Dexter, The Final Chapter: Season 8 Ep 1 'A Beautiful Day'

By John Amato — June 30, 2013

SPOILERS BELOW

The incredible season seven finale left Dexter staring wide eyed and in shock (as much he can be shocked) at his sister Deb after she chose to shoot Captain Maria LaGuerta dead instead of him. In a Sophie's Choice type moment, Debra (the magnificent Jennifer Carpenter) was forced to choose between her brother and her colleague after she walked in on Dexter as he was about to take care of his LaGuerta problem once and for all. Capt. LaGuerta (Lauren Vélez) wakes up from being drugged and begins yelling at Deb to take the shot and shoot Dexter because she's not like him. At the same time, Dexter is also telling Deb to shoot him too because she isn't like him. After she fired her gun at Maria, Deb runs hysterically over to her; holding her in her arms, crying incoherently and mumbling how much she hates Dexter. Now that was quite an ending.

When season eight begins, six months have passed since that fateful night and Dexter seems to be a happy suburban father after a roller coaster ride of a year. He's even become a successful soccer coach for his son, who is growing up like a runaway weed.

Angel Batista is back on the force after a quick retirement after his ex-wife's death made him realize he needs to still catch bad guys.

Deb's former partner Quinn is having an affair with Jamie, Batista's sister, behind his back. Now you know that is not going to end well at all.

Det. Angie Miller appears to be a regular on the team this season.

The New Case:

The team have found a man murdered in a park with the back of his head cut open like a coconut, brains scooped out. Are you ready for The Brain Surgeon Murders?

Deb

All is not well in Debra-Land. She has quit the force and refuses to talk or see Dexter or her friends and is now working for private firm as a bounty hunter, who disappears for days on end without contacting anyone. She's completely unraveled since the murder. She's been doctor shopping prescription pills and at this moment she's drinking, sexing and drugging with a violent jewel thief named Andrew Briggs, who's jumped bail and is trying to unload his half a million dollar stash.

Dexter:

Dexter is freaking out because Deb hasn't made contact with him in over a month and he's so shaken by it that he loses control of his code and partakes in a little road rage, almost snapping a man's neck for cutting him off. Dex even screams at his son at the office and that's never happened before. Finally he hacks into Deb's personal finances, locating her in bodega in Fort Lauderdale.

Now the episode flies off at Usain Bolt speed. Dexter learns that Andrew Briggs is being hunted by a hit man named “El Sapo” who's masquerading as a fence for the stolen jewels that Briggs unknowingly stole from some mobsters. Ouch. Dex tracks Deb down at some fleabag flophouse called the Pink Motel (doesn't every city have one?) with his son in the car. He confronts her, but instead of saving her, he kills Briggs in a fit of anger.

Deb is livid. She loathes herself so much that she stoops to utter depravity just to get some relief from it all. Now she looks on in disbelief at Briggs' dead body and she screams at her brother:

Deb: I felt OK around him.

Dexter: I came here to save you, look at yourself, you're lost.

Deb: I'm not lost, I know exactly where I am. I'm in a sh**ty f**king hell, which is exactly what I deserve. You are lost! All my life I thought I needed you. That I couldn't survive with you. F**k! F**k! It was the other f**king way around. It was the other way around.

And with those words Dexter is humbled in a way like never before. He never understood how much he depended on HER; needed her to survive. She was the one person that he always protected no matter what. He even killed his own brother to save her from being murdered way back when in season one. I thought the last few seasons went wildly off kilter by having Deb believe she was in love with Dexter. It never made any sense to me, but maybe now it does just a little. Rita was key to him because she's the first person he ever became emotionally attached to other than his father and sister and it was that connection that allowed him to become a loving father to his son.

New Character:

Capt. Tom Matthews has brought in a profiler extraordinaire. A psychopath whisperer who's also a neuropsychiatrist named Dr. Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling) to assist with the 'Brain Surgeon' murder case. She helped Matthews some time ago (did they sleep together?), but moved to England for many years. She opines that this is a serial killer who will leave many more bodies. Apparently she asked onto the case out of the blue.

Vogel quickly establishes that she can read serial killers and evidence like no other and immediately shows an interest in Dexter, summoning him to the morgue. She fixates on the Bay Harbor Butcher case and remarks that he seemed to use some kind of moral guidelines in picking his victims. Very outside the norm of these types of killers.

You know there are almost no coincidences on Dexter and she finally reveals herself to Dexter at the end of the episode after he tells him to bug off. She hands Dexter some drawings that he drew from when he was a child and then walks away. Dex is stunned again (yeah, I know), and grabs her by the arms to demand answers leaving behind his usual defense mechanisms to outsiders.

Vogel: You can't kill me.

Dexter: Why?

Vogel: Because I don't fit Harry's code!

For all of Dexter's supposed brain malfunctions from being a serial killer, he sure had his ass handed to him and his mind blown the entire time tonight.