Shocking? Yes. A twist? Yes. A twist so shocking, in fact, it'll make you feel sick to your stomach. A twist so shocking it's enough to make you throw your TV set out the window.

Yes, yes, I know. What did I expect? But somehow, despite several nihilistic seasons before it, the fourth season of "Dexter" felt more like a cross between a murder mystery and a very, very dark comedy. For Dexter, balancing work and family against his extracurricular acts of murderous vengeance was becoming well nigh impossible. But even as his treacherous hobby seemed to serve as a metaphor for the darkness and alienation that lurks at the edges of even the most conventional lives, Dexter seemed to be changing his stripes, making choices that were less about his own homicidal compulsions and more about an abiding need to serve the other people in his life.

And the tone of the episodes during the first half of the season was unabashedly comedic: Dexter makes awkward attempts to talk to his stepkids, hurls one of them into the pool -- for fun! -- but it just creeps her out! Dexter joins his neighborhood watch group! Dexter wakes in the middle of the night with the baby, falls asleep behind the wheel and can't remember where he hid his victim's body! Da dum dum, chhh! The whole show started to feel like an off-kilter procedural slapstick comedy. Plus, wasn't Dexter ultimately trying to do the right thing by ridding the world of killers who were roaming free, looking for their next victims?

"Dexter" has always been a bleak show that still managed to balance its darkness with light -- and the light came mostly from Rita. Somehow, in spite of great flaws, Dexter managed to maintain a relationship with this little ray of sunshine. She was so cheerful, so hopeful, so effusive, trussed up in her flowery dresses, that she gave Dexter's whole life this surreal cast, like he went to sleep in hell and woke up over the rainbow. While shows like "Breaking Bad" tend to wallow in unremitting gloom, forcing depressed and/or despicable characters in our faces until we can't take it anymore, "Dexter" walked this strange line between despair and an almost desperate, happy-go-lucky, live-for-the-moment cheer.

Yes, it took effort for Dexter to endure Rita's relentless optimism. Who couldn't relate to his flat affect in the face of Rita's senseless exuberance? Watching her burst onto the scene was sometimes a little bit like driving to work in the rain, then turning on the radio to hear some half-crazed person singing about all-you-can-eat fried shrimp or barking happily about the next Toyotathon. Somehow that feeling of pop cultural vertigo is an essential part of the American experience. Rita embodied that flavor of buoyancy that can either lift you up or drag you down lower, depending on how low you're feeling at the time.

Without Rita, though, "Dexter" is just hell.

But that's not my main problem with the finale. "Dexter" without Rita is just an artistic choice. Sure, everyone's cooing over the endless possibilities for the next season of the show. Will Dexter raise his stepkids all alone? Will he father Harrison alone? Will he get meaner and start killing without following the code or even limiting himself to murderers? This is television, after all. You can't just end a chapter, you have to think about the next season's plot.

But you know what isn't an artistic choice? Pouring a gallon of fake blood on the floor and then sitting an infant down in the middle of it. I'm still struggling to get into the minds of the writers who could stand around on the set that day, snickering to themselves and shaking their heads and saying, "Oh, this'll get them! They'll never forget this one, no sir! No one has ever seen anything quite so shocking as this before!"

Tune in next season when Dexter lops off a dog's head and eats it, and then Debra unknowingly falls in love with Pol Pot. I'm sorry, but provocation on this level is as artful as hurling shit with the chimpanzees.

Subtlety really is dead, isn't it? Remember those promos for the fourth season that showed Dexter holding his baby, both of them splattered in blood? They were on buses all over L.A. a few months ago. An ad like that is sort of odd and disturbing and funny, really, as long as the baby is never actually splattered in blood.

But once you set the baby into a big pool of his mother's blood? Personally, I'm out. Because not only did the show snuff out its last ray of sunshine, it did so in a way that felt like a direct act of hostility against the audience itself.

Maybe we deserve it for watching in the first place. Or maybe this is the price those of us who can't chuckle at absolutely everything under the sun will be forced to pay, over and over again in this spectacle-driven nightmare culture, for still having some shred of humanity deep inside us.

Obviously it's cooler to think that provocation is, flat-out, worth the effort. It's cooler to appreciate the horse in the tank of formaldehyde, to appreciate the cliffhanger where the bad guy pulls a knife on the baby.

What can I do? That finale just made me feel sick. I can't believe someone thought that was a reasonable way to end the season. Good job, it really was shocking. In fact, I’m still in shock. 

Quiet as a spouse
Being a good spouse isn't easy. We're supposed to be honest at all times, except when it's more prudent to lie. We're supposed to communicate openly, except when it's better to bite our tongues. We're supposed to be supportive and affectionate, except when our honey pie is vaguely repulsed by the sight of us and needs a little breathing room. We're supposed to be utterly committed to our sugar dumpling's happiness, except when that happiness requires half a bottle of Jack Daniels, an eight ball of fine Colombian, and a one-way ticket to Monte Carlo.

