Episode 1
A Beautiful Day
Six
months have passed since last season (thank god), and some things
have changed. For Dexter, things have gone back to “normal.” He’s
still at Miami Metro, he’s dating big breasted women, and the actor
that plays Harrison has been recast (at least I think so).
There’s
a memorial service for LaGuerta. Angel gives a short speech, saying
how “everyone misses her.” Speak for yourself. It was about damn
time she got what was coming to her—namely Dex and Deb murdering
her and covering it up.
Oh,
and the memorial? An awful white concrete bench. How fitting that
it’s as boring as she was. Even Angel thinks it’s tacky. See,
he’s having trouble letting go; he still has boxes of her stuff
back from when they were an item. Oh, and LaGuerta’s death made
Angel rejoin Miami Metro. What, wasn’t his “I’m gonna retire
and open a restaurant” storyline working for you?
Everyone
wonders where Deb is. She quit the force, that much is obvious, but
Dex seems cagey about her whereabouts.
Turns
out things have gone downhill for Deb. She’s in a sleazy motel room
with a scruffy shirtless dude doing lines of coke and being generally
gross. So it ain’t all bad. Scruffy guy is looking for a fence, and
no, not the white picket kind.
Dex
goes to Deb’s place, fearing she might be dead. She hasn’t
answered any of his calls in months, and her voicemail is filled to
the max. Ghost Dad shows up to offer yet more never-heeded good
advice. He tells Dex to leave it alone; Deb doesn’t want to see
him, so just leave her be. Dex is the problem, she disappeared
from him.
Not
satisfied with that, Dex goes to her new place of employment, a
private bounty hunting organization. I think. Sure, let’s go with
that. Anyway, we’re introduced to Elway, and he tells Dex Deb
hasn’t check in in weeks. She likes the “down and dirty” cases,
too. He does give Dex the name of her current assignment, a thief
named Briggs. Want to guess as to who he is? You don’t need to
guess.
Dex
is called to a crime scene, with one of the more interesting murders
this show has seen. At first it looks like a simple shooting, but
when Dex lifts the victim’s head, he finds that it’s been sliced
open, and part of the skull is gone; there’s even a chunk of brain
removed.
 |
| Yummy... |
At
Miami Metro, Dex looks into Briggs, and yes, it’s the guy Deb is
shacking up with. Dex figures out her banking password and discovers
she’s in Ft Lauderdale.
He
stakes out the one grocery store that she seems to frequent based on
her banking statement, and sure enough there she is, looking
very...low rent shall we say. And she and Briggs are all over each
other. Dex
confronts her in the cereal aisle.
 |
| Cereal/serial joke goes here. |
He thinks she’s gone off the
deep end. Deb assures him she’s trying to find out where Briggs
stashed the jewel from his latest robbery. Which includes sleeping
with him. Oh, and she hasn’t talked to him in a month because she
doesn’t want to. “I shot the wrong person...” Deb says to him
before leaving with Briggs.
Ghost
Dad talks to Dex on the way home, telling him to leave her alone;
he’ll only make things worse. Does Dex listen? Of course not! He’s
too busy almost murdering a guy who cut him off in traffic. To say
Dex has some anger issues this episode is an understatement.
Remember
how I mentioned that things have changed in six months? Here’s
another thing: Jamie and Quinn are totally fucking now.
And despite
Jamie’s amazing ass, it’s still super gross. And she still lives
with Angel, her brother.
After
having sex with *shudder* Quinn, she distracts Angel so Quinn can
sneak out by helping him go through some of LaGuerta’s stuff. Is
having sex with Quinn a step up from creepy intern guy last season? I
really can’t tell.
Next
day at MM, the gang has a debriefing by Captain Matthews, where he
introduces them to Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling), a renowned
psychiatrist known for her research on psychopaths. She talks about
the part of the brain that was taken from the victim; seems it’s
the part that processes empathy. Which is something psychopaths
rarely possess. We also learn that they found no DNA or fingerprints,
and that this murder was planned.
And
what does Dex do when he meets someone new? He researches them! Angel
interrupts Dex’s research on Vogel to give him one of LaGuerta’s
vases. “Gee, thanks,” Dex says. “This will look great in the
trash.” (I’m paraphrasing...or am I?)
