It’s not that I’m not thankful; it’s that in two series now, people gathered around a table for Thanksgiving decide to go around the table and tell what they have to be thankful for, and it just all goes horribly awry.
Which leaves us with the burning question: Who would you rather have dinner with? The family of Arthur Mitchell, a.k.a. Trinity on “Dexter,” or the fun loving Petrelli family on “Heroes.” Either way, the carving is not going to go smoothly.
Spoiler comments after the break:
“DEXTER”–Ever since we acquired a DVR, the idea of appointment television has pretty much gone out the window here…except for “Dexter.” While Caroline might have some flexibility on bedtime other days, on Sunday night by 9 PM, she’s upstairs and we’re watching everyone’s favorite serial killer doing his thing. This season is another gripping success as Dexter wrestles with family life and has been looking to another serial killer–Trinity (a never more psycho John Lithgow)–as a possible guide as to how a monster can have both a murderous career and a family. Yet week after week we’ve seen Trinity’s family and personal life self-destruct, which is increasingly disconcerting for Dexter. Is he watching a preview of what he can expect for his own life? Are his protests that things will go differently for him genuine? Or is he kidding himself? I have the disturbing feeling that by the end of the season he’s going to be back in his old apartment living with his sister, and he’ll be doing it in order to avoid destroying the life of Rita and the kids.
This week’s installment was particularly gripping as Dexter was a guest at Trinity’s Thanksgiving dinner. Two serial killers and plenty of cutlery; what could possibly go wrong? Michael C Hall is never more terrifying than when he drops his “mask” and reveals the monster within, and the thunderstruck look on Trinity’s face when he realizes who and what he’s dealing with presages a major confrontation which is going to result, I suspect, with Dexter trapped six feet under in a pine box. No matter what happens, I guarantee that I’ll be there at 9 PM, uhm…sharp.
“HEROES”–So we wound up with a backlog of about six “Heroes” episodes, which shows you just how far the series has slipped from what we once considered appointment TV. As a result, we had a “Hero”-fest and watched the six episodes straight through to get caught up. You know what? I think the show plays way better when watched that way. Kind of the TV equivalent of waiting for the trade paperbacks. It’s far easier to keep track of the various story threads, plus it prevents certain storylines from getting too tiresome. If I’d had to deal with week after week of Parkman with Sylar in his brain, for instance, I would have been out of my own head. But watching the entire thing in one block made it seem far less dragged out.
They’ve endeavored to go back to basics this year: To depict relatively normal people living relatively normal lives except they’ve had this big abnormal situation dropped on their heads. No elaborate government conspiracies, no byzantine origin stories, no horrific future that needs to be warded off. Samuel and his carnival of freaks desperately need to start chanting “One of us! One of us!” at some point, but otherwise they’re quite compelling. Some people are being ignored, regrettably (Ando got off to a strong start, and even developed his own love interest, before largely being MIA). Some others can’t be ignored enough for me (THEM: “Mohinder was killed eight weeks ago.” ME: “Yea!” THEM: “We have to save him.” ME: “Dammit!”)
And then of course there’s the damage control dealing with the most ill-advised, unbelievable, suspension of disbelief shattering moment in the history of the series: The transformation of Sylar into Nathan. Ill-advised on every level since (a) it made Mom Petrelli seem completely out of her mind, and (b) you knew it was doomed to failure. This week showed the Petrelli family gathering for the holiday just when all the family secrets are being hauled into the light of day. You thought you had an older sibling who had a way of getting into mom’s head? Just imagine if he could do it literally. I’m not entirely sure why the Petrellis decide to illuminate their house entirely in blue, but hey, they’re eccentric and mostly nuts. But giving them a run for their money when it comes to uncomfortable sit-downs is the Bennett household, and it was frankly pitch perfect for anyone who has a family that’s split up. There’s mom with her boyfriend, the drip. There’s dad with his smoking hot girl friend. And there’s the disconsolate teenager who, when they decide to go around the table for the whole thanking thing, picks a fight and sends everything into disarray, just like Trinity’s son did (they would probably have gotten along.) Except Trinity’s son nearly got himself killed in order to prove his point, while Claire gutted her forearm and then watched it heal, causing the dippy boyfriend to pass out. Any guy who’s ever wanted to see his ex’s new beau proven to be a total nimrod would delight in that sequence.
As for the initial question I asked: Definitely the Trinity family, because at least I’d have Dexter covering my back. At many Thanksgiving dinners, you wind up loosening your belt. Only Dexter does so in order to use it to throw it around an attacker’s throat and drag him away to kill him. Plus no one carves a turkey quite like him.
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While I only watched Dexter, I have to agree with Peter’s assesment of the Thanksgiving-Dinner-From-Hëll. I gave up on Heroes this season precisely due to the “rebooting” that placed the characters back to basics. I can understand the need to make the characters more relatable to a wider audience but the whole Nathan/Sylar/Matt storyline lost me.
Dexter on the other hand has always kept me intrigued and this season has especially kept me glued to the TV on Sunday nights. Not only was Micheal C. Hall’s performance wonderful but so was John Lithgow’s as the sinister Arthur Mitchell. The moment he lamented that no one in his family gave thanks for him was a chilling scene. Far scarier than most horror movies try to pull off nowadays.
I wasn’t shocked by the first revelation concerning Christine but admit the second one grabbed me.
For me, the best litmus test of any story (TV, film, comics, etc.) is does it make me think “Where are you taking me now?”. I don’t need to be shocked by events in a tale but love to brought to places that challenge me as a viewer/reader.
