Dexter Season 8 Episode 8 “Are We There Yet?” Recap: Amour Fou

Dexter’s latest episode went down on Sunday night and an old friend came calling with a familiar tune ringing in the background…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Follow on Twitter @DamonMartin

Time is dwindling down until the Dexter finale hits us in just a few weeks, and the show known for having more twists and turns than going up Lombard Street in San Francisco at 60 miles-per-hour managed to toss a couple more at us this week.

Hannah McKay is back and her attraction to Dexter, and he to her, hits a fevered pitch, while creepy Dr. Vogel lands front and center once again while Zach Hamilton makes the most dramatic turn of the entire episode. I also have a few theories about this whole thing, but stay tuned for that at the end of the article.

First up let’s dive right into Dexter’s love life….

Hannah’s Back and There’s Gonna Be Trouble….

Last week we welcomed back (at full force anyways) Hannah McKay, who lasted less than one episode before offing her new husband and needing Dexter’s help to escape. Dexter was more than happy to oblige her because he’s drawn to Hannah like a moth to a flame, and she burns awfully bright and very hot.

Dexter works to get Hannah a new passport and name so she can make her escape undetected, but first things first they have to go on a little road trip.

While Dexter is working on an escape for his ex-girlfriend, he’s also looking into the death of his neighbor Cassie, who was bludgeoned to death and left laying in a pool of her own blood. A swab of her fingernails revealed that there was blood leftover, presumably from the killer, and when Dexter runs the analysis it pops up with a name—Zach Hamilton.

Now if there’s one thing we’ve all learned from watching Dexter it’s the fact that rarely does the easiest answer end up being the right one, and sure enough there was something off about the convenience with which Zach’s blood was found at the crime scene.

Back at the station, Quinn is like a frothing dog just hoping to get his teeth into Zach, and despite there being no connection between he and Cassie, the similar way they were murdered leads Miami’s crack detective into believing that he had something to do with Dexter’s neighbor having her head bashed in.

It’s here that there’s a curious exchange between Quinn and Dexter—as Dexter’s leaving the station to go on the hunt for Zach, Quinn asks if there was any results of the DNA testing from the crime scene where Cassie was murdered—almost as if he knew Dexter would find something. Dexter dummies up of course, but this leaves an interesting opening that maybe Quinn had something to do with Cassie’s murder or at the very least setting up Zach.

Dexter takes Hannah with him on a hunt for Zach, and when they find his hotel room in the Florida Keys, it’s been set up with plenty of duct tape, plastic sheets and a complete knife filled kill kit. When Zach returns, Dexter immediately shoves a blade to his throat demanding answers.

Turns out, Zach didn’t kill Cassie and he’s been stalking an old classmate who killed a girl on spring break a couple of years ago, and decided to brag about it. Zach even has time stamped photos to prove he was nowhere near Cassie at the time she died, despite having a brief encounter with her after finding out Dexter wasn’t home.

Zach did manage, however, to kill his old classmate, but things didn’t quite go according to plan so Dexter has to help him dispose of the body. This is where the theory about Quinn returns—Zach warns Dexter to watch his hand grabbing onto the door handle because it cut him the other day and blood was everywhere. Did Quinn set this up to gather some of Zach’s blood to plant at the scene?

Deb’s at a Crossroads (Again) and On the Hunt

It’s clear that Debra Morgan has returned from the brink of extinction from earlier this season, and she’s back to many of her old habits, most notably sniffing out bad guys. Unfortunately her sniffer is pointing in only one direction these days—Hannah McKay.

Deb enlists the help of her boss Elway to find and track down Hannah after she informs him of a $250,000 bounty on the husband offing poison pill. Elway and Deb track down the slip where Hannah’s husband had the yacht sitting, but the boat was gone and Hannah along with it.

Deb decides to do a little extra hunting by tracking down Dexter’s car using the GPS system from last episode, and sure enough he’s lying to her saying he’s at dinner when in reality he’s driving with Hannah to the Keys to find Zach.

After Hannah cleans up Zach’s kill room, she enters and sees Deb there waiting to take her to jail. Deb insists that this is going to happen whether Hannah wants it to or not, but the smooth talking blonde is able to coax her way out of this again along with some help from Dexter of course who convinces his sister to let Hannah go, and she’ll be gone for good.

Deb finally backs off and leaves Dexter to deal with Hannah in his own way.

