Affogato

I still have not had the opportunity to see this in a theater. What a marathon that would be.

Then he is not high on the APD spectrum. It is inconsistent characterization. In the first show (the couple of seasons I’ve watched) i think we were given to believe he did not have to be as guarded with children and could be himself. His personal experiences might lead him to want to protect kids. Beong overcome with empathy and emotion is inconsistent. but yes, if you lay aside what he repeatedly tells us about how he operates and most of what he does your explanation makes sense. of course maybe h is getting a personality redemption arc. But the true interest of the show was making domeone like dex a protagonist. Imo.

Why in the world? Motivation? i find it hard to believe Dexter feels so deeply for children and only children.

Also, they really lingered on the license plate of Milkshake’s motorcycle….

I have wondered if the board is in cold sleep of some sort and communicates from there and yes, are trying to return to full life.

“Fetid moppet” i suspect most of the world doesn’t watch the apple product circuses and similar it wouldn’t have been a huge media bomb, lumon can ‘manage’ it i loved Devon throwing the towel over the picture of Gemma and Mark. Their relationship is without price. In the phone booth: ‘I want you to know my innie got your message.’ The innies are mirrors of the outies. Mark is bitter, angry and alone outside. Inside he is warm, caring, a leader. Dylan is as smart as two or three inside, a workplace powerhouse, and outside he has had no workplace success. Irving is a company man indide, at first a true believer, and outside appears to work against it. Hellie is warm and open and supportive inside, outside she is emotionally unavailable and isolated. What is or was …..5X? In Grand rapids, apparently. is cobel/selvig working for or against Lumon now? Probably for, but perhaps there is a schism. To Lumon ‘cold harbor’ is the important project. Mark and Gemma are the important bits. Hmmm?

I really noticed how cold the outside world seemed this episode, not just winter or night time, but starkly lit. Irving in the phone booth, all of it, stark and almost black and white.

Oddly when I posted it I checked and did not see another post about it. Anyway, it doesn’t seem to have harmed anyone.

Jules Feiffer has died https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/22/jules-feiffer-pulitzer-winning-cartoonist-and-writer-dies-at-95-00199846

We shall see. I think they made a real effort to muddy the waters, our questions were not answered.

He likely does not think Dylan will keep the secret.

It is the time of the glorification of sexually inappropriate men, so he may feel the word salad is all he needs.

He may not have done anything to the kitchenette. it may have been a simple distraction. If we are thinking of them as children, it is a kindergarten level prank. i think they really made an effort not to tell us anything definite or provide answers. It will be interesting to find out of Irving remembers Burt now. Are they playing this out over and over again? Is Milkshake also being wiped and restarted? Are the lives of the outie’s their real lives? Does Helena, in fact, does her outie have a false memory? Time will tell, I suppose. i keep on returning to the fact that the chip working is shown by Mark and Casey/Gemma nor recognizing each other.

If that is Helena the family visitation room will let her see her family. irv has been in that hallway many times. it seems unlikely they aren’t being spied on, whatever the friendly building says. it occurs to me tht the innies ultimtely may be stronger people than the outies, informed by trauma.

This is the heart of chekov’s gun. It would be a badly written show that would use that narrative device (vivisection) randomly to show childhood exploration. (Delightful how he decorates his mud pies with small animal parts!) And we know it is, in fact, an easter egg. The thing this episode showed, oddly, was that Dexter perhaps showed empathy. So I thought,anyway. But maybe they just meant to show curiosity and a moment forming a bond with Harry.

i hope this doesn’t end up behind a paywall. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2024-04-02/la-et-gagne-sociopath-memoir i believe Dexter is well portrayed as a sociopath. The question is what made him a serial killer. The two serial killer brothers is fantastc, and is likely all it is. But if he had been raised by someone else, would he have been a serial killer? i put an article in the media section about Harry as a narcissist and I found it pretty convincing. It was about the original series. It certainly seems Dex wa the golden boy and Deb the scapegoat, and he certainly played them against each other. Mom sounds ineffectual and maybe an enabler. also there is the weird repeated statement of this show’s runner that this takes place over two or three weeks. This show may be a coma dream. Not saying it is, but possibly. So there may be new revelations.

Yeah, I haven’t been taking notes. no, ‘explainns a lot’ meant something else, not why he took him in. That is easily explained. Child services would take charge of them. Dexter, who we have been shown had a stronger bond with Harry and who was younger, probably clung to Harry like a barnacle. Harry was a cop, may have stayed with Dex, and adopted out to him because of that bond, because it provided stability for Dex. Brian, older and an established psychopath, likely just played video games. it does make sense to me that Brian, released from his group home, or wherever, (having learned to act normal) would seek out Dex. Dex does not remember Brian, but Brian would remember Dex and Harry. Was he going to tell Dex who he was, if that was Brian? Maybe? I mean, I can see him walking away for years, i might have and I’m not a psychopath. It is a lot to take in and Brian probably didn’t have a lot of guidance. i think the wuestion on the table for the current show is ‘ would Dexter have been a serial killer without Harry?’ Being a sociopath does not mean being a serial killer. But who knows?it isn’t clear to me thos franchise actually makes sense, aside from some riveting acting

Little Dexter appears to have not been a stereotypical psychopath serial killer. Brian was one ( lizards, for example). Will Dexter turn out to be Harry’s biological son? It would explain a lot. We saw someone that looks like Brian earlier and it makes sense that Brian would want to see Dexter without revealing who he is they are both messed up, although we know Dexter’s PTSD has blocked out most of his past. The ice truck is a nice easter egg

“Challengers” has got a lot of attention.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/reel-therapy/201111/family-theory-explains-dexters-darkness i think this is about the original show, but this makes a lot of sense to me, from what we’ve seen on this show, too.

Remembering I also felt the same way about the books. No one has sold this for me completely. He seems caught between being a normal, if traumatized, guy on a mission and a standard serial killer. It gives him some necessary relatability but pulls me out of the narrative. Just me, I guess.

Remember they just got off an epic battle with intelligent AIs. For the group that rejected and fought the control of the AIs limiting tech may have made sense. Especially for poor folk, since totally mechanical tech might be, as it can be today, a luxury item. Try to buy a washing machine without an onboard computer.

That is cognitive empathy. Saying you are sorry because it is appropriate and you know that, not feeling it. Still he seems generally upset by the child’s death and generally fond of some people. still bothered by the dark passenger thing. It implies we have a normal person with a predatory presence.

I read and watch a lot of Science Fiction. Something bothers me Bout the Dark Passenger concept. In this show we really are getting the idea that they are parasites. Dexter, he is a good person with an evil brain worm? He is not being a sociopath or psychopath, he shows empathy and so on. So is this what people think is happening?

I agree, up until the finale….shrugs….it was just okay. The Harkonnen sisters were the main draw. I think this needed more episodes first season, imagine if we got twenty or twenty six. Will Nez stay on Arrakis and become a wild reverend mother? Will Theodosia mimic the dead emperor and take up the reins of government? What will happen to Lila?