Dexter 6.09 "Get Gellar" Review

Dexter season 6 returns to slice up its ninth entry with this week's shockingly twisty 'Get Gellar,'as our favorite serial killer works with Travis Marshall to hunt down Professor Gellar before his next murder, as Deb makes an important realization about her brother in therapy, but is all as it seems? "Get Gellar" finally puts the frustrating question of Gellar's existence to rest, but otherwise feels off in some unexpected ways.

There's a curious parallel to be drawn in the coincidental airings of Dexter's 'Get Gellar'and The Walking Dead's mid-season finale 'Pretty Much Dead Already,'and I find myself interested in the way people react to these long-driven out storylines (WALKING DEAD SPOILERS AHEAD, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED). From what I've read, most people haven't enjoyed the way The Walking Dead's search for Sophia dragged out for seven episodes, but their hatred was undone by the shocking, and heartfelt conclusion that the little girl had been in Hershel's barn all along. For the most part, we all knew that Sophia would likely turn up in this cliff-hanger sort of episode, but few suspected AMC would have the gall to kill off a little girl (and a comic character) so brutally.

Dexter faced something of a similarly drawn-out reveal in its current season, as most of its audience suspected (or spread through the internet) the possibility of Professor Gellar being an imaginary voice in Travis'head, a dark passenger of his own as early as the third episode. Evidence for the theory piled up rather clumsily, leading viewers to draw the conclusion revealed in 'Get Gellar'much earlier than its characters. Particularly over nine episodes, that makes for a rather frustrated viewing, especially after the assumption proved correct. I myself held out hope that Dexter's writers were misdirecting us (by misdirecting us), and the idea of Gellar as imaginary would prove false, allowing Edward James Olmos to craft a very real, and dramatically present threat that few people would see coming.

Like a bad relationship, sometimes you just hate being right.

Frustrating as the big reveal of 'Get Gellar'proved, we can at least find relief in the story going forward in the final three episodes of the season. Without the burden of Gellar's existence hanging over the story, we're free to develop the actual threat in Travis, whom Dexter made the mistake of bringing uncomfortably close to his own true identity. Dexter's blunder aside, it's simply nice to know that the show (theoretically) isn't keeping any secrets from us anymore, or poorly keeping them anyway. Gellar being imaginary raises some fascinating questions on how Dexter handles his own dark passenger, especially after the introspection created by Brother Sam. I'd even like to see a flashback or two to explain some of the more complicated behavior of Gellar and Travis, particularly what his sister Lisa might have thought to see her baby brother doing the killing.

The reveal aside, 'Get Gellar'again belongs quite a bit to Debra, continuing her therapy sessions and exploring her character's motivations and grievances, which greatly benefit the character's value. When I first started catching myself up on Dexter I found Deb the least likeable of the characters, constantly making narcissistic decisions that compromised other characters, and each season focusing on her unending need for a male presence in her life. What 'Get Gellar'does is to confront the problem head on, and actually address some of Deb's character flaws by tying them to parental issues from the past.

Even Dexter himself brings up a question I've posed about Harry since the first season, that he never once attempted to curb Dexter's darkness with real-world help, instead channeling his son's dark passenger into the quiet monstrosity that exists today. There's a real self-awareness about the past arising from Dexter's sixth season, including all its references to past characters, but sadly not enough awareness of season 6 itself to realize we'd figured out last night's big twist long ago.

That self-awareness could certainly benefit Dexter's writers in realizing how poorly some of its supporting characters fare with their side-stories as well. I've said it time and time again, no power on this Earth could ever move me to invest in the self-destructive douchebaggery of Detective Quinn's spiral into incompetence, this week having lost his phone and gun from a drunken tryst with a middle-aged waffle house waitress. Deb and Quinn's last talk during 'Nebraska'put an effective cap on him accepting the end of his and Debra's relationship, so why are we still wasting time on his heartbreak? And worse yet, why drag Batista into a conflict with the character, none of which adds anything to the larger picture of season 6? I'd say Quinn more than warrants a pink slip from Miami Metro at this point, but then I'd be afraid of watching him wallow in unemployed misery next season.

