Honk if you watched the Dexter finale.

Holy shit.

That is all.

Things for whch I’m thankful

If you, like us at Casa la Brilliant, are avid Dexter fans, last week’s episode was enough to make us never want to do a “What I’m Thankful For” post ever again.

For the uninitiated, the show is about a Miami blood-spatter analyst and sociopathic serial killer (played to harrowing and complex perfection by the great Michael C. Hall) who has been able to play-act at being normal and has eluded capture by adhering to a “code” that requires him to only kill those who have committed heinous crimes and gotten away with it.

Last week the show brought us fifty minutes of some of the most uncomfortable television I have ever watched, highlighted by this scene of Thanksgiving dinner with this season’s Dexter nemesis, “the Trinity killer” (an absolutely perfectly creepy John Lithgow), so called because he kills in threes. “Trinity” is, like Dexter, hiding behind a normal family life, but unlike Dexter so far, he’s starting to crack, as we see here, in the most deliciously twisted Thanksgiving dinner scene ever shown on television:

So. Now that we’ve gotten THAT out of the way…

I’m thankful for Mr. Brilliant and that we still get along after 26 years together.

I’m thankful for my job. (And yes, I know, that’s what they WANT us to think.)

I’m thankful for my friends both virtual and in meat world.

I’m thankful for the contracting company that is finishing up redoing the basement and whose workers actually show up, do quality work, and clean up afterwards.

I’m thankful for my health.

I’m thankful to be able to donate to help others this season.

I’m thankful to have enough gray matter in my brain to be able to distinguish between facts and utter horseshit.

I’m thankful for my far-flung family, which even at its most dysfunctional, was never anywhere near as bad as what you just watched above. Because garden-variety dysfunction can be overcome with sufficient good will, understanding, and communication.

I’m thankful for Bertram Nussbaum, my 8th grade English teacher back in 1968, who taught me never to send a sentence with a preposition, hence the configuration of the title of this post. He also taught me that “have to” has no place in formal writing, and neither does “get”, unless it’s referring to a Jewish divorce.

And I’m thankful for YOU, who for some reason decided somewhere along the line that what I have to say is worth reading.

Michael C. Hall is the best actor in the universe

This has so much potential for twistedness and turning “family values” on its ear. I can’t wait:

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9/29474209001?isVid=1&publisherID=63128

Somehow I think a Dexter bobblehead is not what I’m going to want on my desk when I find another job

I usually try to make my workspace reflect who I am, within reason. This usually means nothing overtly political, though I did have a poster-sized version of what until recently was the most famous recent New Yorker cover, New Yorkistan, in my office until late last week. I’m taking home seven-and-a-half years of personal stuff a little at a time, so that a) I can make what’s happening real, when it’s tempting to think it’s all just a bad dream; and b) I can avoid that “leaving with a box” horror on my last day. It’s going to be bad enough that day trying to keep my tear ducts and dignity intact without leaving with a pathetic little box of crap that means nothing to anyone but me. And besides, after that much time in the same place, I’d practically need a moving van instead of a box to get all my crap out of there.

My newest work-friend and lunchtime walk buddy offered to take my “lucky bamboo”, which has turned out to be not so lucky for me (at least so far), though I’m still looking for a home for my leggy Kalanchoe. Both these plants are toxic to cats, and after the Infamous Maggie and the Final Blox Incident, which cost me almost $600 in vet bills and medication, I’m steering clear of things Maggie might find interesting to munch on. I’ve brought home about a dozen boxes of flavored teas, leaving the rest for the post-departure Stuff Grab, which happens after someone leaves and the survivors pick over the remains. I’ve even brought home my Salton hot tray, which I’ve had since 1977 and which I rarely use at home but have used frequently at work for various bridal showers, baby showers, engagement parties, holiday pot luck lunches, and the other Rites of Passage celebrated in the workplace.

How much of all this crap will find its way to a new workplace (other than my desk fan, which is mandatory equipment for us Women of a Certain Age), remains to be seen. But as tempting as the Dexter bobblehead is, I’m going to refrain.

But here in the near-dog days of summer, when there’s nothing on TV but the resurgent Mets, the nightly parade of horrors on Countdown, constant reruns of old Clean House episodes, and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, we’re looking forward to another season of Dexter. And while ComicCon is underway, you can catch a preview of the new season, which starts September 28.

We here at B@B can hardly wait.

Neither can Brandy (h/t: Skippy).

Blogrolling in our time

I’ve been reading Paul Levinson for a while now, so I decided it’s time to add him to the blogroll. He writes about politics, Lost, The Tudors, Dexter, and other important things. What’s not to like?

That didn’t take long

No sooner did Les Moonves announce that some of Showtime’s successful original series may be used to plug up writers’ strike-paralyzed shows on CBS (a perfectly hideous idea, if you ask me) than the Parents Television Council weighed in:

“CBS’ plan is purely based on corporate greed, not what’s good for families or in the public interest,” said PTC President Tim Winter. “These Showtime programs contain some of the most explicit content on television, period. Yet CBS has no qualms about putting shows that make heroes of serial killers and revel in sick, graphic violence or those that condone drug use and glorify drug dealers in front of millions of children and families on broadcast television. Despite that CBS and Viacom are now ‘separate,’ CBS is funneling in super-raunchy Viacom-owned premium cable content onto the CBS broadcast network … It is also another powerful example of why the rules concerning media consolidation must not be loosened.”

[Note: Showtime is actually a wholly owned subsidy of CBS Corp., not Viacom. The PTC caught its error and sent a corrected release].

CBS President and CEO Les Moonves mentioned the plan at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference in New York on Tuesday. He noted that Showtime’s serial killer drama “Dexter” was considered a likely contender to lead the charge because the show fits CBS’s crime-drama brand (except, of course, that CBS’s crime protagonists tend to arrest murderers rather than dismember them).

“Dexter” is winning raves and breaking Showtime ratings records for its current second season. Though the crime drama has pitch black humor and is sporadically gory in a “‘CSI’-gone-wild” kind of way, it likely has never been described as “super raunchy.”

When I first read about this dumbass idea, it sounded like Moonves was talking about a wholesale move of Dexter to CBS, which would result in travesties like Erik King’s ferocious Sgt. Doakes referring to Michael C. Hall’s eponymous Dexter Morgan as “you muthaflipper”.

I hate to agree with an outfit like the PTC, but in this case I have to: Dexter is just not network television fare; I don’t care how much you cut it….so to speak….any more than The Sopranos is. These shows that deal with dark, deeply psychological themes don’t belong on broadcast television. They are paced as cable series, written for cable, plotted for cable, and directed for cable. To “clean up” Dexter or The Tudors enough for network TV is to make them unwatchable — and to give the religious police more ammunition to turn the airwaves even more into conduits for the kind of thin gruel dished out in the so-called “family viewing time.”

I for one can’t watch The Sopranos on A&E any more than I can watch Goodfellas on AMC. Gangsters curse. Cops curse. They don’t say “darn” and “drat” and “flippin'” and “freakin'” and “dog”. They say “damn” and “shit” and “motherfucker” and “douche.”

And isn’t it interesting that adult sexuality isn’t regarded as suitable for network viewing, but a serial killer, however appealing and antiheroish he is; and a king who gets rid of wives who don’t produce sons for him by any means necessary and beheads or banishes anyone who stands in his way, are perfectly OK.