I know heyitsabell’s style is a lot less formal than mine, but TV is ~srs bsns~ y’all (no it’s not. Also, watch out for a serious abuse of parentheticals, I love them.) These are probably not going to be traditional recaps, but discussion on a few aspects of the episode that I thought were interesting.
Of course, the cliffhanger of last week’s episode was Julia Stiles watching Dexter hack creepo murderer Boyd to death. I won’t lie; my Dexter-buddy (hey Aditya, if you’re reading this!) and I spent the earlier portion of the season wondering when Julia Stiles would show up. We theorized that she might be a reincarnation of Lila (heaven forbid!), or Harrison’s nurse. Suffice to say, I’m pleased that she’s not either of those things.
Anyway, there were one thing I found particularly interesting about this episode: Julia Stiles’ character’s name (thank God that we know this, because I would hate to spend the remainder of the season calling her Julia Stiles, and probably eventually referring to her as Kat Stratford, or her from The Bourne Trilogy) – Lumen. I should probably warn you now; I have a particularly hard boner for names that have some sort of thematic significance.
As a biology nerd, Lumen initially made me think of cavities within the body – a particularly gruesome name, and oddly fitting for a character on Dexter. Dark humor of the name aside, the word lumen seems strangely reflective of our favorite murderer himself –embedded within his rituals and habits, but deeply hollow after Rita’s death. It also seems allusive to the gory nature of the Santa Meurte killing – stuffing body parts into cavities (or lumens) carved out by the murderers. Whether or not our Lumen has a direct tie to these killings (although, I’m inclined to think she doesn’t), it makes the season seem more coherent from the get go.
A quick Wikipedia search on lumen yielded a second definition: the SI unit of luminous flux (a measure of the power of light perceived by the human eye.) Thematically, season four of Dexter centered on his inability to balance his homicidal tendencies with his responsibilities as a father. He tried, and failed miserably, to use Trinity as a model – leading to the huge clusterfuck that was the last few episodes of the season (“hello Dexter Morgan” – need I say more? And on that note, I’m very very interested in how this Kyle Butler business is going to be resolved and whether Quinn will meet a demise much like Doakes when he was delving too far into Dexter’s private affairs.) And by the end of the season, going into the first episode of this one, it seemed as though Dexter’s role as a family man had all but dissipated, and he became more dark – subsumed with random bouts of rage and losing his typical cool on a kill. I feel as though this season will bookend the last one – which had Dexter coming to terms with one of the darkest moments of his life (I’d say that knowing that Harrison saw Rita get hacked to pieces – along with the fact that Rita is gone – is much more difficult for Dexter to handle than the origin of his own Dark Passenger) – and present a less mangled face to Dexter: like the entire season will be like The Beauty and the Beast (coincidentally, the title of this episode), with Dexter being redeemed somewhat of his guilt over Rita’s death with Lumen’s help.
Although, hopefully he won’t be redeemed too much – I’d like to be around for Dexter season six.
Of course, the cliffhanger of last week’s episode was Julia Stiles watching Dexter hack creepo murderer Boyd to death. I won’t lie; my Dexter-buddy (hey Aditya, if you’re reading this!) and I spent the earlier portion of the season wondering when Julia Stiles would show up. We theorized that she might be a reincarnation of Lila (heaven forbid!), or Harrison’s nurse. Suffice to say, I’m pleased that she’s not either of those things.
Anyway, there were one thing I found particularly interesting about this episode: Julia Stiles’ character’s name (thank God that we know this, because I would hate to spend the remainder of the season calling her Julia Stiles, and probably eventually referring to her as Kat Stratford, or her from The Bourne Trilogy) – Lumen. I should probably warn you now; I have a particularly hard boner for names that have some sort of thematic significance.
As a biology nerd, Lumen initially made me think of cavities within the body – a particularly gruesome name, and oddly fitting for a character on Dexter. Dark humor of the name aside, the word lumen seems strangely reflective of our favorite murderer himself –embedded within his rituals and habits, but deeply hollow after Rita’s death. It also seems allusive to the gory nature of the Santa Meurte killing – stuffing body parts into cavities (or lumens) carved out by the murderers. Whether or not our Lumen has a direct tie to these killings (although, I’m inclined to think she doesn’t), it makes the season seem more coherent from the get go.
A quick Wikipedia search on lumen yielded a second definition: the SI unit of luminous flux (a measure of the power of light perceived by the human eye.) Thematically, season four of Dexter centered on his inability to balance his homicidal tendencies with his responsibilities as a father. He tried, and failed miserably, to use Trinity as a model – leading to the huge clusterfuck that was the last few episodes of the season (“hello Dexter Morgan” – need I say more? And on that note, I’m very very interested in how this Kyle Butler business is going to be resolved and whether Quinn will meet a demise much like Doakes when he was delving too far into Dexter’s private affairs.) And by the end of the season, going into the first episode of this one, it seemed as though Dexter’s role as a family man had all but dissipated, and he became more dark – subsumed with random bouts of rage and losing his typical cool on a kill. I feel as though this season will bookend the last one – which had Dexter coming to terms with one of the darkest moments of his life (I’d say that knowing that Harrison saw Rita get hacked to pieces – along with the fact that Rita is gone – is much more difficult for Dexter to handle than the origin of his own Dark Passenger) – and present a less mangled face to Dexter: like the entire season will be like The Beauty and the Beast (coincidentally, the title of this episode), with Dexter being redeemed somewhat of his guilt over Rita’s death with Lumen’s help.
Although, hopefully he won’t be redeemed too much – I’d like to be around for Dexter season six.
