Dexter - Get Gellar (2011)

Obviousness reveals itself

I know I haven't reviewed any other episodes from this season, but after seeing the latest episode, I felt I had to give my two cents on this episode and that twist, along with a few on this season.

Following on from the previous episode, Travis (Colin Hanks) has agreed to help Dexter get Professor Gellar (Edward James Olmos) in revenge for killing Travis' sister and using her as the 'Whore of Babylon'. Meanwhile, Debra's dealing with a rift she feels between her and Dexter, and something happens with Quinn.

Miami Metro aren't known for giving powerfully engaging storylines, but my god, things are dull over there. Deb decides to re-open the case with the hooker who OD'd, and it turns out Matthews was the other guy at the scene of the crime, which we all knew was coming. Don't even get me started on Quinn and Batista's story. I figured this duo would be good for some entertainment, I find Quinn to be alright and really like Batista, but with Batista's descent in character and Quinn's non-stop general douchebaggery (add that to your everyday vocabulary), their stories are becoming a chore to watch. New guy, Mike Anderson, is once again utterly wasted in his role, providing nothing of consequence once again. He's not even a love interest for Deb, as many believed he would be upon his entrance. They could've easily not needed his character, replacing him with Quinn and dispensing of the need for Quinn's stupid storylines.

They're really showing how much of a rift there is between Dexter and Debra this season, and I like how they're really putting the emphasis upon the rift, with Deb feeling Dexter is pretty much a "chair", when she wants him to be a "table". It does feel like all this emphasis is there in order to have Deb find the truth about Dexter, but here's hoping they don't put that off for another season or so. The latest victim of the Doomsday Killer is displayed quite great as he's layed out in the place he gave his lectures and left on top of a booby trap, which rains buckets of blood down on the poor unsuspecting Miami Metro.

Dexter got ready to meet with the season's writers

And now, for that twist. Dexter finds a freezer beneath the church and opens it up to find the frozen corpse of Professor Gellar. I would have loved to have said that this twist caught me by utter surprise, but my inquisitive mind figured this twist out back in the third episode. Perhaps if I never watched Fight Club then I wouldn't have figured out how nobody looks at Gellar, how he doesn't actually kill anyone, how he doesn't seem to be noticed by anybody in public when he's out after his face is plastered on newspapers. The twist would've been less obvious if the writers did what Fight Club did with Tyler Durden and showed Gellar actually doing things and interacting with people, maybe a killing or a threatening, and did a reveal later on showing Travis doing them instead. I know not everybody will have caught on to this twist before this episode, but to me, it just feels like the season was a disappointment for relying on this twist for 9 episodes. Hopefully now that the cat is out of the bag, things will pick up.

The other twist in the episode was when Masuka's intern, Louis, took Jamie back to his apartment, only for the viewers to see Louis was the one who bought the Ice Truck Killer hand that was sold earlier in the season. This was the more surprising twist, and looks to pick off from where Brea Grant's storyline dropped off. Hopefully, this will go somewhere interesting and not prove this entire storyline has been an entire waste of time.

I know my review can seem a bit too negative, but I usually love Dexter. I loved Season 5 and don't understand all the hate for it, but this season is making me fear that one of my favorite shows is in a severe downhill spiral, but I hold hope that the three remaining episode will prove me wrong.