Dexter season 3 was just not very good. Ludicrous plot twists, smart detectives missing easy hints(over and over again) and a jet-setting Dexter with no sense of a work schedule to top it all off. It was tough watching such a great show descend into a gruesome vaudeville routine.

Season 4 had its shocking finale on Sunday night, so it’s a good time to take a look at the conclusion of an improved but still flawed show as it moves forward. Stop reading if you don’t want spoilers.

This poster means a lot more now

Finally able to get around Dexter’s deception and track down the real Trinity killer (which people kept calling him even after discovering the fourth part of his victim cycle), the police zero in on Arthur Mitchell just as an out of control Dexter loses him. The police also gain their truest sense of teamwork in the show’s history, just as Dexter’s skills as a lone wolf deteriorate. The juxtaposition is great, we’re watching a meticulous control freak lose any semblance of the code he used to swear by in the hopes of living a better life. And as has often been explored in art, the act of killing directly contradicts those hopes.

The problem with this season, though, is how we got here. The entire serial killer fascination is in part due to the fact that, among the ranks of murderers, they are exceptional in their appetite. Consequently, the fascination with serial killers by the public and media is an endictment of our low attention span and desensitized perspectives. Body count determines interest in a story on the news, or as is repeated on Dexter, “if it bleeds, it leads.” What then to be said of Dexter itself? The kindest explanation possible for the drop in writing quality is that it’s being intentionally ironic. The more unkind explanation is that the show has fallen into the trap of self parody inevitable when your premise’s “hook” paints you into such specific corners.

The only way to “raise the bar” on having serial killers as regular characters in a show(after all Dexter kills them on a semi-weekly basis), is to have their murders increase exponentially in uniqueness or body count. Here we are in season 4, finding out that the Trinity killer is the “biggest to ever hit Miami.” In season 2, Dexter’s body dumps were found and it was a case of the “biggest serial killer to hit Miami.” In season 3, the Skinner was one of the “most brutal serial killers to hit Miami.” This one upmanship also applies to the portrayal of people with personal relationships with serial killers. Deb was engaged to one, Quinn was dating the daughter of one, Dexter is one, everyone thought Doakes was one. At what point does something intended to be shocking become trite? Law enforcement or not, the idea that they would deal with this many massively successful serial killers seems a little bit ridiculous. And was the death of Rita a logical plot development, or something born out of this need for the writers to one up themselves?

This is, though, a far better season than #3, for several reasons. John Lithgow is outstanding as Mitchell/Trinity, finally bottling up his creepiness in a perfect performance. As Deb’s old flame Agent Lunde re-enters the scene, Deb’s turmoil is well portrayed. She acts carelessly, and yet is fully aware of her own carelessness, knowing that she’s going to sabotage her own happiness. We finally see her self-hate exposed with verbal rants serving as a mirror to Dexter’s inner dialogue. There’s still room for growth here assuming Deb follows up on what’s she has learned about Dexter’s true origins. Let’s hope Season 5 is even better, and hopefully the last season of the show. There is a finite life cycle for any concept, and it would be a shame if Dexter stayed on past the point of any plausability.

Dexter Season 4 finale – 7/10