If being a good spouse is tough under normal circumstances, how do you continue to show your loyalty and support when you've been publicly humiliated and betrayed? That's the question Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) of "The Good Wife" (10 p.m. Tuesdays on CBS) finds herself asking in the wake of her husband's political scandal. Peter (Chris Noth) was an Illinois state's attorney with a secret taste for girls on the side (but don't you sort of expect as much when you marry Mr. Big?) who left his wife and two teenage kids reeling when he was arrested and sent to jail on corruption charges. Alicia was taken by surprise, but she stood by Peter's side, looking resolute, as he announced his resignation from office. Margulies is very good at looking resolute, which makes this picture, repeated so often in recent years, worthwhile in spite of its redundancy.

But will Alicia's story reflect the typical media trajectory? The press usually starts out by portraying the wives of womanizing politicians as victims (Elizabeth Edwards during her baby-gate book tour), then they end up sniffing around for her tragic flaws (Hillary Clinton when the Lewinsky scandal was going down). Finally, the rabble joins in, pestering and shaming these women until divorce looks like the only possible way to save face.

Either way, though, we usually end up viewing these wives as survivors (Hillary Clinton today). Whether or not they stand by their men to the very end is often beside the point: It's how they stand by their men – what they say about it, what they tell their kids, how they get on with their lives – that makes the difference.

It's no wonder that ultimately, most of us have a lot of sympathy for the loyal, scorned wife. She's the ultimate underdog – a woman who bought into the dream of happily ever after with a charmer of a man, only to find herself confronted with a very different picture, all while the world points and jeers.

Even so, "The Good Wife" isn't as melodramatic as you might guess. This is the kind of story that might feature lots of teary-eyed visits to the prison, shouted accusations, and layers upon layers of ugliness unveiled. Instead, "The Good Wife" focuses closely on Alicia's attempts to build a life for herself and her children and to sally forth with dignity despite the sounds of snickering wherever she goes.

Alicia is forced to take an entry-level law position at the firm of an old friend, a great narrative choice that demonstrates just how dramatic it is to find yourself starting over at middle-age – and a great way to remind us what a big decline in status this woman has endured. On a less nuanced drama Alicia would've founded a law firm singlehandedly, or become an immediate star and senior partner at an established firm. Instead, Alicia is competing for a job with Cary (Matt Czuchry) a 20-something guy who's single, has no kids, and is willing to work 60-hour weeks to win the position.

Cary is also willing to bend the truth in order to make himself look good, of course, contrasting nicely with Alicia's quiet dignity and stubborn adherence to principle. And who better than witty, demonic Christine Baranski to play Alicia's foe at the firm, with Will (Josh Charles of "Sports Night") as her old friend and advocate?

"The Good Wife" proves itself much richer than a typical law procedural, thanks to the richness of its premise and the quality of storytelling demonstrated in the first four episodes. Each week the show is both intriguing and satisfying, as we watch Alicia piece together little victories while comforting her kids and confronting lurking demons from her old life. Despite the usual familiar courtroom shenanigans, the show's full, multilayered episodes keep us interested.

Seeing Margulies in this role reminds me of her great performance in the premiere episode of "ER," where Nurse Hathaway returned to her job in the wake of her suicide attempt. Margulies has a real knack for embodying this sort of down-but-not-out, straightforward self-possession. Something in her self-restraint and her quiet anger makes us want her to win.

The scenes with Noth, though infrequent, are particularly powerful. Instead of shouting, Alicia generally plays along with Peter's delusions but draws the line when he tells her that everything might soon go back to the way it was. Alicia needs for him to understand that this is wishful thinking, that nothing will ever be the same. In last week's episode, the extreme disconnect in perception between Alicia and her husband became even clearer during a particularly tense visit:

Peter: Are you having fun? That's the most important thing.

Alicia: Fun is Disneyland.

Peter: Well, I'm glad you're making a life for yourself. It gives you a break from this whole … situation.

Noth is the perfect actor to deliver such an arrogant line, as if Alicia's career and struggle to raise her kids by herself is just an amusing diversion from the nightmare that he created. Just as Alicia looks ready to set him straight with a few sharp words, his lawyer interrupts – he's been sitting a few feet away the whole time, which explains the polite smiles Alicia uses to mask her rage.

But even when they're alone on the phone, Peter and Alicia have trouble connecting. Neither of them really knows how to feel, what to say, or whether they'll be together once the dust settles.

The tension of an unresolved shattering of a marriage – it's a nice energy to build a show around. And after four episodes, it's clear that the show's creators, husband-and-wife team Robert and Michelle King, want to tell a subtle, thoughtful story. "The Good Wife" is worth tracking for this reason alone.

After all, if marriage is an inflamed bunion, then a marriage damaged by a political scandal is a gangrenous limb. Will Alicia stand by her man, or will she resort to the emergency amputation of a high-profile divorce? Stay tuned to find out!

'Til death do us part
But what if you have to live a double life and cover your tracks, because your spouse would dump you in a heartbeat if she knew who you really were?

This is Dexter Morgan's dilemma in the fourth season of Showtime's "Dexter" (10 p.m. Sundays). Having married his longtime sweetheart Rita at the end of last season, Dexter must come to terms with a whole new life trying to balance the demands of marriage and family against a busy job and the hectic extracurricular schedule of a serial killer.

Naturally, Dexter is finding it more than a little challenging to wake up at night with his new baby, answer the demands of his new wife, and serve as a reasonably decent stepfather to his two older children while holding down his job as a blood splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department. Earlier this season, Dexter's precarious homicidal apple cart was toppled when he fell asleep on the way home from killing a bad, bad man and crashed his car. He suffered a concussion in the crash, and at first he couldn’t remember where he hid the body. Did it topple out of the trunk of his car? Was he going to be dragged off to jail at any minute? It's easy to see why so few serial killers successfully raise families of their own.