Deb’s
having a lovely time in her den of sin, when Briggs goes outside to
meet his fence, a fellow by the name of El Sapo. While Briggs is
outside, Deb calls Quinn to ask him about El Sapo. She has to cut the
convo short when Briggs comes back inside.
Meanwhile,
Vogel asks Dex to meet her in the morgue. They talk a bit about the
victim, but Vogel really wants to talk about the Bay Harbor Butcher.
She’s fascinated by his belief system, a psychopath with moral
guidelines. She’s sad that she never got to investigate the BHB,
but I think we all know she knows the truth.
After
the morgue, Dex chats with Capt Matthews about Vogel. The two of them
were colleagues way back when. And it seems like a very chance
occurrence. And maybe it is just a case of luck that she showed up
now, but I doubt it.
Quinn
talks to Dex briefly about Deb, seems that El Sapo isn’t a fence,
but a hitman. Seems Briggs stole from the mob. Whoops! And now Deb is
in significantly more danger than before.
Dex
is about to rush to Deb’s rescue when Jamie swings by to drop
Harrison off. Turns out she had requested the night off. Oh, and
Harrison is such a dick. He’s touching expensive equipment and
being an annoying little shit. While Dex is investigating El Sapo,
Harrison breaks LaGuerta’s vase and Dex yells at him. Yup, anger
issues. And since Dex isn’t unhinged enough this episode, he takes
his toddler-aged son with him to find Deb.
But
don’t worry, Deb is watching cartoons with Briggs in the dark. I
mean, how fucking creepy is that? I mean, sure, Briggs is smoking
dope, but who watches cartoons in the dark?
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| This image does nothing for the creepy darkness of the scene itself. |
It’s unnerving is all.
I imagine that’s what pedophiles do when they’re home alone. Oh,
and he also gets a call that El Sapo is on his way to the motel.
Dex
has run into a problem; he doesn’t know where to find Deb. So he
calls and then shows up at Quinn’s apartment—Jamie’s there,
too—and he gives Dex the name of the motel. He also tries calling
Jamie, but no luck there.
 |
| Wonder why. Yep, still gross. |
He
pulls into the motel parking lot—with Harrison in the back seat,
don’t forget—and snoops around till he finds Deb’s room. She
doesn’t give a shit when he tells her about El Sapo. She just wants
him to leave; she can’t forget all the bad decisions she’s made
that she can’t take back.
Briggs
finds them and Dex attacks him and stabs the scruffy jewel thief in the
heart.
 |
| Whoops! |
Deb is understandably furious with Dex. He tries to say he was
saving her, because she’s lost. But Deb sees it differently: Dex is
the lost one, he needs her, not the other way around. Dex leaves
while Deb calls in the murder to the cops.
Outside,
Dex goes to his car only to find that Harrison has disappeared. He
finds him soon after. Hey, Dex, I’m pretty sure child locks come
standard on most cars nowadays, you might want to look into that. I
think that if you’re a parent, you’d want to make sure your
gas-guzzling SUV came standard.
Deb
answers the cops’ questions—she also got a lead on where Briggs
stashed the jewels—and is safe for the moment, but El Sapo is
lurking nearby...
Later,
Dex does some soul-searching and realizes that Deb’s right, he is
lost. The next day, while he’s wallowing in his emo (and sitting on
LaGuerta’s bench, just to twist the knife some more), Vogel shows
up and hands him a manila envelope. It contains some of Dex’s
childhood drawings.
 |
| Nothing to see here...totally normal childhood drawings... |
He chases her down and questions her. “You
can’t kill me...because of Harry’s code,” she says.
You
know what, I kind of enjoyed this episode. Although after the
atrocious 6th season and the meandering, frustrating 7th,
the bar was set very low. But I think there is real potential here.
And seeing as how this is the last season, let’s hope the Dexter
team has brought their A-game.
Also,
how awesome is it that Charlotte Rampling is in this season? If
you’re unfamiliar with her work, you should check her out. She’s
had an amazing career. We’ve had a lot of amazing actors with
brilliant careers on TV this year: Diana Rigg on Game of Thrones
and Rutger Hauer on True Blood,
to name a few.
Till next week!
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