Big Picture Big Sound

The Show

Miami's favorite vigilante serial killer Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) returns in Dexter: The Second Season, and this time producers veer farther away from the original novel, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay, and explore further into the depths of the killing mind.  The second season, criticized by some fans of the first season as a let down, is actually quite complex and more multi-threaded than season one.  Starting as Dexter copes with killing his brother, who turned out to be a serial killer known as "The Ice Truck Killer" in the first season, Dexter finds himself beginning to doubt the code that he follows and his lack of conviction leads to his bungling some of his murder attempts.

As one of his colleagues at the police department, Sgt. Doakes (Erik King) becomes suspicious and starts tailing him everywhere, Dexter's domestic life also begins to crumble and he faces troubles with his girlfriend Rita (Julie Benz). In an effort to cover up his framing of Rita's ex-husband with heroin and landing him back in prison on a three-strikes violation, Dexter feigns drug abuse and enters a Narcotic's Anonymous program where he meets a mysterious artist named Lila (Jaime Murray) who he believes can understand the darkness within him; she becomes an unlikely and destructive force in his life.

Meanwhile, Dexter faces the exposure of his "dark passenger," when his store of dismembered body parts on the sea bed is uncovered and the entire Miami Metro Police Department, in conjunction with the FBI, launches a manhunt for the culprit, whom the media has dubbed "The Bay Harbor Butcher."

Throughout the season, Dexter is confronted with something foreign to his character -- feelings. His relationship with Rita and her two young children is tested and his guilt over killing his brother to save his foster sister begins to surface. An icy killer who prides himself on not having any feelings begins to feel real attachments to other people, and it throws him off of his game.  Season two is more about Dexter exploring himself and pushing his code of honor to its limits than was season one, which simply introduced viewers to the concept of the emotionally stunted vigilante who only kills bad people.

From its very first season, Dexter was a controversial program for Showtime Network, but it has helped to catapult the network into the same arena of consideration as its rival HBO, garnering the network its first ever Emmy nominations for a dramatic series. Dexter: The Second Season continues the strong work for this influential series.

The Picture

Shot predominantly in 1080p/24 high definition, Dexter arrives in a splendidly rendered AVC/MPEG-4 encoding of its original broadcast aspect ratio of 1.78:1 from Showtime Entertainment. As with the previous season on Blu-ray, this second season release is replete with the lush pastel colors of Miami: white sand beaches, cerulean seas,  azure skies, verdant vegetation, and warm weather clothing. The encoding is sharp and vivid with contrast occasionally hot, but thus is the style of the show. Black levels are deep, but rarely crush and compression artifacts are nowhere to be found. Video noise is sometimes present, and there are some scenes shot on 35mm film mixed in that look a little awkward juxtaposed against the high definition footage, but overall this is a strong reference quality presentation of a television series.

The Audio

Dexter's soundtrack, provided in a lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is hardly going to dazzle, but it works for the show. Being a dialogue driven show, the surround channels are reserved for ambience, with only occasional discrete sound effects and background music. Dialogue is full and clear and the sounds of Miami, such as breeze blowing through the Palms are lifelike. It's a well-done and well-balanced mix.

The Extras

All of the extras of the second season reside on the third disc and, finally, make good use of BD-Live. Along with a slate of streaming video podcasts from each member of the main cast (and, yes guys, Julie Benz, is amongst them, as is the "dangerous" leading man Michael C. Hall, ladies), Showtime has also provided the first two episodes of their new hit series The United States of Tara (1.78:1; 480i/60) starring Toni Collette.  There is also a throwaway interactive BD-Java supplement entitled Tools of the Trade that lets users select and place Dexter's killing tools into his tool bag, and provides information on each tool.

Final Thoughts

The themes explored in Dexter will certainly not be to everyone's liking, and it is definitely not for younger audiences, but "The Dark Defender" shines on this Blu-ray release, with a marvelous 1080p transfer and clean, suitable sound.  I do not hesitate to recommend this release.

Where to Buy

• Dexter: The Second Season on Blu-ray Disc (Amazon.com)

Product Details

• Actors: Michael C. Hall, Julie Benz, Jennifer Carpenter, Lauren Vélez, David Zayas
• Directors: Jeremy Podeswa, Keith Gordon, Marcos Siega, Nick Gomez, Steve Shill
• Writers: Clyde Phillips, Daniel Cerone
• Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
• Audio/Languages: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Spanish Dolby TrueHD 5.1
• Subtitles: English
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Showtime / Paramount
• Blu-ray Disc Release Date: May 5, 2009
• Run Time: 636 minutes
• List Price: $59.99
• Extras:
• The First two episodes of The United States of Tara (BD-Live)
• The Dark Defender Series (BD-Live)
• Podcasts (BD-Live)
• "Blood Fountains" Featurette (BD-Live
• And More!