Monday, August 4, 2014

A Ghoul Versus Dexter's Final Season Episode 5: This Little Piggy

Previously on Dexter...

Deb failed the ever-loving HELL out of her Fast And The Furious audition as she tried to kill herself and Dex. Vogel continued to be the most sociopathic psychologist this side of Hannibal Lecter. Quinn... did Quinn things. A Ghoul Versus Dexter's Final Season Episode 5: This Little Piggy!

We open with probably the most ludicrous shot in Dexter's history: Dex and Deb awkwardly sitting in front of Vogel like two misbehaving children as she tries to counsel them. Just think about this: you have Vogel, the world's most worthless profiler who helped guide Dex to become a serial killer trying to solve the problems of the siblings. In the other chairs, you have the serial killer himself who was just almost killed by his sister who is fast racking up a respectable body count of her own.

The dialogue here is just GLORIOUSLY, unintentionally hilarious, as I have no earthly idea how Michael C. Hall was able to say any of it and still keep a straight face. This face is a BLOODY professional folks, we are lucky he took up acting instead of law like he originally flirted with. Don't believe me? Take a gander at this:

Vogel: Debra, it seems that you tried to kill Dexter as well as yourself.
Deb: ...yes, but then I saved him.
Dex: You saved me? You only had to save me because you tried to kill me.
Deb: I know, but-
Dex: You almost left my son an orphan. Harrison. Who's gonna take care of him? Who?
Deb: ...I don't know.
Dex: All I've done my whole life is try to take care of you, to protect you.
Deb: Protect? Jesus Christ, Dexter. If this is your way of protecting me-
Dex: [yelling] Okay, so I'm not perfect! You think it's easy being your brother?
Deb: You're not even listening to me. Y-y-you don't understand. I've been trapped in a fucking fog-
Dex: No, I don't understand! Haven't you heard anything she said? [gesturing to Vogel] I'm stupid that way! My brain is limited! So when my sister tries to kill me, for some reason, it doesn't make sense!

I'd say lines like those belong in a soap opera, but that might actually be insulting to soap operas. The problem with this show is a problem you see in many television shows: different show runners that took the stories in completely opposite directions. That's a major problems with these type of shows that have a continuous storyline, everything starts feeling very schizophrenic and chaotic. You compare what's going on here to something from the first four seasons and his barely even feels like the same SHOW.

Dex did bring up a good point though, what about Harrison? That's something Vogel has never once brought up, I'd love to hear her psycho ramblings about a “perfect” psychopath trying to raise a child all on his own. But no, Vogel would rather try to justify Deb's attempted murder.  Dex and myself roll our eyes at exactly the same time.  Neat!

Fed up with all this bullshit, Dex bids a fond “to Hell with both of you” to the psychotic women in his life and leaves. He heads to work, somehow letting Jamie talk him into a dinner date with Cassie later that night. Quinn runs the morning meeting as Batista is at the hospital getting a statement from Janet, who survived Yates' stabbing. The camera goes out of its way to show the annoyed look on Miller's face when Quinn announces he'll do the briefing, like ANYONE cares in the slightest in this bout of office politics.

Quinn updates us on the Norma Rivera killing, evidence now pointing towards her killer being Ed Hamilton who ran the hotel she worked at. Matthews, who watched the briefing, approaches Quinn later and ominously informs him the Hamiltons are long standing “friends” of Miami Metro that should be treated with respect. I get what Matthews was trying to imply, but I wonder if Quinn has the brain capacity to do the same?

Quinn, Miller, and Dex go to talk to Hamilton, who is shockingly forthcoming about the affair he was having with Norma. He insists he didn't kill her, Dex's attention falling on Hamilton's CREEPY ASS son Zach whom he notices watching the conversation. As the police pack up their things to leave, CREEPY ASS Son asks Dex about Norma's crime scene which is in no, way, shape or way a tip off that he might have been involved.

Across town Yates smashes his way into Vogel's house and kidnaps her, Deb coming by soon after to discover the mess. At the same time Miami Metro is searching Yates' house, where they find the bodies of women buried in his rose garden. Deb races over to tell Dex what she's discovered, the sibling coming to a truce of sorts so they can work together to find Vogel.

After a brief scene of Yates taking Vogel to an empty house to ask her who Dex is, we cut to Quinn and Miller canvassing Norma's neighbourhood looking for any witnesses that might have seen Hamilton. In the most non-shocking twist ever, a fruit vendor identifies ZACH as the one who was visiting her right before she was killed.

And since we're going way down the ladder on stuff anyone ACTUALLY cares about, we catch up with Masuka and Niki. The show is trying to plant the idea that Niki is a gold digger trying to use Masuka for his money, so of course she won't be anything of the sort in some lame ass reveal a few episodes from now. Masuka, troubled by this, hires Deb to investigate her as I reflect how WOEFULLY out of place this subplot is right now. What are they doing? Wasn't there something about a serial killer kidnapping Vogel just a little bit ago? I mean, I wouldn't give a damn but Deb sure seemed to... oh well, I'm sure Dex is hard at work looking for Yates.

Orrrrrrrrr he's having dinner with Cassie, Jamie, and Quinn. To be fair Jamie kind of forced him into it, but he's able to wriggle his way out in a rare flash of his old intelligence. He picks up with Deb and they go searching for Yates, going off a list of homes he installed cable into that are now empty. Vogel is in one such house, able to call Dex from a phone and leave it on in the room. This allow Dex and Deb to trace the signal, but Yates notices the phone and disappears before Vogel's would be rescuers show up.

They find her in a closet safe and sound as we see Yates hiding under the bed with a knife. Dex, clearly back in his early season form, figures this out so he STABS HIM THROUGH THE BED with a goddamn sharpened curtain rod because we're watching a late 1980's Friday The 13th movie now.  Remember when this show used to be grounded in reality?  We start wrapping things up with a happily ever after ending, BUT this is only episode five so I don't think so.

Cue the credits.


Did they really think we were going to buy any of this? That Yates was REALLY the Brain Surgeon and was even remotely smart enough to pull off any of the stuff he did? Or that things between Dex, Deb, and Vogel were going to be peachy keen forever? At least this episode got the season back on track of terrible and largely pointless episodes after the previous one's shocking twist of having STUFF HAPPEN.

I seriously doubt they'll be able to top how truly awful season five was, but they are trying their hardest so I gotta give them points for that. Stay tuned for the next review, which we can only hope will feature many more red herrings, politicking over the new Miami Metro sergeant, and Vince's new found daughter and her free loading ass!

No comments:

Post a Comment