Season Five
Now let's step back for a moment and look at just what season five could have been. Season four left us with Dexter shattered by the murder of his wife, with a sister who was beginning to learn harsh truths about him and a new animosity with the otherwise useless Quinn. Arthur Mitchell's family also knew exactly what Dexter looked like and could identify him in a heartbeat if they wanted to. And the very first trailer for season five made all of this central. We saw Quinn looking into Rita's death and approaching Mitchell's son with a photo of Dexter. We saw what looked like a thrilling cat and mouse game beginning between Dex and this apparent new adversary. We saw the leftover subplots from season four becoming huge new threats to Dex. It looked like everything I could have wanted from a new season of Dexter. But here's the thing. All those brilliant moments in the trailer? They comprised the first three episodes. Then Quinn, for no convincing reason, dropped his suspicions, the FBI backed off and Arthur Mitchell's family faded into obscurity. Instead of the natural progression of plot we had hoped for, we got a new season-long adventure with Dexter trying to help the bland and unlikeable Lumen Pierce. Now, I appreciate a lot of people really enjoyed her role, but I never did. I found Julia Stiles to be annoying and unconvincing, and their relationship totally lacked chemistry. I had to watch in irritation as the plots I cared about were dropped in favor of a pointless revenge story that was tied up so neatly at the end that it need never have happened at all. The bad guys died, Lumen left and Dexter went back to exactly as he was before. Quinn seemed to forget completely that he had good reason to suspect Dexter and our hero was left with a clean slate. While the season had some good moments, these were overshadowed completely by the sheer waste of time that it all turned out to be. The tragedy of season five, ultimately, is what could have been. Imagine, for a second, a world where Dexter had the integrity of Breaking Bad; a world where the powers that be simply said 'we've told all the story we could, lets end it at season five.' Imagine a scenario where the writers were forced to resolve every lingering loose end and subplot. Because really, the plot hinted at by the trailers could have been the conclusion to the series. It quite easily could have fed into an excellent and memorable finale, leaving Dexter remembered today as a great series that went out at the top of its game. Season five is and remains Dexter's most disappointing moment simply because it not only failed to live up to its promise, but refused to. The expectations had never been higher, and the resultant season did everything in its power not to reward them.