At least LaGuerta fares better in her continued efforts to cover up the Jessica Morris case, though I imagine no one was very surprised that her co-conspirator would turn out to be Deputy Chief Matthews, especially considering call girls were how LaGuerta secured her promotion back in 'Those Kinds of Things.'It makes for a curious decision to hide the reveal in last week's 'Sin of Omission,'only to casually drop it here, but it will be interesting to see how LaGuerta puts the screws to Deb to hide their misdeeds.

Now, at the point in the episode in which Jamie met with Louis at his apartment for an apology for his recent behavior, my frustration over useless side-stories had already mounted, feeling in no mood for yet another scene asking us to invest in two characters we've only met this season. Still, the reveal that Louis had been the one to purchase (or reclaim from the first buyer) the Ice Truck Killer hand caught my interest, almost more-so than Travis and Gellar. It might be too farfetched to think Louis could be in league with the still off-screen Ryan (Brea Grant), and somehow tied to the Ice Truck Killer, but here's hoping for one piece of a larger puzzle, rather than something swept under the rug by the end of the season.

The word 'clumsy kept echoing through my head during the events of 'Get Gellar,'as I realized the story problems ran deeper than absurdity or disinterest. There's a bizarre storytelling structure at work during the episode where instead of a more symphonic flow of call and response, scenes simply trip over one another. That is to say that 'Get Gellar'will clumsily make a point in one scene, than immediately follow up with its response in the next, using that exact same character.

Screenwriting 101 tells us not to develop a character moment in one scene, then follow up with its result in the very next scene. Plots naturally weave in and out to keep a sense of balance, so we shouldn't see Deb come to epiphany in her views on Dexter one moment, then jarringly follow her to a new scene wherein she starts enacting it the next. Quinn's scenes with Batista follow a similarly discordant pattern, but none more so than Louis and Jamie, who go from a tender kiss to hardcore boning and the Ice Truck Killer hand the next. It's just sloppy, no pun intended.

It's not that there isn't plenty to enjoy about Dexter's 'Get Gellar,'nothing can top the unnecessary deviation that was 'Nebraska,'but you might end up more annoyed than anything else. The bizarre structuring, support character squandering and obvious reveal of Gellar do a fair bit of damage in evaluating such an important episode. Such a clumsy reveal will likely undermine Dexter's sixth season in retrospect and leave an awful mess in its wake, like we'd just had a bowl of blood and guts dumped on our heads.

And Another Thing...

• So...Dexter drove a known killer wanted by the entire city clear across town, and even gave him his cell phone number? I swear, it's as if Dexter WANTS to be caught.
• Why don't more of you leave video comments on any of my posts? Maybe I should look into doomsday prophet as a career.
• Considering Dexter wanted Travis on 24-hour lockdown at the hotel, he only brought one sandwich the next day for sustenance? Jerk.
• 'He's kind of a self-important asshole, but I like him.'� Dexter's thoughts on Professor Casey, and what I logically assume everybody says about me.
• So...Travis found a way to completely stop the elevator, kill and stash his victim, then free Dexter (who doesn't even think to chase after a middle-aged man making a slow getaway carrying another middle-aged man likely very nearby), drain and dissect the body, set up an elaborate mechanical trap to rain blood on Miami Metro, paint a message in his hotel bathroom, then take a nap without remembering any of it?
• Dexter wouldn't think it odd that Gellar agreed to meet Travis in the church where he'd previously almost been caught? Why didn't Dexter hear the apparently one-sided conversation going on downstairs as he set up his kill room? And considering the Church's lack of electricity in its dilapidated state, what's powering that freezer? These questions might drive us all to kill.

Sigh. What did YOU think?