The bad news is Elway has a scent of money from the Hannah McKay bounty looming overhead, and whether Deb wants to pursue this anymore or not, he has no intention of giving up so easily. Deb on the other hand is questioning everything again, and now has thoughts of returning to the police force where she can do some real good.

Amour Fou

In the third season of the HBO show The Sopranos, Tony gets mixed up with an obsessive Mercedes dealer named Gloria, who consumes his every passion, but also burns hotter than the sun with every emotion being an extreme. During a session with his psychiatrist Dr. Melfi, she refers to Tony and Gloria’s affair as “Amour Fou” or crazy love. It was the kind of love that burns so hot that it almost always causes someone to get burned.

It’s safe to say, Dexter and Hannah are experiencing much of the same in their love affair.

It’s clear from the moment the episode opened that Dexter and Hannah are fighting off every instinct they have to keep from reaching for each other—a kiss, a hug, holding hands—they just want to be together but both know it just should not happen.

The flirtation continues as Dexter plots Hannah’s getaway out of town, but finally with just hours to go until she jets out of Miami forever, they give into their own natural, carnal instincts. Dexter and Hannah kiss, remove clothing and hit the hotel bed for some steamy makeup sex.

The next day, Hannah is on her way to a plane to say goodbye to Miami, presumably forever, when Dexter arrives, arms open, and asks her to stay with him. Little does he know that Elway is hot on her trail, and the more time she spends in Miami, the more likely it is she winds up back behind bars.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Following a day of bonding over getting rid of a dead body (Zach’s old murderous classmate), Dexter and Zach head over to see Dr. Vogel. She invites them to dinner, and insists that Dexter bring Hannah along as well.

It’s an uncomfortable scene as the four of them gather around for some random baked meal that Vogel has cooked up, but the biggest reveal may have been an off handed remark made during the dinner conversation. Hannah asks Vogel how she got interested in her work, and the good doctor responds by saying it was an incident that happened long ago, not worth telling about now.

What was the incident? Something tells me this will come back into play….

Dinner is awkward, so instead with three killers sitting around chewing the fat, they decide instead to look at crime scene photos (yay!) to see if they can dig up more information on Cassie’s killer. The investigation doesn’t lead anywhere, but Dexter decides he has to leave and take Hannah home. He then asks Dr. Vogel to drive Zach back to his place.

As Dexter returns home after a romp with Hannah, he opens to door to discover Zach sitting in his computer chair and when he swivels him around, the back of his head has been removed and a part of his brain is missing. While all of this is going on, the Mama Cass Elliott song “Make Your Own Kind of Music” is blaring throughout the room. Remember this is the same song that Vogel was listening to when she was kidnapped by Yates—the man who we were led to believe was the Brain Surgeon.

A second later the scene cuts to Dr. Vogel crying over the phone as she holds onto another souvenir passed onto her—the latest section of the brain carved out and handed to her as a present, this time belonging to Zach Hamilton.

The Brain Surgeon is back and was never dead, and was also never Yates.

A couple of theories about this

— The prime suspect is still Dr. Vogel. She’s been there every step of the way, she was the one that recommended surgery on past patients to remove the piece of the brain that causes violent outbursts, and let’s not forget she was the one driving Zach home when Dexter left with Hannah. Let’s also add this wrinkle—could Vogel have been the one to kill Harry and make it look like a suicide so she’d be the only one left for Dexter to turn to one day?

— The Brain Surgeon is actually Cassie’s boyfriend Oliver Saxon. The clean cut boyfriend who briefly encountered Dexter popped back up this episode after being questioned by Quinn to see if he recognized Zach Hamilton from a picture. Oliver says no, but the boy does look familiar. A few scenes later, Zach is carved up. Coincidence? Is Oliver really the killer and has a hidden identity and Cassie was just a way to get close to Dexter?

— Is Oliver related to Vogel? That seems to be a popular theory right now as well. Was this the incident Vogel referenced earlier? Was her son a serial killer who she tried to save but failed and now he’s back for revenge?

— Is it Quinn? Quinn seems to be working awfully hard to prove Zach’s a killer. Has he been a wolf in sheep’s clothing this entire time?

There’s still plenty of time for all of this to pan out, and Dexter will return next Sunday with an all new episode. Do you have a theory on who actually is The Brain Surgeon? Leave it in the comments below!