Well, the fact that they're homicidal lunatics probably has something to do with it, too. But then, this is the beauty – or the ugliness? – of "Dexter": After a while, you start to forget that the lead character is even a bad guy – most of the time, anyway.

That's because, aside from his unfortunate habit of murdering murderers, Dexter is just like many of us on a bad day: He feels alienated at work functions and neighborhood barbecues. The whole concept of marriage and family sends a shiver down his spine. The values that lend other people's lives meaning just confuse and embarrass him.

"The danger of community is that the people who don't belong are looked upon with suspicion," Dexter tells us in a voiceover, as he surveys a backyard cookout with a grim look on his face. "Those of us who prefer to work by ourselves, the lone wolves, risk being singled out. So I become an expert at blending in, camouflaging myself, becoming one of the guys."

Watching Dexter endure the bubbly, enforced cheer of family life may make this the best season of the drama series to date. Who wouldn't feel a little crazy when his wife is driving him to work, singing "Karma Chameleon" to the baby at the top of her lungs?

This season, the absurd pressures of building a stable life with another person are at the forefront of the picture for Dexter's sister, Deb, too. She's feeling a little less enthusiastic about her live-in boyfriend Anton since her older ex, retired FBI agent Frank Lundy, came back to Miami to investigate some suspicious homicides in the area on his own time. Lundy is a lot like Dexter, unable to relax or connect with regular people and obsessed with his work. In contrast, Anton is a little bit too relaxed – in one great scene, he sits around his and Deb's apartment, noodling away on an unplugged electric guitar, while Deb huffily makes coffee for both of them.

The commitment phobia came to a head in last week's episode, when Deb gave Dexter a ride home after work one night, and Dexter just stared at his house instead of getting out of the car.

Dexter: It's so crowded in there.

Deb: Well, I guess so. A wife and three kids.

Dexter: They're always there.

Deb: Tell me about it. It was easy living with Anton when he was never home. I'd come back to a quiet apartment and unwind without having to deal with anybody. Now, as soon as I walk through the door, he's there, waiting to engage.

Dexter: There's no escape.

It's true, Dexter. Being a good spouse (or even a bad one) takes far more energy than most of us can muster, as evidenced by the divorce rate in this country. But what can we do? We strive to be better for our better halves, if only to keep them from boarding that plane to Monte Carlo for one more day.

 True, Dexter's new wife hardly knows anything about her husband's rich and disturbing shadow life. But then, the same could probably be said for lots of wives. Yes, Dexter has conflicted feelings about bringing life into the world, as an active purveyor of death. But don't all first-time parents suffer from mixed feelings? And sure, Dexter did end up killing his best friend, Miguel. But what could he do, really? They grew apart.

 Or, more specifically, Miguel, Dexter's first and only understudy in the careful art of unprosecutable murder, started to use his new skills for evil, not good. A common snafu, not entirely unseen by Dexter or his nasty-nice dead daddy Harry, who's been appearing to Dexter all season to warn him against bringing Miguel into his confidences. But Dexter couldn't help it; it felt so good to show someone the whole ugly picture, to admit that he's a bloodthirsty monster in ordinary nerd's clothing.

 This is the delicious and awful trap of "Dexter," a drama that, even in its third season, still may qualify as the strangest and most unsettling show in the history of television: Even at his darkest hour, even when he's watching events in his life unfold from a great distance, without feeling much of anything, Dexter is undeniably likable. And he only grows more likable each season, despite the bodies piling up around him. Some mix of humility, clarity about his own weaknesses, and alienation from the straight world around him combine to make Dexter easy to embrace. As much as we'd like Dexter to stop killing -- as if it's just an unpleasant bad habit or an inappropriate nervous tic -- most of all we'd like for him not to get caught.

It's true we feel a little bit sorry for Dexter's new wife and for his ball-busting sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), both of whom would be destroyed by the slightest knowledge of Dexter's indiscretions. Rita was battling pregnancy hormones and the challenges of her emotionally remote, socially inept fiance all season, while Debra's bad taste in men was on display yet again, as she alternately flirted with her loose cannon of a partner, Quinn, and slept with a confidential informant, Anton. (We were led to suspect that one of the two was secretly nefarious, but Quinn’s past troubles faded into the background while Anton turned out to be a stand-up guy, albeit one with no real career and a daily pot habit.) Even Lt. Maria LaGuerta (Lauren Velez) was thrown back into a traumatic spot after her budding friendship with defense attorney Ellen Wolf (Anne Ramsay) was cut short by Miguel taking his newly acquired skills as a murderer on the road without Dexter's consent.

Still, there was something satisfying about watching Dexter make a friend, even if we knew it could only end in bloodshed. As Miguel, Smits embodied the affable hothead and simmering maniac with such humor and restraint that it was easy to enjoy his place in Dexter's life, even as all signs pointed to the same inevitable, ugly conclusion: He was using Dexter for his expertise and access, just as the serial killer du jour, George "The Skinner" King, used his beef with Freebo as an excuse to torture and kill his steady succession of victims. Sooner or later, Miguel would have to go.

