Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Killers Anonymous?

Dexter
This season of "Dexter" is turning out to be more of a guilty pleasure than last season was, to the extent you feel guilty about laughing out loud at dark comedy done to perfection. The most recent episode, "An Inconvenient Lie," is a perfect case in point. Dex's girlfriend Rita, convinced that he is addicted to heroin, coerces him into a 12-step NarcAnon program. Dex's first sharing moment is so stereotypical that one of his fellow attendees asks whether he downloaded it from "addict.com." The two have a conversation, during which she describes the Urge in such fabulously seductive detail that he has to leave. We don't know her addiction yet; we know his is killing people. Dex's next sharing moment at NarcAnon is absolutely honest, except that everybody else in the room believes that his "dark passenger" is a compulsion to use drugs. He also reveals, for the first time, something that viewers of the show know already--that Dex the monster is becoming fully human for the first time in his life. Michael C. Hall pulls off Dex's poignant moment of truth perfectly, and the moment that follows with human bloodhound Sgt. Doakes brings us back to dark comedy done right. Dexter's "inconvenient lie" turns out to be most convenient, as he ends up with 1) a forum in which he can, risk-free, explore truths about himself; 2) his girlfriend appeased; and 3) Doakes no longer following him so he's free to go about the business of killing people. Oh, and nice play on Al Gore's book title.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Loved it!