TV Series: Dexter Season 5

The fifth season shows Dexter adjusting to being a single father after his wife was killed by the Trinity Killer at the end of season four. The season begins immediately after the end of the last season, less than an hour later. It ends two months later with Harrison's first birthday. The season was filmed a year later, so the baby had to be replaced who was playing Harrison. The actor wasn't named in the fourth season, but in the fifth season Harrison was played alternately by the identical twins Luke and Evan Kruntchev.

This photo was probably taken a couple of years after season five. They played the role until season seven. At the time they appeared in season five they were one year old.

The passage of time is more apparent in the case of Dexter's step-daughter Astor, played by Christina Robinson. We can see that more than a few hours have passed in her development since the end of the last season. She's precocious on all counts. In season four she was 11 and looked 13; now she's 12 and looks like she's 14. Her age is also stated in the series for the first time. Dexter tells her she's only 12, but she's told her best friend Olivia that she was 14.

Dexter looks disapprovingly at his daughter's short skirt.

"Parents! I wish I'd never had them!"

Astor is getting a first hint of a bosom in the fifth season, which she didn't have in the fourth.

In the second episode Dexter's two step-children, Astor and Cody, leave him to live with their grandparents. Astor can't stand Dexter any more and insists on leaving. Cody wants to stay, but Dexter tells him to go, because he thinks brothers and sisters shouldn't be separated. Later in the season Astor returns to Miami, though not to Dexter. She runs away from her grandparents with the intention of squatting in her old family house, which she wrongly assumes is empty.

Dexter is obviously basing his decision to let Cody go on his own life. His half-sister Debra is his closest friend, in many ways closer than his ex-wife or the other girlfriends he has in the series.

Watching the series for the second time, I can see that the fifth season isn't as well structured as the previous seasons. The season starts with Dexter being the primary suspect for his wife's murder. He's cleared in the second episode, because he was seen in Trinity's house at the time his wife was killed, but I think it would have been more interesting to have murder suspicion hanging over his head for the rest of the season. It would have been more interesting, and in line with Dexter's moral ambivalence, to see him planting evidence to clear himself of the murder.

Each season of "Dexter" has a big killer and a series of minor killers, the monster-of-the-week. The fifth season begins with the Santa Muerte killings, heads arranged with voodoo symbols. This gives the viewer the impression that this will be the season's big killer, but the Santa Muerte killings slowly fade into the background as the season continues. The Barrel Girl killer is caught and killed quickly, but just as we think this is over a conspiracy develops which involves four other men in the case, even though they only raped the women and left the actual murder to one of their gang. The ringleader didn't even rape the women, he just motivated the others while he stood watching. He was the worst of them.

This distraction between the two big cases for Miami Metro isn't bad in itself, but two things bother me:

1. Dexter doesn't get involved in the Santa Muerte case. He doesn't even seem to be bothered. He just lets his sister and the other police get on with it. This seems very out of character for Dexter. Normally he'd be anxious to kill anyone responsible for such gruesome murders.

2. The case isn't even solved completely. Miami Metro finds out that the killers are the Fuentes Brothers, Carlos and Marco. In the seventh episode Carlos is shot dead in a nightclub raid, but Marco escapes. The police don't bother with a manhunt for Marco, even though he shoots a police officer dead. That would usually be an ideal setup for Dexter to get into action.

A new arrival this season is Lumen Pierce, played by the amazing actress Julia Stiles. Dexter rescues her shortly before she's murdered by the Barrel Girl killer. He tells her to go home, but she stays with him. She won't leave Miami until all five of the gang are dead.

She insists on being present for the kills. At first Dexter refuses, but eventually he allows her to perform the kill herself while he looks on.

The relationship between Dexter and Lumen is something that the viewer can better understand than Dexter himself, so the voiceover doesn't match what's really happening. Dexter thinks of her as a kindred soul. He thinks that she has a Dark Passenger similar to his own. He thinks of her as a partner for the rest of his life, the only person who truly understands and accepts him the way he is. Alas! It's not to be. Lumen doesn't have a Dark Passenger. She doesn't need to kill to satisfy any inner longing. Her only motivation is revenge. After the death of the five men who tormented her, her killing spree is over. She wants to go back to living a normal life. Maybe she'll settle down and get married, but it can't be Dexter. It's true that she understands and accepts him, but she also understands that she can't live the rest of her life with him.

In the first episode Dexter says that he's seen 67 people die. This is a mistake. While watching the fourth season I had the idea to make a list of Dexter's kills. I'm glad I didn't start the list, because there's already a list online that's better than any I could have made myself. It's a joint work on the Dexter Fandom site. It doesn't just list the kills we see in the episodes. That's as far as I would have gone. It includes the names shown on the wall in the Bay Harbour Butcher case (Season Two) and correlates them with the number of blood slides shown in his box. In addition, the list includes four kills only mentioned in the Dexter web series "Early Cuts". I wouldn't have included them, even though the other three kills in "Early Cuts" are verified in flashbacks in the television series. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that it's right to include them as canon, because they don't contradict the series. On the contrary, they give names to the blood slides we see in Dexter's box.

This means that Dexter had killed 93 people by the beginning of the fifth season. I'll probably post a simplified version of the Kill List in my blog. The fandom page is a comprehensive list, but it's not easy to understand. I had to read it a few times to figure everything out.

	Order from Amazon.com
	Order from Amazon.co.uk
	Order from Amazon.de