Dexter Had a Nice Christmas After All

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Saying goodbye to Dexter, even though it's only for a few months, is not easy. Like a suicide without a passing note, the series left us with so many unanswered questions. Maybe Dexter was caught up in the holiday spirit-- those last three episodes did have a macabre holiday theme. Or perhaps the producers of the series knew they'd packed a little too much in the twelve episodes of the first season, and prodded the writers to wrap it up, dangling plot threads be damned. And there are a lot of dangling plot threads.

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It's been a few weeks now since the finale first aired--time enough to recover from the holidays, time enough to reflect on those twelve episodes, especially those last three. "Seeing Red," "Truth Be Told" and "Born Free" work as one large season finale, tied together with a very macabre holiday theme. That's part of the reason it's taken this long to write this final Dexter piece. Body parts wrapped in festive bows and ribbons didn't seem wholly in keeping with the season.

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I know the furor over the series has died down, so to speak, which makes it a bit easier to look back at it with jaded eyes. Don't get me wrong-- I still think Dexter is the most original take on the crime drama ever to come down the pike. There was nothing remotely realistic about the twelve episodes, but that was what made it work. The premise of a forensics expert working for the Miami PD, and moonlighting as a serial killer who only preys on murderers beyond the reach of the law is the delightfully implausible stuff of comic books, and the plotlines reflected that. The recurring cast of characters-- Dexter's flighty but determined, foul-mouthed but lovable foster sister Deb, the tough guy with a dark secret cop Doakes, the manipulative, politically ambitious Lt. LaGuerta, Angel, whose easy-going style belied his detective abilities--were broadly drawn and often over the top.

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None of it should have worked, and in lesser hands, none of it would have. But by the writers' choosing to have at least most of the continuing plot seen from Dexter's perspective, it did. Michael C. Hall's portrayal of Dexter--disarmingly charming on the outside, calculating killer on the inside-- was what riveted us to the screen through the series. It was almost enough to forgive the potential plot threads that ended up tossed by the wayside, to accept the leaps in logic that made us believe Dexter could go unnoticed as he merrily killed evildoers.

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That final three-episode arc sucked us inexorably into Dexter's world. We simply had to know how it all began, what originally posessed him. We already knew that Rudy was the Ice Truck Killer, and we'd all pretty much surmised that he and Dexter shared a past. What we didn't know was why Rudy was obsessed with Dexter. Close your eyes now if you don't want to know.

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Okay. Rudy and Dexter were brothers all along. They both witnessed their mother's death by chainsaw in a drug deal gone bad, and were locked in a storage container for three days soaked in their mother's blood. Thanks to Harry, rescuing him (he was only three at the time), Dexter was able to submerge those memories. That explains why Dexter insisted he couldn't connect to other people, while all the while connecting to other people.

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Rudy (real name Brian Moser, older brother of Dexter Moser) was not so fortunate. Dexter was able to submerge his memories, thanks to the loving upbinging of Harry and family, Rudy was not. For reasons unexplained, Rudy instead spent his formative years in mental institutions. That didn't deter him from keeping up with little brother's progress, though. How he did that is also left largely to the viewer's speculation.

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But when Rudy, in rapid succession, proposes to Deb, drugs her, binds her and readies her for slice and dice, all in some vague mindset of making Dexter recognize his true destiny, Dexter has no choice but to put him down--like a mad dog. It's a conundum, though--Deb is the only family he's ever known, but Rudy is the only person who will ever accept him for what he is.

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In the end, love for Deb trumps bloodline, and Dexter eliminates Rudy by hanging him upside down, slitting his throat and draining his blood from him, the same way Rudy killed his victims. I'm still not certain the authorities would dismiss it as a dramatically ghastly suicide, but they do. The Ice Truck Killer is finally dead, and Dexter has a nice Christmas after all.

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It all moved at a breakneck pace, and was a thrill-packed alternative to traditional holiday fare. In retrospect, though, you can't help but feel a little shortchanged. Ther were a lot of potential subplots that were set up, but never fully explored. We know Doakes has a mysterious past, and is not above assassination. Paul, in prison now, realizes Dexter set him up. LaGuerta has been demoted, but may have a new ally. The relationship between Dexter and Rita seems to be solid, but even she is beginning to realize there is more to Dexter than she had thought.

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Season Two is on the way. . .