Dexter’ Season 6, Ep. 6

Has Classic Dexter finally beat back the tide of New Dexter? Or will allegiance to the past ultimately be the Miami Monster’s undoing?

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  • Showtime
  • “Oh sure, I’ll hold, I don’t have much to do this episode anyway.”

A show of hands: who here thought Dexter was about to grow a conscience? Well I sure did, not because it made any sense for the character, but because I’m so accustomed to the showrunners screwing things up. The way the episode was progressing, I really thought Dexter would forgive the bad guy and start down some sort of live-and-let-live path until, I don’t know, Adama kidnapped Deb or Dex Jr. or Brother Sam’s dog. After all, the “fork in the road” decision that Voiceover Dexter kept referring to was less a quandary for Dexter the character (in the matter of “to kill or not to kill,” does Dexter really have a choice?) than it was for Dexter the creative team: “Is Dexter really a sociopathic monster, like we’ve been insisting for five and a half seasons now, or should we give him a sense of forgiveness to, I don’t know, keep things fresh?” It seems to me that Dexter episodes succeed only insofar as they stay true to the character, and it finally seems like the showrunners understand that too—they ramp up the suspense so well this season in part by tacitly acknowledging their own tendency to screw up the show.

But what a reversal they pull! There’s a lot about this installment, in fact, feels pretty classic. For those keeping score, this marks two quality episodes in a row, possibly their longest winning streak in at least a season and a half. Mazel tov!