Dexter Season 8 Episode 4 Recap: Deb Goes Off the Deep End

By Damon Martin – Editor/Lead Writer
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Everybody knows when watching Dexter that the central character on the show has a dark side that most people would never want to explore, but we do each week through his eyes and more than slightly off centered moral compass.

The supporting characters, however, are all relatable to just about anyone watching the show in some way. The final season of Dexter that continued on Sunday night explored some of the most intimate feelings of any character on the history of this show as Deb finally went off the deep end after learning that her beloved father killed himself when he realized exactly what Dexter was inside.

Over the first few weeks of this final season, Dexter has almost become a secondary character in his own show as the focal point for most of the time as been Deb’s continued downward spiral after shooting and killing her friend and boss Maria LaGuerta when forced to choose between her or her brother after she discovered that he truly was the Bay Harbor Butcher.

Deb has woken up drunk in a car, gotten into a fight with a paid killer, got back at him by shooting him dead and stealing a pile of jewels in the process, and a slew of other misdeeds that showcase just how far she’s crashing after committing what had to be in her own head the ultimately wrong killing an innocent woman.

In the latest episode, Deb is being counseled by the mysterious Dr. Vogel, whose own motives are yet to truly be explored this season. She takes Deb to the very shipping container where she chose to save Dexter by killing a fellow police officer in cold blood. In her dreams and visions reliving this scene over and over again, Deb is haunted by the fact that she keeps thinking that she should have shot and killed Dexter and not LaGuerta.

Later, Deb sits and watches some of Vogel’s videos where she’s sitting with her father Harry and laying out on the table the code that made Dexter a serial killer for good, but also saw how it was tearing him apart at the seams. Harry was struggling at every turn trying to accept just what his son was evolving into and it was clear he couldn’t handle it much longer.

Deb starts to realize that the internal struggles she’s feeling are the exact some ones her dad felt years ago. This is normal. This is what a sane person is supposed to feel when finding out someone they love—no matter how unconditionally they love them—that killing is wrong and can’t be justified. This steers her in a whole new direction.

Dexter Still Hunting the Brain Surgeon

Dexter’s hunt to find the killer now known as The Brain Surgeon is taking him to a list of former patients that were treated by Dr. Vogel over the years. His belief is that one of her “experiments” has gone wrong and they are now out to kill her, after inflicting some homicidal madness on the people of Miami.

Dexter’s hunt leads him to a man named Yates, who now works as a cable installer, but after he removes his hat a large scar is revealed cascading down and around the back of his head—the same place where the Brain Surgeon is removing the skull to take the piece of brain he’s leaving for the cops and Vogel to find.

It turns out after Dexter confronts this ugly fact that Vogel was trying to remove the part of the brain that caused these violent impulses. It sounds like something out of Medieval times when doctors knew very little about the human body and believed any number of wicked recourses would heal a patient. Somehow Vogel, a mere 10 or 20 years earlier, thought the same thing and started cutting into her patients to look for a psychological answer.

Dexter starts to hunt his prey not knowing that Yates has cameras set up all over his house and sees all of this unfolding. Just when Yates is about to spring his own surprise and zap Dexter with a taser, he hears a familiar voice emanating from Dexter’s phone—it’s the voice of his former psychologist Dr. Vogel. Yates realizes that she has a “new hero” and he slinks back away into a secret hidden lair to plot his next course of action.

Dexter isn’t deterred and has no idea Yates knows about him until later when he returns and finds the hidden panel in the wall that leads to a basement set up where he discovers his elaborate camera system for video surveillance. It’s there that Dexter also discovers Yates’ has surgical tools and instructions for how to cut into the human skull, all but solidifying the fact that this man is indeed the Brain Surgeon. It was kind of an anticlimactic conclusion to what was becoming a pretty good “whodunit” mystery, but that also goes to show the producers are making it clear that there’s more at work in this final season that Dexter squaring off with a new big bad.

While exploring Yates’ basement he also finds that he’s somehow gotten his hands on Dr. Vogel’s case files. She’s disturbed about this to no end because before she can explain, Dexter discovers that she’s been keeping a file on him this whole time they’ve been working together. “Patient Zero” as she calls him in her notes is another case study in her exploration into the psychopathic mind. Needless to say Dexter is none too amused to discover this fact and immediately cuts all ties to Dr. Vogel.

It’s interesting to note that she calls Dexter “patient zero” because it leads one to believe that this was the first of her experimentations to dabble into the mind of psychopaths to make them somehow exist within society. Are there more “Dexters” out there that Dr. Vogel has worked with and failed miserably? Is her obsession with Dexter purely out of the fact that he has worked within this code for so long and still hasn’t been caught? There’s definitely more to come on this story.

Quinn Gets Punchy After a Promotion, Masuka Finds a New Family

Detective Joey Quinn has been around Dexter for quite a few seasons now and even Desmond Harrington (who portrays him on the show) quipped at the recent panel for the show at San Diego Comic Con that no one expected him to stay alive this long. But he’s still here and finally looking towards the future after passing his sergeants exam at the behest of his good friend and boss Lieutenant Bautista. Quinn aces the test, but the higher ups at Miami Metro still aren’t sure he’s got the stuff to actually pull off being in charge.

This hunch pays off even more at a celebration dinner where Quinn, Bautista and his sister Jamie are enjoying a night out when some off duty officers are overheard cracking jokes about Debra Morgan being discovered drunk in a car after running over a parking meter. Quinn instructs his fellow cops to show some respect and keep their voices down—and then they decide to divulge the fact that he used to bang the former lieutenant, which sends Quinn into a rage. A few punches later and he’s being pulled off by Bautista, who now has to wonder if his job might be on the line even more after deciding to give Quinn this crucial promotion.

It also answers even more questions about Quinn’s undying loyalty to Deb, and the feelings he still has for her.

Back at the station, Masuka hears about a hot, young girl who has been looking for him and of course he’s not taken back by this because he’s such a ladies man. When the girl finally arrives, he immediately turns on his Masuka charm asking if her major in college was “beautiful”. This situation takes a turn for the weird when she blurts out that she is there to see him because several years ago while he was in college he was a sperm donor, and she is the result. Masuka is shocked by this revelation, but once he stares back at the girl he starts to see the resemblance.

Dexter and Deb Go for a Drive

It seems the talks with Dr. Vogel are helping because Deb reaches out to Dexter to have a little chat. The brother and sister combo go for a drive to help with their family therapy, but this ride has a purpose.

When Deb discovers that Harry—her father, role model and center of the universe—killed himself after knowing what he helped create in Dexter, she can’t take much more. She says that when Harry killed himself, he should have taken one more life, and she proceeds to yank the steering wheel over an embankment and into a lake where the two crash head first into the water.

Knocked unconscious by the force of the blow, a local fisherman sees this happen and rushes in and immediately pulls Deb to safety. As she wakes up on the shore, she sees her brother sinking deeper and deeper into the watery abyss. Like it was second nature, Deb wakes up and realizes that Dexter is about to die and she immediately jumps in the lake to save her drowning brother.

The previews for next week’s show already let the cat out of the bag that Dexter obviously survives, but what does this latest move by Deb do to their already splintered relationship? There weren’t many spoilers (if any) given away at the Dexter panel at Comic Con. That served as more of a goodbye than anything, but now with the cast members all wrapping up and shooting completed, the final scenes are coming and they are sure to be emotional and violent.

Stay tuned for next week’s episode of Dexter when we get back on our regular schedule of Sunday night recaps!