Yes, Dexter's world was filled with murdering monsters once again, a fact that always leaves Dexter looking almost human by comparison. But does Dexter really have anything but ice water flowing through his veins? Is he capable of being a remotely decent husband and father, given his utter lack of feeling for everyone and everything in his life, not to mention his tendency to disappear on nefarious errands with clock-like regularity?

On a show about a serial killer, particularly a show as smart and lively as "Dexter" was this season, the big moral questions may be omnipresent, but they're also determinedly unresolved. Instead of coming to the hard and fast conclusions of, say, "CSI" or "Law & Order," we're meant to linger with Dexter on that uncomfortable ground between self-interest and moral imperative.

Or maybe we were there already. Dexter makes it so hard to tell sometimes.

 

In my family, you haven't caught the Christmas spirit until you chug a double dose of DayQuil, then wheedle everyone into playing Risk, forming international alliances with your youngest nephews and nieces, spewing propaganda that teaches them to see their parents as malevolent forces on the global stage, begging to be taken down by a plucky band of the world's underdogs (spearheaded by you, of course). For us, it's not Christmas until my mom's Jack Russell leaps onto the table and dashes away with the smoked trout and my mom makes half a dozen passing "jokes" about the practicality and budget-mindedness of taking a lethal overdose in order to avoid a long, drawn-out stay in a nursing home.

Oh, Christmas, Christmas, Christmas! So bright and cheerful and happy and gay! I can't wait! After I've beaten everyone at Risk and Monopoly and Scrabble and rifled through all of the mass-mailed Christmas letters and speculated as to whose marriages are falling apart and whose daughters unwittingly married gay men, we make a big traditional Carpatho-Rusyn meal that includes pierogi and prunes and sauerkraut and other weird meatless dishes that make our spouses curse the day they married into this family, and everyone drinks a little more red wine than is prudent, and my sister's in-laws ask me when I'm going to be on NPR again, since to them, I'm an impudent troublemaker whose only redeeming quality is that on National Public Radio I once whined about something that got on my nerves.

But seriously, they're great, especially when they bring that really good Nova Scotia lox with them. And listen, Madison and Henry are awesome, so please, dear friends and family, whatever you do, don't stop sending those letters!

Go, Fight, Kill!
I wonder what Landry's mom will write to her family and friends this year. Landry (of "Friday Night Lights") and his folks have had quite a year, what with Landry beating that poor fella to death, then dumping his body into the river. Ah, well, you can't have a great year every year, can you? No doubt Landry's mom will downplay the whole ugly affair and try to focus on the positive ("Canning season was busier than ever this year, thanks to that bumper crop of okra we got this summer!")

Sounds just like the way the show's writers have handled the whole Landry-as-murderer storyline. Apparently sensing that they'd wandered into dark and soapy territory for a drama that always took pains to remain realistic and focused on the challenges of everyday people, the writers swept the story under the rug and tried to distract us with Landry-and-Tyra couplings, then gave Landry (Jesse Plemons) the moral high ground ("I'm tortured by what I've done! I must confess!"). Meanwhile, his cop daddy took the low road, hugging his son and then driving out to the middle of nowhere to torch his son's car (which was linked to the murder). The kid killed someone -- shouldn't he at least get a smack in the head?

Finally, Landry confessed to the cops, and we assumed he'd pay the price for going along with Tyra's (Adrianne Palicki) terrible, impulsive decision to dump the body. Instead, the cops of Dillon took pains to convince Landry that he acted in self-defense: Tyra's attacker was coming at him, wasn't he? He feared for his life, didn't he? Landry balked; he was ready to do hard time! But eventually, he lied like a good boy. At the end of the very same episode that began with his confession, Landry drove to Tyra's house and told her that the charges were dropped. We're off the hook! High five! Hey, teens, don't sweat it if you have to murder someone! Sure, it's inconvenient for a day or so, but then everyone forgives and forgets.

In short, the Landry-Tyra storyline proved to be just as disastrous as we thought it would be at the beginning of the season. No big surprises there. But has it ruined everything? Not by a long shot. There's no way you could ruin a show as good as "Friday Night Lights" (8 p.m. EST Fridays on NBC) with one stupid storyline. While Landry stuttered and stumbled through his bum steer of a plot, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) left his big-deal university job with his tail between his legs and retreated back to his beloved Dillon Panthers, only to find the team in a serious state of disrepair. Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) was missing practice, Smash Williams (Gaius Charles) was cockier and less of a team player than ever, and Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford) was seriously broken up over the Coach's daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) dumping him to go out with an older guy. But in the last episode, Riggins rejoined the team, Smash got his head back on straight, and Saracen started fooling around with his grandmother's hot nurse, while Julie developed a major crush on a teacher (played by Austin Nichols, see also: John of "John From Cincinnati"). (Does every high school kid in Dillon have a thing for older men and women? Remember Riggins' affair with his older next-door neighbor?)

Tami's (Connie Britton) relationship with her daughter Julie has been one of the highlights of this season. Their scenes together have always been great, but lately the writers have made their dynamic more combustible: Instead of being respectful and careful of her mother's feelings, Julie has been more reckless than usual, and Tami has been lashing out in return, mirroring the rockiness of most mother-teenage-daughter relationships.