Too true. I do still see Heroes as must see TV. The problem for me is that they moved it to directly compete with House and it doesn’t have the intro of Chuck which sucks.
I usually watched House and then switched over for Chuck and Heroes…now i can’t do that 🙁
You’ll be able to do that again starting in early January. Chuck’s returning (and they’ve even upped the episode order to 19 from 13), and after a 2 hour premiere on Sunday, it’ll be back in its old Monday night time slot.
Lost interest in “Heroes” since The Dark Side Year, but strongly agree with “Dexter’s Best Season Ever” review! Too many people wanted Dexter to go back to his First Season Loner personna while I was intrigued by his “let’s give this family man thing a try” subplot while discovering that “you can’t have it both ways without paying the price” which we’re discovering big time through The Trinity Family Breakdown. Heaven only knows how Christmas will turn out if this is how Our Favorite Serial Killer “carves the Family Thanksgiving Turkey!”
Can’t comment on Heroes because I haven’t seen it yet, but definitely agree about Dexter, particularly this episode. What a great episode, with things going completely awry at the Mitchell family’s household. And Dexter grabbing Arthur with his belt and ragging him into the kitchen was excellent. I knew, story-wise, he couldn’t possibly kill him just yet, but I certainly could’ve believed him killing him then and there, the way he flipped out. And I’m surprised how much I love the last 30 seconds of the episode which says a lot about the quality fo the writing. When a lot of shows pull a story punch like that, I find myself rolling my eyes. But with the Dexter writers, I feel like they know what they’re doing, rather than, oh say, throwing darts at a list of names to decide who might be the final five; which is almost exactly what they did on BSG, i’m not just being anti-BSG!
I still cannot believe Sylar ate a whole pumpkin pie WITHOUT any sort of whipped topping! That’s gotta prove him crazy. Oh, wait-we already know he is. Being locked out’ of his own body probably didn’t help…
My biggest problem with the T-day scene was that Peter Petrelli should now have all of the powers at Sylar’s disposal. When they were on the Butte, he touched Sylar (and got Nathan’s flight ability). not
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I suppose this could say more about Peter’s powers relying on what he thinks will happen, but even that would not make sense — he did not know that he would be getting the deaf girl’s powers.
Considering how messed up Trinity’s kids are, I suspect Dexter will discover that one or both are latent serial killers, obligating Dexter to teach them Harry’s Code.
SPoilers
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you must not have seen the “next episode” teaser…
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I glommed onto the identity of Deb/Lundy’s shooter several episodes back. But the shooter’s connection to Trinity totally surprised me.
Jim,
I thought Peter’s powers were now somewhat like Ultra Boy’s from the Legion, he can only use one at a time. Only in Peter’s case, he can’t choose from a list, it’s literally that one power.
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As I recall, he flew (under his own power) with Noah Bennett to visit the kid with the healing touch, and after copying that power, he had to find alternate transportation back to New York, since he could no longer fly under his own power. As to taking Nathan/Sylar’s flying power on the butte, I can only assume that since it’s the one Nathan/Sylar had just used, it’d be at the top of the heap, so to speak. If he’d suddenly shot sparks from his hands, and Peter had happened to touch him, then Peter would’ve absorbed that power.
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Possible spoilers follow:
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From what we saw in this most recent episode, it would seem that there’s going to be a subplot (or even a spin-off), “Dr. Nathan and Mr. Sylar.” But given that a few weeks ago, there was a story in Yahoo News that Nathan Petrelli was being written out of the show, and Adrian Pasdar found out by reading the script, I don’t think that subplot will last very long.
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I’ve commented about the Nathan/Sylar mess before, and stated how it could be resolved (Nathan’s mistress, played by Victoria Principal, wakes up, finds him in the shower, and tells him about this horrible dream she had). But it would seem I was wrong about why they did it. I thought they’d come up with a cumbersome way of getting rid of Sylar so Zachary Quinto could concentrate on movies, but still leave the door open for his possible return.
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Why they couldn’t just have had him escape is beyond me.
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Of course, as I’ve also said before, I think Sylar shouldn’t still be around. He was the “Big Bad” of season 1. He should’ve died at the end of that season (or when he was powerless in season 2, though I think the first option would’ve been better, from a storytelling point of view).
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Rick
Does it have do be from those choices?
How about with the Crew of Serenity (though they probably don’t have that holiday)? How about The CSI Vegas people (dinner table conversation would be interesting)?
Then again, I gave up on Heroes after season 2, and never watched Dexter.
My husband and I are absolutely GLUED to the TV at 9pm SHARP on Sunday nights. Dexter is incredible. The writers are incredible. I about fell out of the bed at the end last week when she opened the door to Trinity and said..”Hi Dad.” Maybe I’m thick, but I did not see that coming at all. I had about figured out she was the one who shot Debra and Lundy, but her being Trinity’s daughter blew me away. I cannot WAIT till 9pm tonight. Go DEX!
That’s interesting because I didn’t suspect her of shooting Lundy for the same reason that Deb and Batista didn’t: no clear motive. When it was revealed who her father was, I thought “Paydirt!” While it’s understandable that anybody can be a killer “for the sake of killing” on this show, I still needed a reason to suspect someone of killing a main character when I watch this show. At least this season’s writers understood this, which make me enjoy this show now more than the “Kill, Dexter, kill!” crowd.
You know, I thought the exact same thing about the thanksgiving episodes. What I thought was weird was that on those two different shows, there was one character that was thankful for “yams”. On Dexter, every time someone gave thanks, and especially when Mitchell prompted them if “that was all?” I was like, here we go…
Where the F**K are Nathan’s wife and kids during all this?!?!? Looks like they got Brother Chucked.