***SPOILER ALERT: If you’re waiting to see the season finale of Dexter, read no further!***

Image from ugo.com.

TITLE: Dexter, Season 5
STARRING: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Julia Stiles, Desmond Harrington, Jonny Lee Miller
EPISODES: 12
NETWORK: Showtime
FINALE DATE: December 12

By Rob Siebert
Editor, Fanboy Wonder

Like a lot of stories, the overall story arc of Dexter has hills and valleys in terms of the raw excitement it generates. That’s not because the story is bad. It’s because if you try and keep the audience at that fever pitch the entire time, then you leave yourself unable to really crank up the excitement and intensity when you need to.

For me, season 2 was a hill, season 3 was a valley. Then we went up in season 4, and now we’ve hit another valley in season 5.

But the valleys on Dexter are better than the hills on most shows. Plus, after last seasons swerve-turn of a finale, where they killed off Dexter’s wife Rita, it was probably smart for them to slow it down a bit, and spend time re-establishing Dexter’s status quo.

This season, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) is left as a single father to his infant son Harrison. As many fans predicted, Astor and Cody (Rita’s children) moved in with their grandparents. Detective Quinn (Desmond Harrington), who like Sergeant Doakes before him, suspects Dexter is more than he seems, and recruits a disgraced ex-cop to spy on our favorite blood spatter analyst. Meanwhile, Quinn gets romantically involved with Dexter’s sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter).

Dexter and Lumen. Image from tvfanatic.com.

We also meet Lumen (Julia Stiles), a young woman who has endured savage torture at the hands of a group of men. This group has already murdered 12 women, stuffed their bodies in barrels, and tossed them into a lake. To cope with the fact that he couldn’t save Rita, Dexter helps Lumen hunt and kill the men who tortured her.

Dexter forms a special bond with Lumen that eventually leads to them becoming romantic. Meanwhile, Dexter is forced to kill the man who’s been spying on him, and the evidence from his death leads back to Quinn. Though he doesn’t like Quinn, Dexter tampers with the evidence to get Quinn off.

Deb nearly catches Dexter and Lumen as they’re killing the final member of the torture group. They’re shrouded behind plastic when she walks in the room. Without seeing them, she lets them go, empathizing with their pursuit of justice against torture group. During the closing moments of the final episode, Lumen leaves Miami, telling Dexter that her dark passenger, the need she felt to kill, has left her now that those who wronged her are gone. Dexter is heartbroken, but grateful that he was able to help Lumen, that she helped him get his life back together, and that for a brief while…she made him feel human.

Interestingly enough, “lumen” is also a word meaning “the canal, duct, or cavity of a tubular organ.” Is that significant? I’unno. Have you ever met anyone named Lumen?

Toward the middle of this season, some of the things we saw were reminiscent of moments from season 3, when Dexter was showing Miguel (Jimmy Smits’ character) how he does certain things. That was frustrating in a sense, because it felt like I was watching something I’d already seen. It was only during the last few episodes, where things started to get romantic between Dex and Lumen, did things look up. It was obvious they had some kind of chemistry going on, but I wasn’t sure how far they were going to take it. In the end, they did the best thing they could have. They posed the question: Is Dexter capable of love? Can he fully share his life with another person? The answer, we discovered, is yes.

Photo from hirideyo.com.

But of course, because Julia Stiles is only a guest star, Lumen can’t stay. The way they pulled her out was kind of crappy, and I’ve never used the word crappy in association with this show before. But how else can you get rid of a character like Lumen? You can have Dexter find out some twisted secret about her and kill her, but that was probably what a lot of people were expecting, and would have been a bit predictable. This was the only other way, as far as I can see it. So I can’t necessarily blame the writers, just wish for more. The interesting thing though, is they left the door open for Lumen to come back at some point. Considering she knows Dexter’s secret, she’s a giant loose end. I’m sure we’ll see her down the road, if only for one episode.

Quinn and Deb. Photo from zap2it.com.

Deb and Quinn got together, which I saw coming back in season 3. During my review of the season premiere, I said I was interested to see if they could make Quinn different enough from Doakes. They did that by injecting more humanity into him than they did with Doakes. That’s not to say Doakes was a robot, but getting Quinn involved with Deb makes us invest in him a lot more. Right now I think the big question surrounding him is: What does he know? Dexter tampered with the evidence to get him off the hook, but why? To save his sister from getting hurt? To keep from drawing attention to himself? Probably a combination of both. Either way, I think Dexter and Quinn may have a Batman/Joker thing going on, in that The Joker seems to know more than he’s letting on about Batman’s identity, but we’re not positive.

I honestly thought this was going to be the season where Deb learned Dexter’s secret. Those talks she had with Dex about vigilantism, and how the barrel murderers got what they deserved, made me think she and Dexter could co-exist if she knew the truth. They do in the books, after all. Having her walk in on the kill room, with Dexter and Lumen behind a sheet of plastic was kind of corny. I mean sheesh, why not just have Dex come out wearing a domino mask? Still, her character is integral to the show’s success, and her romance with Quinn opens some interesting doors in terms of story possibilities.

Overall, after seeing season 5 I can still say that I haven’t seen a bad episode of Dexter. The finale stretched things a little bit, but it was still a good season in terms of character development and study. I’m interested to see if we’ll have another big villain next season, or if they’ll work something else out.

Either way, one thing’s for certain: Blood will run.

SEASON RATING: 8.5/10

Front page photo courtesy of zap2it.com.

For more Dexter, check out Dexter is Delicious and Brother and Sister, Husband and Wife.