It's unfortunate that the crappy Landry-Tyra murder storyline has received so much press, because lots of people have said to me, "That show's not good anymore, right?" Nope, sorry. "Friday Night Lights" is still one of the best dramas on TV.

Facing reality
By the way, there's a glut of crappy reality programming coming your way this January, thanks to the continuing writers' strike, which means you have no excuse not to catch up on "Friday Night Lights" and "30 Rock" now. And instead of watching "Pushing Daisies," "Grey's Anatomy" and "Gossip Girl," soon you'll be forced to chose between "Celebrity Apprentice," "American Gladiators," "Dance War," "Big Brother," "The Biggest Loser," "Wife Swap, "Supernanny" and "Extreme Makeover," not to mention more game shows like "Deal or No Deal," "Power of 10," "1 vs. 100," "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" -- all of which can make you suspect that very few Americans are smarter than a fifth grader.

But now for the good news: Fox Reality is planning to bring back the best reality show of all time, "Paradise Hotel" (see also: Drunk Asshole Hotel). Fox Reality president David Lyle told "Broadcasting & Cable" that he's just giving the people what they want: "All of our research has shown that 'Paradise Hotel' is a brand that reality viewers are desperate to see on TV again."

Desperate? Isn't that an insulting term to employ in describing your target demographic? Of course it's accurate, but shouldn't a smart executive chose a less stigmatizing word, like "excited," or even "anxious" or "itching"? I think most of us would rather be itchy than desperate.

But then, the beauty of Drunk Asshole Hotel is that it makes you feel anxious, itchy and desperate while you're watching it. We can only hope that the producers don't mess with the original formula (the way they did when they brought the show back but changed the name to "Forever Eden" and set it in a dark little swamp and made up a bunch of crappy rules and it promptly tanked). No. They need to start with the same gleaming white luxury palace in Acapulco and fill it with the same googly-eyed lunatics (I'm sure they're all available, at least until they become elected officials).

Better yet, start with a new batch of innocents, naive but aggressive, wide-eyed but bitter, filled with hope but also filled with rage and several strong, fruity drinks. Yes, I'm sure there are 10 firm-bodied young people out there, of average age, slightly above-average looks and slightly below-average intelligence, who would love to flirt and bicker and slur and stumble in paradise for a few months, while a bunch of sad old people at home ogle and despise them.

Of course, according to my mom, the producers could save a lot of money on that costly rent in paradise by giving all of the residents a lethal overdose. Talk about a show-stopping finale! When the Mexican officials come to investigate the deaths, they can just tell them that the residents of paradise joined together and attacked the producers with ashtrays and coat hangers, and the producers feared for their lives. I'm sure no one will press charges. And the ratings will be off the hook! High five!

Murderer makes good
While we're on the subject of murder, let's not forget last week's "Dexter" finale, a big blast of explosions and raging fires and insane twists and dirty deeds. (If you haven't seen last week's second-season finale of "Dexter," don't read this.)

Now, like the "Friday Night Lights" Landry resolution, this finale was all a little convenient, from Dexter's scorned lover Lila (Jaime Murray) blowing Dexter's nemesis Detective Doakes (Erik King) to high heaven, thereby destroying the evidence that Dexter (Michael C. Hall) is the Bay Harbor Butcher, to Dexter reuniting with stable love Rita (Julie Benz), to sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) not suspecting a thing. I like how Rita's kids were kidnapped by Lila, but weren't all that scared, and then they slipped out the windows without a scratch before the fire got gnarly. Mom shows up and sees them, and all she can say is something like, "Oh good, everyone's safe! See you tomorrow for bowling, Dex!"

"Dexter" is such a strange mix of sophistication and willful dorkiness. After building suspense all season, everything is conveniently torched, and the only one who cares is Lt. Laguerta (Lauren Velez) because she loved Doakes.

The best misdirection had to be when Dexter told Lila they belonged together. I actually believed for a few minutes that Dexter would drop everything to be with Lila, because they are soul mates, after all. Plus, that would make for an interesting season: Lila and Dexter, killing people together, hand in hand.

Nah, we'd hate them too much. It's bad enough that Dexter is, well, a homicidal maniac. In fact, I struggle with this show, because I really dislike the murder scenes, no matter how evil the victim is. Hell, I can barely watch those scary shots of raw meat and frying eggs in the opening credits.

Anyway, all of you heartless, immoral types who love this show should chime in and let us know what you thought of last week's finale.

Courtney Hate
"This isn't, like, welfare. It's a game. Like, she doesn't deserve it just 'cause, you know, she sucks at life" -- Courtney, "Survivor: China," on efforts by Denise, a lunch lady in a cafeteria, to stay in the game because she and her family need the money more than the other contestants.

Speaking of heartless, immoral types, if you missed the "Survivor: China" finale on Sunday, you missed seeing one of the most unlikely "Survivor" contestants ever making it to the final three. For a minute there, it actually looked as if Courtney could win it, too. While the other two finalists, Tricky Todd and Ass-Out Amanda (whose butt was apparently hanging out during the entire season, based on the amount of camera blurring going on), batted their eyes and flattered the jury, rail-thin big-city cynic Courtney said that at least she was upfront and honest, and admitted, "I was physically scared to be in this game in the beginning."

