Dexter faces a competent police officer hot on
the trail of Hannah McKay while someone else he holds close is in
imminent peril….
By Damon Martin —
Editor/Lead Writer Follow on Twitter @DamonMartin “No
man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and
another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to
which may be the true.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne — The
Scarlet Letter Over the course of nearly eight seasons of
Dexter, the lead character played by Michael
C. Hall has always been a man living in two worlds. There was a
monster the lived inside of him that craved the thrill of the kill,
and an outer shell that lived and breathed a normal everyday life.
As we’ve come to find out over the past few years, the monster
really is the true Dexter Morgan, and the mask he wears as a blood
splatter analyst and friend/co-worker to many of Miami Metro’s best
was really the alter ego to the true man that only his victims ever
really saw up close and personal. As Dexter has progressed from the
blood soaked water where he found his wife Rita to the real life
connection he felt with another killer named Hannah McKay, the
person that he’s becoming is truly a melding of the two
personalities he once kept so separate. The two sides of Dexter
Morgan were never meant to interact because one was real, and the
other was a false personification of what he thought a normal
person should feel and act like on a daily basis. But as Dexter
started to find more human connection with people like his sister,
and other budding relationships including finding a mother figure
in Dr. Evelyn Vogel, his emotions boiled to the surface and he’s
had to come face to face with the masked man he thought was only an
apparition until now. This week, Dexter had to face those realities
as he begins to say goodbye to one life, while starting another far
away from Miami. Reality isn’t always a good thing, however, and
just as Dexter’s monster and his humanity are starting to find
common ground, the world around him is caving in like an avalanche
and before long he may be out of breath.
Dexter is Saying
Goodbye
As we saw in the previous episode of Dexter,
he’s charting a course to leave the United States with Hannah and
his son Harrison to begin a new life in Argentina — far away from
the bad memories of a former life while keeping Hannah safe and out
of the crosshairs of law enforcement. In the latest episode, Dexter
begins to say his final goodbyes to those around him because time
is running out for him to help Hannah leave Miami on a plane
instead of in handcuffs. First up, Dexter has to break the news to
his sister, who doesn’t take it very well. Debra has always been
attached to Dexter, whether it was as his sister, or when she
professed her love for him a couple of seasons ago, and his exit
will leave a gaping hole in her world. Debra has always been a
character that couldn’t stand to be suffocated by words like
“love”, so anytime those moments have come close she pushes back
and away from the situation. The only time Debra has embraced
anyone in her life as a constant it was her brother Dexter, and
even in those taut moments when she contemplated ending his life,
it was really just a cry for help because she knew she could never
let him go. The news hits Deb like a sack of bricks, and she knows
this time he’s serious, and this may be the final hours she spends
with her brother. She does plenty to cope with the loss, but we’ll
get to that a little later. Back to Dexter — after telling Deb
about his impending departure, he also shares the news with his
boss Angel Batista, and says he just has too much death in his life
and it’s time to move on. Batista promises to keep things under
wraps so he can break the news to each person in his life
individually. Dexter also informs Dr. Vogel about his plans to
leave Miami with Hannah — just as soon as he rids the world of her
son Daniel. She reveals that she met with Daniel the same day
Dexter came to see her recently, and she wants the chance to save
him after not being able to connect with him all those years ago.
Dexter is resolute in his mission to finish Daniel off, but his
plans to leave with Hannah are interceding those plans.
Deb Goes Back to Her Old Ways
Long before Deb
discovered that she grew up next to one of the world’s most
successful serial killers, she was a cop. She was actually a damn
good cop, especially compared to the usual lot of Miami Metro’s
finest because that term should be used loosely given their almost
0-percent success rate of solving any crimes in town. Deb decides
to take Batista up on his offer and return to the force.
For that to happen, she
first has to inform her former boss Elway that she’s leaving his
private investigation firm. Elway isn’t happy at all to hear the
news, so he promises to cut her last check while having security
clean out her office and send everything back to her — with the
exception of the case files she was working including those
involving Hannah McKay. It’s a bitter break-up, and Elway’s axe to
grind won’t get put away until he cuts somebody first. Deb’s
decision to return to the force takes place at the same time that
Quinn realizes that not only does he still have feelings for his
ex-almost-fiancee, but that he has to end things with his current
girlfriend Jamie because that will only get worse the longer he
sticks around while having no real desire to be there. As Jamie is
exiting a visit with her brother Angel at the police station she
spots Deb walking into the office. “Hi Jamie,” Deb says with a
smile on her face. “Go fuck yourself,” Jamie replies. Deb is then
told about Quinn’s decision to break things off with Batista’s
sister, so she does the next logical thing — makes a bee line to
Quinn to see why he ended things with her. Quinn tries to convince
Deb that this was an independent decision, knowing that his
relationship with Jamie was never going to end up anywhere except
heartbreak. He then professes that he still has feelings for Deb,
and in a bit of a surprise she does the same and the two embrace in
a kiss. Happy ending right? Wrong. This goes back to the earlier
statement about Deb’s need for someone in her life to help make her
complete. With Dexter leaving Miami in a few short days, Deb needs
that empty space filled by something, anything, and while she
probably does still have some kind of feeling for Quinn, the
decision was made in haste because she needed that void to be
occupied. Quinn will fit nicely into that role — for now.
