Oh The Event, Keep Holding On To That Dream

I’ve decided I’m going to hold off on a review of this week’s episode of Dexter. Being as next week is the finale I think it’s more appropriate if I wait and review the season as a whole instead. In the meantime here are my thoughts on this week’s episode of the Event.

Spoilers below.

The Event – “Everything Will Change”

The big send off to the first half of the season. You knew there was going to be some sort of shocking twist at the end of it. It’s just too bad that it took them so long to get to it.

First off, I’m getting a little bored with the Sean and Leila storyline. I don’t dislike either character, but other than the big revelation at the end of this episode they haven’t added much in terms of driving the plot forward. Earlier in the season, when Sean was paired up with Agent Collier and Leila was being held captive by Vicky, their storyline had a hint of suspense to it. Now it seems like they spend entire episodes without really finding out anything. Because of the fact we get to watch President Martinez and his staff search for answers, not to mention watching Sophia and the rest of the NTBs interact, Sean and Leila rarely discover anything we didn’t already know.

The Sophia and Thomas power struggle has been a little more interesting, but the way the show has handled it has been somewhat frustrating. Last week, after Thomas openly betrayed Sophia you would have thought she would have kept a better eye on him. The fact that she basically let him betray her again was a bit of a cheap set-up for the episode’s finale.

Now with all the problems this show seems to be having I do want to give the writers some credit. The mythology surrounding this show is actually quite interesting, and it’s what’s kept me watching up until this point. My frustrations lie in the execution.

The ending of this episode was quite good, but at the same time a little confusing. I’m assuming Thomas is calling home with his newly launched satellite. It would be interesting to see exactly where the satellite is pointed – I’d love to find out exactly where this group is from. I’m guessing since there home planet has been described as barely habitable that the reason this group is there is to scout out new places to live. Sophia had a comment early on in the season about hoping one day her people would be welcomed like any other immigrants to a new country -- it would seem to support my migration theory. If I am right then I’m willing to bet that Thomas is calling the rest of his civilization to come on over and make themselves comfortable – although they do have some sort of prime directive don’t-interfere-with-the-primitive-species thing going on so who knows.

The other big revelation from this episode is that father Buchanan is actually one of the NTBs --or involved in age experiments, but they don’t seem to have those down yet so I’m going to guess it’s the latter. This is an interesting twist, and one I’d considered earlier in the season (he says that now) but had dismissed. Here’s what confuses me. The government has basically had custody of this guy since the third episode. At the same time he was also suffering from some mystery disease given to him by Thomas’s crew. When they were treating him for this did they not notice that he had a completely different circulatory system than a normal human being? If Simon had to insert a vein into his arm to pass his CIA medical how did they miss (and continue to miss) this in Michael Buchanan? I really hope if they do end up making him an NTB they give him some added back story so it makes a little more sense than it does now. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt until then.

This also brings up a good question of whether Michael’s now deceased wife was also an alien. The whole half-human half-alien thing is an idea I’ve been throwing around in my head for a while now with this show. It takes me back to when Battlestar did it with the half-Cylon half-human baby. If this is the case then it would certainly make Leila’s character more interesting, and may help spark her and Sean’s storyline.

With the way this show’s been falling in the ratings lately it really needs a shake-up to get it back on track. I hope they can find a way to improve it without betraying the overall mythology they’ve already established. I'm not giving up on you yet The Event.