But then Courtney insulted former competitor and juror Jean-Robert ("I won an immunity. Did you win an immunity?") while Todd (brilliantly) told Jean-Robert that he voted him out only because he knew that Jean-Robert was the biggest threat in the game. Everyone watching knew that this was far from true, except for one person: Jean-Robert. Todd might as well have said that he'd eliminated Jean-Robert because Jean-Robert was so studly and handsome that he would make Todd look bad by comparison. When Todd finished speaking, Jean-Robert looked very satisfied, didn't say another word, and ended up voting for Todd to win it all, despite having vowed to take him down a few weeks earlier.

So Todd won. Courtney came in second with two votes. And Amanda, who played a great game but started kissing up and acting demure to an insincere degree in the home stretch, got only one vote. Also, the wit and absurdly pretty physique of James the gravedigger won him a $100,000 fan-favorite prize voted on by viewers at home.

And what happened to poor Lunch Lady Denise? At the reunion, she reported to the audience that she was taken off the lunch shift because her star status was causing a big distraction at her school. So she was being forced to scrub toilets at the school at night instead, and she never got to see her kids. Then, at the end of the show, Jeff Probst announced that show creator Mark Burnett felt so bad for Denise that he was going to give her $50,000 of his own money, just for sucking at life -- er, rather, in order to turn her life around.

Later, the superintendent at Denise's school claimed that Denise had lied, that she was actually a full-time custodian (a promotion from cafeteria worker) at the time she took a leave of absence to appear on "Survivor." So, can we assume that Denise told a lie simply to win the sympathy and love of Americans everywhere? Hey, maybe Denise doesn't suck at life after all! I bet she's dumped one or two bodies in the river in her day, too! High five!

We can be "Heroes"!
Speaking of bodies piling up, how about the last few episodes of "Heroes" (9 p.m. EST Mondays on NBC), huh? Looks like we're back on track to save the world again, this time from a deadly virus that threatens to wipe out almost everyone on the planet ... except for people with really incredible immune systems, or people who are completely isolated in a luxury hotel in Acapulco. Uh oh. Imagine if the Earth were repopulated by a small band of dumber-than-average but cuter-than-average drunk assholes!

Isn't that what happened here in America? We were founded by outsiders, small groups of heartier-than-average, more-religious-than-average questioners of authority who believed in subverting the dominant paradigm and giving the king and/or queen the finger from across the big pond.

Unfortunately, those tough pilgrims and zealots paired up and gave birth to a bunch of dumb, in-bred ruffians, who set to work building strip malls and forming touch-football leagues. Thank God for the eventual influx of highly intelligent, wildly good-looking Carpatho-Rusyns, or this great land of ours would be led by aggressive, unattractive, in-bred half-wits.

Oh, wait, it is! Anyway, this gives you some notion of what the heroes of "Heroes" are up against ... although none of them seem capable of discerning who's good and who's evil or whether or not they should be working for or against "The Company" or each other.

Come to think of it, "Heroes" has more than a little in common with "24" -- first they're fighting a nuclear bomb, then a deadly virus. Various alliances form and shift and form again, with friends and foes at odds or working together in random succession.

And then there's the dialogue. Sweet Jesus, the dialogue of "Heroes" can be bad, almost as bad as "24's" dialogue, but not quite. Take this exchange, where Nathan's eeevil mom explains the simple, Landry-like reasoning behind the original collaborative effort to kill off the Earth's population:

Mom: And in the end Adam decided that the world just wasn't worth fixing, and that it needed to be wiped clean with an unstoppable virus. And just before it was too late, I, um, I came to realize how wrong it was.

Nathan: Did you? You and Linderman wanted to blow up New York to save the world. Doesn't sound to me like you've changed much at all, Ma!

But mommies never really change, boys and girls. You don't need to be a hero to know that. Neither do their impudent troublemaker children, whether they're poisoning their nephews' and nieces' minds against their parents or drinking too much DayQuil, then wrestling bad little doggies to the ground for fun and sport. So enjoy the twisted delights of the season and lean into the chaos, my lovelies! You get the chance to lounge around your parents' house in dirty socks whining for someone to refill your glass of red wine but once a year. Happy Holidays!

But there would be lots and lots of houses filled with cats and cat hair and cat toys and enormous carpeted cat trees, and we'd get tax breaks for doggie daycare costs, and we'd be at war with Mex-EE-coh and Moor-EH-tain-ee-a and KEYR-geez-stan right now, because those countries treat their kitties and doggies like total shit.

Mom's the word
I'm not suggesting that mothers are unfit to rule the world or anything, I'm merely pointing out that people with deep wells of compassion aren't always that practical. When I was pregnant last summer, just for example, I waddled onto a busy four-lane street to save a tiny, tiny kitten who was slowly and blindly toddling across, "Frogger"-style. Yoda was just two weeks old, and he was buff-colored and had big, pretty blue eyes. I washed the fleas out of his hair and took him to the vet. Then I set my alarm and fed him drops of kitten formula every two hours, as instructed. I would wrap him up like a tiny burrito and wipe the snot off his face, and he'd purr and blink at me with gratitude, and I loved that little bugger with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns.

One week later, he died while we were at the vet's office. He had only started looking ill that morning, but it turns out that trying to save 2-week-old kittens is a little bit like putting that injured bird into a box until he "feels better" or sending letters to that really swell guy on death row.

