by Yvonne Strahovski of tv series Chuck fame, hardly ever does a Dexter show member actually need to ride on the shirttails of their previous successes. What she does do is work that character into something Dexter needs, a companion who doesn’t judge, who makes him feel safe, that he can actually discuss the Dark Passenger with. After all, Hannah McKay herself is a former murderer, though her means of choice was poison, and therein lies the fatal flaw. Even between admitted murderers, it’s very hard to ever fully trust a poisoner. A lot of lip service is given to Rita, Dexter’s wife who was killed in an epic episode in a previous season, and how Hannah compares to her memory. Which isn’t much fair, but not entirely unexpected. And Rita’s kids even show up for an episode, like the producers went oh yeah, we remember that storyline, lets include them a little and remind the audience. Some importance, only a little really, is placed on Harrison, Dexter’s son, if nothing else as a reminder that Dexter’s cover life is now real to him and Dexter doesn’t want to give it up if he doesn’t have to.
Miami Metro is full of change. Quinn gets himself into trouble with the Ukranian mafia (yeah you read that right) and gets a stripper girlfriend; frankly none of us give a damn about this entire storyline, other than how it pertains to the psycho boss Isaak, who wants Dexter dead for killing his partner. Hey man, that’s what happens when you mistakenly take out an FBI agent: a shadowy blood nerd by day swoops in and murders you in cold justice. Angel Batista is deciding to retire from Metro and open his own restaurant, and while we the audience still love his character, it’s getting old. Then there’s LaGuerta, who just can’t let the whole idea that Doakes is/was the Bay Harbor Butcher, go. She found a blood slide at Season 6’s last crime scene, the church, just like the ones the Butcher was famous for, and well. She just has to continue the search for him, and bring in extra help with former Agent Matthews, even when evidence is planted all over the place to dissuade her otherwise. She goes as far as to get a certain long-standing villain who instigated the murder of Dexter’s mother out of jail on parole, a trap set to catch Dexter in the act of murdering vengeance. Deb, while agonizing over her hatred of Hannah and her desire to help keep her beloved brother out of jail, ends up far too deep in the whole mess, and it culminates in the last episode. The cliffhanger for Season 8 is good, Dexter-worthy even, and makes me sad to know that the next season will be the last for our beloved blood spatter vigilante.