Is it ok for me to talk about the season finale of Dexter yet? I gave it a week to make sure I wasn't the big spoiler. No, Julia Stiles' "Lumen" character did not get killed– worse. She broke up with Dexter. Worse still, this totally went against the character and relationship they'd been building all season.
Seriously, I felt like she was breaking up with us. All that time invested, finally someone sees Dexter for what he really is and loves him for it, and then she just leaves after they kill Jordan Chase? No way. This is one of those plot twists that exists simply because they can't make Julia Stiles a series regular (maybe she's doing a movie? Maybe it would change the original intention of the show too much if Dexter had a partner in crime? Who knows.). I was totally disappointed with the breakup choice, not least of which because i felt like after all they've both been through, they are NEVER going to find better suited people. Gah! She just leaves and forgets everything that happened in Miami? I don't think so. What about all that stuff changing her forever? She's just "better" now? I'm not buying it. Her "born in blood" trauma was actually worse than Dexter's, so that would mean her dark passenger, like his, can't just be "cured.". Weak! Also (this part is purely conjecture, I have no insider info whatsoever), I kind of felt like Julia Stiles and Michael C. Hall did such a great job portraying that relationship and had such great chemistry that they might actually be in love in real life, and this might have been what made it tougher for me to buy that she could have just thrown him away like that. This just did not sit right with me, and I have several reasons for this.
Here is my evidence: remember, Michael C. Hall just filed for divorce from his wife (Jennifer Carpenter, who plays his sister Deb on the show), and then Julia Stiles made a strange, “perhaps she is protesting too much” statement about how she didn’t cause this and how we should leave them alone. Ermm….ok.
So, remember when I retracted my statement that Chip Johannessen had apparently figured out the show and made it better by adding the Lumen story line?
Wrong. I was wrong about that. Writing Lumen out like that despite an obviously strong relationship between the two characters (or at least the two actors) was too easy, and was not a good move. It was a move worthy of 24, and shows that he actually doesn't understand the world of the show. And, sure enough— perhaps someone at the network reads this blog, because it has just been announced that despite Season Five's ratings being the highest ever, Johannessen will not be coming back for Season 6, and will be replaced by Executive Producer Scott Buck is stepping up as show runner. Yay!
Next season it will be interesting to see: a) who the guest star is next season, b) what they do to keep Michael C Hall and Jennifer Carpenter from doing scenes together now that they're getting a divorce, c) what Scott Buck is going to do to rebuild the original stories from the first four seasons, and d) how long it will be until Julia Stiles and Michael C. Hall feel comfortable coming out in public as an actual couple.
That is all.