Building on last week's discussion of emotionally manipulative shows like "E.R." and "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice," it suddenly strikes me that most TV shows are just like bionic kittens. They're on an evil mission to toy with our emotions until we're all as dazed and impractical as a big pregnant woman, crying her eyes out in a vet's office. Those bad TV producers just sit by the side of busy streets and send their little robot kitties into traffic, one by one. We dash out to save them, over and over again, but it always ends badly.

Hello, Kitty!
But then, people who love shows like "Brothers & Sisters" (10 p.m. EDT Sundays on ABC) must really enjoy playing in traffic. Or that's what I thought after I previewed Sunday night's season premiere (Warning: There are some minor spoilers here. If you're a fan of this show or even remotely care about what happens on the premiere, you shouldn't read this.) I stopped tuning in halfway through the first season, so it was pretty enthralling to catch up on all of the emotional carnage that had taken place since then.

For example, Tommy Walker and his wife, Julia, finally gave birth to twins, but lost one of them shortly after birth, the plot equivalent of rounding up a herd of bionic kitties, throwing them in a sack with some rocks, and tossing them into the nearest lake.

And then there's the heart-rending son-in-Iraq plot that's custom-made for the effortlessly tear-jerky Sally Field. Of course she's right about Iraq and about how much better it would be if mothers ruled the world -- as a potential member of the ruling party, I couldn't agree more. But when Sally-as-matriarch-Nora sends a perky "Hope you're OK" video message to her son Justin, then gives us her best exhausted, fearful look, and then freaks out over the front doorbell ringing, because she's worried that a military man is there to tell her that Justin has died? It reminds me of E.T., laying on his hospital bed, looking hopelessly pale. I know that real mothers are worrying about their real sons in Iraq, but that doesn't make this scene any less melodramatic. It's melodramatic to the point of being, well, slightly tacky. What's next? Nora's other son, Kevin, saves a bunch of schoolchildren from a pair of burning skyscrapers, seconds before they collapse?

And as usual, by the first commercial break, all the Walkers are fighting, and they're all pulling out their biggest, heaviest weapons for even the most casual bickering match.

"Do you think you're the only one with marriage troubles?"

"You can't just expect someone to organize his life around you when you can't say 'I love you.'"

"Tell her to call me when Justin dies, then we'll have something to talk about!"

But don't worry too much. Lots of sincere, clearly worded apologies will be flying around by the next commercial break.

"I was thinking about you said ... You were right. You shouldn't be the only one trying."

"I'm really sorry about your dad's present."

"I'm so glad you're home despite the way I've been acting lately. I've been so scared and I've been taking it out on you and I'm sorry. You're a wonderful daughter and friend and I love you."

Then everyone dances, so we know that they're happy and they love each other and that's the most important thing of all. Christ, it's enough to make even the kitten-huggers among us wretch. I mean, what kind of messed-up families spontaneously break into dance, smiling at each other all the while? These people are so enduringly honest and loving and good, it makes my skin crawl.

But then ... the mood changes! Rob Lowe's character, Robert (who's a super-foxy Republican senator -- no, they don't exist in real life), and Calista Flockhart's character, Kitty (who's a Republican version of Ally McBeal), exchange worried looks -- or they would be worried looks, if they both didn't appear to be Botoxed into a state of perpetual apathy. Does Senator Foxy know something that we don't know?

"Brothers & Sisters" is emotional Frogger. Luckily, I loathe these beautiful, wealthy, loving, empathetic humans and so it brings me deep joy to watch them suffer.

Blood & sweat, hold the tears
Which makes me a little bit like Michael C. Hall's friendly homicidal maniac at the center of Showtime's "Dexter" (premieres 9 p.m. EDT Sunday). If "Brothers & Sisters" is a bionic kitten, then "Dexter" is a bionic chimpanzee that looks so cute in its little diaper -- until it grows up one day and rips you from limb to limb.

Like the herds who love and cherish "Brothers & Sisters" for torturing them, lots of people seem to find the nasty thrills of "Dexter" stylish and provocative and fun. They don't mind the fact that Dexter is a deeply disturbed guy who can barely contain his urge to do harm.

"Remember, tell the universe what you need," says Dexter's colleague and bowling partner, Angel (David Zayas). "I really need to kill somebody," Dexter tells us in a voice-over.

This show isn't really funny, exactly, but it has a good sense of humor -- like "The Sopranos." And that's nice, because even when bad stuff happens, you might not be cracking jokes, but your sense of humor doesn't abandon you completely.

"I've always enjoyed my work," Dexter tells us in a voice-over, and by "his work" we can only assume he means the work of carefully, thoughtfully killing very bad people. "It brings order to the chaos, fills me with civic pride."

The problem is that most of us don't enjoy seeing Dexter do his work, nor can we tolerate the glint in his eye, the way he relishes the sight of blood. Even though "Dexter" is a well-written, smart, savvy show, even though it's arguably more sick and twisted to see the same half-naked female victims on "CSI" over and over again, even though this season, the feds are following Dexter's trail in earnest, I can't watch. There's too much blood, Dexter is too crazy, and the whole thing makes me feel sick to my stomach. No matter how cute the bionic chimp is, deep down inside I don't trust the little bastard, and I don't want to be there when he has his next temper tantrum.

