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© (C) 2009 Showtime John Lithgow in DEXTER - SEASON FOUR - "Road Kill"

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TV Review: DEXTER - SEASON FOUR - 'Road Kill'

A good but slightly detached episode that shows the limits of Dexter's humanity and suggests the extent of Arthur's weirdness

Grade: B
Stars: Michael C. Hall, Julie Benz, Jennifer Carpenter, Lauren Velez, Desmond Harrington, C.S. Lee, David Zayas, James Remar, John Lithgow
Writer(s): Melissa Rosenberg & Scott Reynolds
Director: Ernest Dickerson
Release Date: November 15th, 2009
Rating: TV-M

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN, Contributing Writer
Published 11/16/2009



The “code” that DEXTER’s serial killer protagonist Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) lives by dictates that he will only slay other murderers. However, at the end of last week’s episode “Slack Tide,” Dexter found out from his colleagues at the Miami Police Department – none of whom suspect Dexter of being anything other than the nerdy blood splatter expert they work with – that he’d mistakenly killed an innocent man. Dexter, who doesn’t believe he has “normal” emotions, isn’t sure how he feels and blames himself for delaying in taking out the Trinity Killer, real name Arthur Mitchell (John Lithgow), a pattern serial killer who has been committing murders undetected for almost thirty years. Dexter, posing as an unhappily separated husband and using a pseudonym, has insinuated himself into Arthur’s life, largely out of curiosity about how Arthur juggles his secret life with a wife and children, as Dexter doesn’t want to blow it with wife Rita (Julie Benz), their baby and Rita’s two kids by her previous husband.

In “Road Kill,” when Dexter’s homicide detective sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) gets department head Lt. LaGuerta (Lauren Velez) to start acting on the Trinity Killer case, Dexter decides he’d better take out Arthur before the homicide squad zeroes in on him. Furthermore, Arthur is planning a road trip, which Dexter has realized generally is when Arthur goes on his killing sprees.

Pretending he’s eager to attend a meteorological convention for work, Dexter gets time off from work and home life to demand that Arthur take him along. Arthur badgers Dexter about what’s bothering Dexter so much that he needs to tag along and Dexter confesses to killing a man by mistake, though in the version Arthur hears, it’s a hunting accident rather than mistaken-identity murder.

The stunned Arthur reciprocates by taking Dexter to Arthur’s childhood home (inhabited by a couple who are understandably freaked out by these two strangers barging in). Arthur reveals that, as a ten-year-old boy, he inadvertently caused the death of his older sister and his mother committed suicide as a result, leaving Arthur alone with an abusive father. Dexter surmises that Arthur killed his father and has been recreating the three deaths ever since. However, when Dexter goes to Arthur’s room to kill him, Arthur isn’t there – he’s at a building site preparing to commit suicide. Dexter is put in the weird position of saving his intended victim, leaving the religious Arthur to believe that God sent Dexter to him. In other events, LaGuerta and Detective Batista (David Zayas) resume their forbidden affair and Rita doesn’t entirely shut down a flirtatious neighbor. Debra, inspecting her injuries, comes to the conclusion that she could not after all have been attacked by the Trinity Killer. But if he didn’t shoot her, who did?

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“Road Kill” is – like all episodes of DEXTER – never less than intriguing and extremely well-executed, but it feels a bit uneven. It seems like we’re meant to empathize with Dexter’s hesitation over killing Arthur, but despite the genuine pathos John Lithgow brings to the role, we can’t quite believe in an emerging bond. It’s not so much that we want Arthur dead, it’s just that we’re not feeling what Dexter is feeling to give him pause. Unless of course this is meant to be Dexter’s response to breaking “the code” by killing an innocent (if really annoying) man. Again, we understand that we’re seeing Dexter’s reaction to the deed and we know that Dexter is usually functioning on a level of profound denial when it comes to his emotions. However, after three-and-a-half seasons of watching Dexter perform due diligence when selecting victims and seeing how important it has been to him that he not do what he just did, a little more visible disturbance on Dexter’s part seems in order.
 
Arguably, the B storylines here are more tantalizing. What will Dexter’s reaction be if he sees the neighbor making moves on Rita? And where is the who-shot-Deb-and-Lundy mystery going? Those look likely to bloom into something major as the season progresses.
 
“Road Kill” is good and showcases a wonderful turn by Lithgow, but overall, it’s more of a puzzle piece than a picture that stands on its own.
 
 

Reader Comments

Greg from Wales sez....
Trinity has schizophrenia, you heard it here first. That is my prediction
11/16/2009 12:56:13 PM

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