DEXTER: The Complete Second Season

Let’s get the superlatives out of the way up front: if you loved the first season of Showtime’s Dexter, rest assured that season two delivers another dozen shockingly original and engaging episodes. In my opinion, this season is even better than the first.

The freshman season of Dexter introduced us to Dexter Morgan, played with wicked pathos by Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under), a blood splatter expert for the Miami Police. Dexter loves his work almost as much as his hobby—as an unrepentant psychopathic serial killer who only kills murderers who have broken the strict moral code established for him by Harry, his late adoptive father, a Miami cop.

Based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, the first season more or less followed the plot of the book, which plumbed the grim recesses of Dexter’s past to discover and explore the origins of his ghoulish behaviour. While the novelist has continued to explore Dexter in two subsequent novels, his television doppelganger has moved off to carve a new path all his own.

Part of what makes Dexter so bloody good lies in the depth of its exploration of character; not just of the charming, chilling hero, but the supporting cast as well. Archetypes abound here—the slutty little sister, the funny sidekicks, the ambitious commander, the tough but effective sergeant… Yet none of these characters are quite who they appear to be. They are all explored and revealed as complex individuals who are fully realised beyond the comfort zone of our predicable expectations—and theirs.

“As the season races to an explosive conclusion, loves are lost and found. Favourite characters die, and Dexter’s dark universe expands. Life—and death—goes on.”

The continuing success of Dexter lies in the series’ willingness to defy convention and expectation. Voiceover narration in a television series? How bad an idea is that? A hero who gleefully dismembers his living victims with a bone saw? Who will want to watch that every week? A lot of us, apparently, given that Dexter continues to be a breakout international hit for the US cable network, Showtime, and has received five Emmy®-nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Michael C. Hall, as well as a Peabody Award for the second season.

The success of both seasons rests with the ability of everyone involved to put us not only in Dexter’s blood-soaked shoes, but also in his mind. The series challenges us to enter the dark funhouse of his moral ambiguity and ride through its jolts and terrors; they make us experience the complex reasons behind his brutality and question our own values—and the consequences of his choices.

The storyline of the second season picks up where season one left off (I won’t spoil that for you here), with Dexter feeling something he has never felt before: actual human emotion and inability to kill—a serious problem for a psychopath who needs to kill. To make matters worse, when Dexter’s deep water dumping ground is accidentally discovered (all those dismembered corpses neatly packed into Hefty Bags), Special Agent Frank Lundy of the FBI (Keith Carradine) arrives to assist the cops in their hunt for the “Bay Harbour Butcher”. And guess who is assigned to the investigation team bent on finding the latest serial killer?

What follows is a twisted Hitchcockian cat-and-mouse game as Dexter struggles to stay one step ahead of the investigation that not only threatens to expose his deadly deeds, but also impedes him from sating his bloodlust. Things are no less thorny on the home front when Dexter’s long-suffering girlfriend, Rita (Julie Benz), forces him into a 12 Step Support Group to deal with what she assumes to be a drug problem. There, Dexter meets the lovely and damaged Lila (Jaime Murray) who becomes his sponsor—and much more. As the season races to an explosive conclusion, loves are lost and found. Favourite characters die, and Dexter’s dark universe expands. Life—and death—goes on.

For all this, one would think that Showtime would show a little more respect when it releases its flagship series on DVD. The release of the first season was a great disappointment in the extras department, so I hoped they would have learned their lesson by the second go-round. Sadly, such is not the case. Instead of treating the fans of this stellar series to insightful behind-the-scenes tidbits, Showtime is more interested in offering a spate of shameless cross promotions of their other series (which I won’t name here—screw you, Showtime). There are no commentaries or bonuses save for web links to basic online press kit interviews (which may be blocked in some regions). Other reviews have indicated problems with the dubious DVD-ROM features.

The 12 episodes are packaged in two slim cases. The menus for this season are an improvement over the lame efforts that marred the first season release. On the technical front, the anamorphic widescreen episodes look great (the cinematography by Romeo Tirone is also Emmy®-nominated) and the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack delivers the goods and sounds great in surround sound. Like all aspects of the series, the quality and use of music and sound mix are of feature film standard.

Let’s hope when the time come around to release the next season on DVD, they show the series the reverence it deserves. If not, I know a guy with a killer smile who may have a bone to pick with them…■