Board 8 > Best season of Dexter

(+) Yeah! (+)

Pretty much everyone agrees that 1-4 were the good seasons (maybe include 5 too if youre generous) but whats the boards consensus on the BEST season?

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i have something like 2, 3, 7 at the top, 1 and 4 high, 5 and 6 bad, and 8 hilariously garbage
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Season 3 was the best, honest opinion. Jimmy Smits is great in everything

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3 is super underrated
Yes it's not as good as 4 but it was pretty good!
Probably
4>2>3>1>5>7>>>>>>>>6>>>8

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7 is underrated. Not on par with the early seasons but far better than 5 and 6, and ended the show on a great finale. Good thing they didn't mess that up with another season

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Season 2 killed Doakes waaay too early in the shows runtime

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2 and 3 were my favourites by quite a bit

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4 has a great A plot but everything else is awful, already a sign of things to come. 2 might be my fav but I think the finale is super weak and cleans things up way too neatly for Dexter. 1 is probably the tightest but doesn't have as many highs... idk.

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KamikazePotato posted...

Season 2 killed Doakes waaay too early in the shows runtime

I agree, at least for the length that the show eventually ran to. Season 2 was fantastic because they called in their "break glass in case of emergency" plot threads early, rather than drag them out over 8 seasons.

I know this isn't how the industry works, but it would be nice if more shows were designed to be a set length- with definite beginnings, middles, and ends. I know there are a lot of british miniseries that work that way, but it's not as profitable. There's more money to be had in kicking the can of a successful show down the road for as many seasons as humanly possible

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7 is way better than 3.
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John Lithgow is so good in 4 that I dont remember any of the bad stuff. Ill take high peaks and occasional valleys over flat mediocrity any day.

7 was the final season, right? never watched that one. last one I saw was the season with colin hanks and EJO which was laughably awful

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Mobilezoid posted...

Season 3 was the best, honest opinion. Jimmy Smits is great in everything

Jimmy Smits is great but even he can't save a character that dumb.
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kevwaffles posted...

Jimmy Smits is great but even he can't save a character that dumb.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq0UxHbNHFg

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hey kevwaffles if you continue to fuck with me then i will FUCK. YOU. BACK.
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Also 7 was good enough to get my hopes up for 8, which arguably makes it the actual worst.

Jk, sort of
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Yeah s7 was absurd and far removed from the realm of reality but it was entertaining and the show felt like it was embracing the madness by that point, it was fully on the gas pedal for pretty much the whole season. I don't know what the heck happened to produce season 8, which has to be one of the worst seasons of TV I have ever watched in its entirety.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZhllfpyVTo

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SeabassDebeste posted...

hey kevwaffles if you continue to fuck with me then i will FUCK. YOU. BACK.

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Feel like this topic is partially my fault.

2 > 1 >> 3 > 4 >> 7 >> 6 > 5 >> 8

Doakes was so necessary to the show's dynamic working. If you could have slow burned that to Season 4 and then ended the series shortly after you'd have a legendary TV show probably.

As is I still like Dexter in spite of the baggage. 5 and 6 were at least watchable at points, and those first few seasons were so good

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And for the record, 2 is the best, followed by 1.

I really wanted to like 4 because of the strong performances, but the premise of the show had already gotten shaky

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5 was watchable. 6 was worse than 8. At least 8 made me laugh a few times.

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1 > 4 > 2 >= 5 > 3 > 6 didn't watch the rest

The thing with Season 2 is it was book 2. Season 1 was book 1.

Then the show and books differed, and for what it's worth, the books are weirder.

(though I haven't seen the last two seasons still)

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Yeah I agree. I think 6 is the absolute nadir of the show. It is beyond awful.
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Han's ranking is pretty close to mine, but I'd say the two season he didn't watch were both better than 6. Season one was so amazing.

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I barely remember S6. What specifically made that one so bad?

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As good as Doakes is, it'd be absurd if he was around much longer with the extent he hounded Dexter. He would have quickly started feeling like Wile E. Coyote.

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redrocket posted...

I barely remember S6. What specifically made that one so bad?

Really bad villain with a twist everyone saw coming from like the second episode.

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I could have accepted a Doakes face-turn right before he finds out that Dexter is actually a killer.

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season 6 made me laugh a few times for sure with "i dunno, he's pretty big" / "he's NOT BIGGER THAN GOD" and the giant mural of dexter's face

also mos def was legitimately great in it
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4 > 2 > 7 > 1 > 3 > 6 > 5 > 8

SeabassDebeste posted...

also mos def was legitimately great in it

Mos Def is legitimately great in most things. Super underrated actor

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DeepsPraw posted...

John Lithgow is so good in 4 that I dont remember any of the bad stuff

the entire Angel/LaGuerta subplot

Season 2

Lopen posted...

Doakes was so necessary to the show's dynamic working. If you could have slow burned that to Season 4 and then ended the series shortly after you'd have a legendary TV show probably.

I agree with this completely, having just rewatched the first few seasons. There was no reason to really continue watching after season 2.

kateee posted...

the entire Angel/LaGuerta subplot

Man...Dexter writing was...a mess. Even in the earlier seasons which were actually good, there were plenty of stuff that I thought "who the fuck wrote this shit"
Like what was the point of Angel going with that cop and then the next season she is nowhere to be seen but he is suddenly with Laguerta?
I assume (and hope) it was because of the actress not being available or something

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kevwaffles posted...

As good as Doakes is, it'd be absurd if he was around much longer with the extent he hounded Dexter. He would have quickly started feeling like Wile E. Coyote.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

I could have accepted a Doakes face-turn right before he finds out that Dexter is actually a killer.

This is the way to do it. I think the progression in Season 1 and Season 2 was about right but the conclusion was wrong.

There is a LOT of intrigue to be had where it's a battle of Doakes allowing Dexter to do his thing, vs Dexter maybe going too borderline for his tastes. You can have Doakes really know but not quite be in the position where he wants to act for whatever reason very easily-- him being morally grey is an easy sell if you write him even just a little different, but at the same time he's LESS morally grey than Dexter so neither guy is going to trust the other or have any sort of alliance. And Dexter knows or suspects he knows but can't just murder him for obvious reasons, but maybe kinda wants to-- just a lot of layers there and they weren't all really explored too well.

I'm not saying you can keep it going for 8 seasons but until 3 or 4? Absolutely. And it's more compelling than what we get, for sure.

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I don't think I could suspend the disbelief needed to think Doakes would discover Dexter and go along with it. Wasn't he looking for any reason he could to hate him? That's how Dexter was able to provoke him so easily.

I don't see him ever allowing Dexter to do anything.
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I'm not saying you can just have him flip right there after getting to the cabin, story as presented. You have to introduce elements to the story that aren't there before to massage it along but the fundamental characters personalities to me it isn't a stretch at all.

Basically Dexter needs to "redeem" himself in some way before Doakes collects all the pieces. Save his life, save the life of someone close to him, murder someone Doakes really REALLY hates but can't catch, give Dexter some form of perceived leverage over Doakes where he doesn't think it's a good idea to go for it right away. I mean those are just really basic ideas off the top of my head, but the principle idea is that I don't think that Doakes conceptually would necessarily be against the idea of a vigilante if it wasn't him, so not immediately crushing him isn't out of the realm of possibility to me if the story was laid out a bit differently.

And because he appears to hate Dexter so much no matter what the option is you don't ever take it as a given he's letting Dexter get away with it, that's why it'd still be intriguing.

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Doakes himself executed that one guy he recognized from his black ops days. I always thought he was hypocritical.

I guess I could see an altered S3 where he takes Miguel's place as Dexter's "friend" though

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