My own self

Dexter, out loud: Yeah, I wound up with some unexpected time on my hands.
Dexter, voice-over: Like twenty years to life.

Dexter season 2 keeps up the dry wit, the strong focus on a season plot, and the intensity of season 1, yet is in many ways very different. Where season 1 was the story of how Dexter started to doubt his purpose in life, how his past was dug up and blended into his present, season 2 is the story of how Dexter is changed by these experiences and how he learns to cope with them.

By its very nature, then, season 2 is much less dark than season 1. Dexter, for the first time since he was three years old in some form of touch with his emotions, is not anymore in denial or ignorance of how things are neither with his memories nor with his present life. However, without those he's also finding himself without the certainty of his behaviour and ice-cold and removed way of treating his life and the people in it. Season 2's Dexter is a Dexter in turmoil - a turmoil he still cannot afford to let the outside world see.

The loss of Brian's towering makes the season far less omnious still, and as the focus now isn't anymore on whether or not Dexter will lose the little threads of humanity in him, the focus becomes whether or not Dexter will be put to justice for his actions instead.

Thus, the viewer's position is shifted, from following Dexter's life with a sense of dread and mistrust in season 1, hoping he'll come through and be more human but fearing he won't, to something else entirely - to following his life while rooting for him. In season 2, the moral ambiguity is a rather sudden presence in Dexter's own head, and with that, the ambiguity is ironically slipping out of focus for the viewer. Watching this, we root for him, wish he'll pull through, and have unequivocally positive feelings for him. In season 1, Dexter balanced a protagonist between hero and monster. In season 2, the monster is gradually and effortlessly made acceptable to the audience, and the hero gets the spotlight as the Miami police department and an immensely capable FBI agent starts investigating who's dropped all these garbage bags of human body parts in the ocean.

This works, though. It's a gradual and subtle change, one I only realised had occurred in hindsight as I was writing this post. It lets the plot shift to something new and less horrifying without making it feel like a loss in tension and quality. When the plot is about Dexter being on the verge of capture, the audience necessarily needs to feel certain they want him to evade it.

The supporting cast is improved over the first season. Debra is going through quite the character arc since her trauma with Rudy, and at the end of the season she's a strong, independent person showing nothing of the erratic and uncertain behaviour of old. Doakes really get to shine in this season as his grudge against Dexter becomes an obsession. Angel, who I somehow failed to mention in my season 1 review, is still as amazingly thoroughly fantastically decent as ever, and is probably one of the most heartbreakingly lovable grown male characters I've ever encountered. That man has not a vicious bone in his body, and he truly gets to show it time and time again over the course of the second season.

Most important among the supporting cast, though, is none of these, but one out of two big additions to the rooster, the special agent, Frank Lundy. In an amazing piece of casting, they've in Keith Carradine found a man who looks a little bit like Harry Morgan, sounds very much like him (as, interestingly, does Dexter in his inner voiceovers) and is a law enforcement prodigy for Debra to look up to - and can act the hell out of any scene he's in as well. (And I thought I was impressed with his Wild Bill Hickok on Deadwood!) Obviously, with her gigantic father issues, she falls for him, head over heels, but their building and growing relationship is among the best things in the season, and by far the best thing they've done with Debra's character so far. Lundy was the character making up for Brian's disappearance from the show, and damn it all if he doesn't fill the hole almost exactly.

The other new character with a lot of screentime is Lila (played memorably by Jaime Murray who I know only from her character on Hustle), the English artist slash ex-addict who starts infringing on Rita's territory when she catches interest in Dexter - and he in her, as he realises she sees through his inner turmoil and helps him figuring out who he really is. The character is tailored to be unlikeable, and she really is, but she's an ominous and sort of veiled scary sort of unlikeable and plays a vital if somewhat obvious part in the season. Rita gets far less to do in this season than in season 1, but she continues to be one of the show's most interesting characters, and grows quite a lot over the course of the episodes.

Dexter season 2 is less intense and nerve-wrecking than season 1, but that suits me just fine. It's just as addictive, at least almost as interesting, and probably even a nudge more entertaining. It brought a lot of the supporting cast from season 1 out from the corners to play without shifting the focus from Dexter, by making his present and not his past the main thing about the season. His past was not ignored, though, and his uncovering of new and hidden elements in it is still a very present aspect to the show. Much less original and fresh-feeling than season 1, the reason season 2 works so well is more than anything because it builds on what has gone before. Dexter's inner turmoil is only interesting because of the events of season 1, he's only relatable because of how unrelatable he was before, and so you only root for him because you know what's happened previously. In a very clever way, the show gets away with doing a far more by-the-book story of a charismatic criminal trying to evade a manhunt because it builds on a story which was anything but orthodox. Interestingly, that might be why it works - doing something traditional with this character is rather fresh after season 1.

I'm really psyched for the third season. I have no idea which direction they're going to take this show now, having more or less exhausted his past in season 1, used most of the little frictions baked into his present in season 2, and having the character himself once again at peace - though a new and different peace - with who and what he is. But season 2 has convinced me that odds are they'll have yet another surprising twist of the show done so subtly I only notice once the season is over. I don't like this show more after season 2 than after season 1, it's about the same when it comes down to how much I enjoy it, but I trust it more and feel confident it won't let me down in the future either. Much like as the audience, I don't feel more interested in Dexter, he's still very engaging but not really more so than before, but I trust him more and feel more confident that as the audience, I'm doing the right thing by rooting for him.

Of course, they'll probably pull that second rug there out from under my feet before I knew what hit me.