A Competent Cop in Miami — The Hell You Say!
For as many murders, kidnappings, robberies and drug deals gone bad
in Miami over the last few years, you’d imagine that occasionally
the cops would at least get one or two cases solved to up their
rate of success. With Dexter’s proclivity to kill the suspects long
before they ever end up in a jail cell, Miami Metro apparently
couldn’t find water if they were in a boat given their success rate
of catching any criminals. Luckily, Deputy Marshall Clayton is in
town to investigate the suspected appearance of Hannah McKay in
Miami, and he’s not quick to give up on the case. Clayton was
sniffing around last episode and caught up with Dexter, who claimed
he was now in a relationship with Hannah’s best friend Arlene after
he caught the two of them at her house while looking for the poison
princess. This week, Clayton is about to give up his hunt for
Hannah, when he decides to pay Deb a visit to dig into Dexter’s
connection to his ex-girlfriend. He then heads over to Miami Metro
to inform Batista that the case has gone cold and he’ll be headed
out of town when he hears an interesting piece of information that
perks up his ears. Batista is putting out an application for a new
forensics investigator — because Dexter is leaving the country to
travel the world abroad with his son. Clayton is quick to realize
that Dexter may just be helping Hannah after all…
Hannah helps Clayton’s
case when Harrison plays on Deb’s treadmill and turns the speed up
too high. He crashes to the ground, and his chin begins leaking
blood like a faucet. Hannah tries to find Dexter to no avail, and
has to risk going out in public to get Harrison the medical
attention he needs. She arrives at the hospital, and Harrison gets
six stitches to seal up the wound, but the head nurse notices that
she looks awfully familiar. A few minutes later, Clayton arrives
with a picture of Hannah McKay and the nurse identifies her from
the mugshot, and then tells him that she was there with a child
named Harrison Morgan and claimed to be his mother. Clayton now has
all the ammunition he needs to find Hannah, and pin her escape to
Dexter.
The Doctor Is Not In
At the heart of
the character of Dr. Evelyn Vogel, we’ve discovered that she’s a
mother without a child who has enough maternal instinct to make
Carol Brady look like a slacker. Vogel failed with her own two
children — her older son Daniel killed her younger son — and she
believed for years that Daniel died as well after a fire broke out
in the institution he was locked away in caught fire and several
patients were killed. Turns out, Daniel was the mastermind behind
the whole fire ordeal, and now he’s in Miami stalking his mother
while leaving her some cranial goodies as a reminder that he’s
close by. She’s able to reconnect with him (ever so briefly) over
breakfast, but her advances to get Daniel back in a mental health
facility are quickly rebuffed because her wayward son wants his
mother to help him the same way she helped Dexter. He reminds her
about how she paid so much attention to his brother when they were
kids, that ultimately Daniel had to get rid of him. He wanted her
love and affection, and he was willing to kill to get it. He wants
her attention now because Daniel wants to live a normal life just
like her other prodigy. Vogel was able to craft and form Dexter
into a blunt killing instrument, but in a way that allowed him to
participate in normal society without ever raising the suspicions
of the police. Daniel wants the same. He invites his mother to see
his kill room, and after some explanation as to why he does what he
does, Daniel asks Vogel to get Dexter to back off and work with him
the same way she did with him years ago to create a new code so he
can satisfy his bloodlust without being captured or sent back to
the loony bin. It’s then that Vogel realizes there’s no hope saving
her son, so she plots with Dexter to hand him over and allow him to
take his revenge for all of the innocent lives Daniel has taken.
The bad news is instead of meeting Daniel at a public place as
planned so Dexter could follow him and eventually bring him to his
kill table, Vogel decides she wants one final moment alone with her
son to say goodbye. Daniel is a smart boy and realizes his mother’s
rouse, and quickly turns the tables on her. As Dexter approaches
her house, Daniel appears with Vogel standing in the living room
facing the front window where he can see them. “Mother chose the wrong
son — again,” Daniel says before drawing a knife and slitting his
own mother’s throat. Dexter rushes into the house, but Daniel is
already gone out the back door. He grabs Vogel in his arms and the
grief washes over him in a tidal wave. The pain quickly subsides,
and anger is all that’s left. Dexter knows what has to be done, and
no one is going to stop him until Daniel is dead. Only two episodes
remain in the entire run of Dexter — the previews at the end of the
episode look like things are going to get very interesting before
the show comes to its ultimate conclusion. Will Dexter get away
with Hannah and begin their life anew in Argentina or will Deputy
Marshall Clayton put an end to it all before it starts? Dexter is
also feeling the need for revenge, and the rage is filling up every
vein in his body. Dexter is a cold-blooded killer who acts out of a
visceral need to satisfy his bloodlust, but what happens when
emotion gets involved? Come back next week for another
recap of Dexter as we count down to the final episode just two
weeks away!