I know lots of you probably love "Dexter," so I'm sorry to let you down. If only I were a little less aware of the immense suffering of millions of souls in our solar system, I could share your carefree enthusiasm!

Curiously strong Caffee
But remember, if mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamned murderers in the first place. Instead, very bad people would be made to feel deeply ashamed of their behavior, and the Senate and the House would have to install Naughty Seats.

That's where State Rep. Tommy Caffee (Jason Clarke) of "Brotherhood" (premieres 10 p.m. EDT Sunday on Showtime) might find himself one day, if he continues on his current semi-ambitious, semi-corrupt course. (Warning: Some spoilers ahead.) But if his brother Michael's (Jason Isaacs) past actions are any indication, it won't be a smooth road. At the end of last season, both Tommy and his thug brother were being investigated by the feds, and Tommy was beginning to question the judgment of his mentor and ally Judd Fitzgerald, who seemed to be suffering from dementia. Meanwhile, Tommy's wife, Eileen (Annabeth Gish), came clean about her cheating and drug use, a conversation that's pretty tough to imagine, given Tommy's ideas about loyalty and honor.

At the start of the show's second season, all of the Caffees seem to be fighting their own lonely battles. Tommy is navigating the shark-filled political waters without being able to rely on Judd's advice and instincts. Michael is struggling in the wake of his head injuries, inflicted by a drunken, enraged family friend, cop Declan (Ethan Embry), in the season finale. Declan may be the most lost of all, estranged from his wife and desperate to win her back. Meanwhile, Eileen finds herself shut out by Tommy, but she's trying not to drink or use drugs or cheat, so she ends up striking up an unlikely friendship with the fiancée of her dead lover (her new friend is unaware of the affair, of course).

Yes, "Brotherhood" is as dark as it sounds. The Caffees are committed to each other, but most of the time that commitment seems like a big mistake. This makes them much more realistic as a family than the hugging 'n' learning Walker family of "Brothers & Sisters," of course, but even so, we're only afforded glimpses of their affection for each other every so often.

And while "Brotherhood" features solid acting, smart dialogue and interesting stories, you never really feel like you know any of the characters outside of the matriarch, Rose (Fionnula Flanagan). While Rose's desires and vulnerabilities are colorfully illustrated for us, the same can't be said for Tommy, Michael or Eileen. Tommy is an ambitious politician and a loyal son and brother, sure, but who the hell is he otherwise? The drive for Eileen to cheat and smoke pot was never completely clear, beyond the fact that her life with Tommy was restrictive and lonely. And Michael may be the most difficult to parse of all: What does he aspire to be, and why does his love of money and power always win out over what these needs do to his family? The inner conflicts of these characters are clear, but we still don't feel like we know much about them, beyond the fact that they're conflicted.

It's fine to have simple characters in play -- look how simple many of the characters on "The Sopranos" were -- but the audience still needs something to sink their teeth into. We want to see characters in a moment of weakness or higher understanding. Christopher (Michael Imperioli) on "The Sopranos" wasn't all that smart or complex, but his simplistic, selfish outlook was always illustrated in interesting ways, whether he was slipping into a drugged-out abyss or bickering with Adriana.

And unlike "The Sopranos" and "Dexter" (and "Mad Men," for that matter), "Brotherhood" doesn't have a highly developed sense of humor. Even though, between the criminal and political worlds, there's plenty of fun to be had, no one is having any. In the first few episodes of the second season, Tommy messes with a fellow state rep and grapples with a colleague's scorned mistress -- situations that would be milked for one or two good chuckles on other shows -- but he does it all with a grim look on his face. Sure, he's thinking things through, he's moving closer to some new way of dealing with his world. But isn't there room for some levity here? Even "The Wire" is more playful than this.

These elements may seem minor, taken alone, but together, they keep "Brotherhood" from becoming a truly memorable drama. This show is worth watching, but it doesn't rise to that level of art that you find elsewhere: Janice Soprano, talking about the joys of motherhood and then bitching at the nanny; Don Draper's secretary Peggy on "Mad Men," dryly informing her former mentor Joan that her man-chasing advice is no longer welcome; coach Taylor of "Friday Night Lights," bashfully stopping by his wife's high school counselor office for a little career advice. These are the little moments that allow us to feel connected to (or repelled by) rich, evolving characters.

"Brotherhood" could feel funnier and weightier, with the right touches. This show isn't just another bionic kitten, replete with skin-deep emotional manipulations -- it's more organic and subtle than that. But the character development and the premise need to be finessed to push the show past good to great.

Motherly shove
But then, maybe I'm just acting like a bad mother, expecting way too much of my talented offspring as they show great potential but continue to underachieve. Look, ruling the world isn't easy, but someone had to do it, someone with great big wells of compassion and love (like me). I just want the American people to know that, as we wait for our diplomatic sanctions against Mex-EE-coh and Moor-EH-tain-ee-a and KEYR-geez-stan to take effect, as we continue to pursue our policy of publicly shaming bad countries (countries that should be totally ashamed of themselves! You know who you are!), at least we can sleep easy at night, knowing that we're doing right by the doggies and kitties of the world. But don't forget, fluffy little muffinheads across the globe are still hungry, and have never known the joys of squeaky toys and soft, comfy beds with their names monogrammed on the sides. But they will, someday! We won't let you down, goddamn it! (Unless you deserve to be let down, that is.)