(SPOILERS BELOW)
When we last saw Dexter, Dr. Vogel was caressing his head like a mother comforting her son after he bruised his knee. It was a very unusual position for Dexter to be in since he never had a real mother show him this kind of tenderness or affection before. I asked myself where this relationship will lead to? I imagine most of you believe he will eventually kill her, but maybe not. I'm like Dexter: I don't trust her, but I want to. So far after a quarter (25%) of the season has passed us by, this season is shaping up to be almost more about Debra than Dexter, but not quite.
The episode opens with what I thought was at first a dream sequence because Dexter was looking for Harrison and we find a trail of dark red foot prints leading him into another room. We see his son covered in what looks like blood and he's lying down and tells daddy that his tummy aches. Psych---Harrison ate a whole box of cherry popsicles and he's covered in the sticky red remains of his impulsive crime. Is this a hint that Harrison is more like Dexter than we know? (Don't you dare have a Son of Dexter sequel)
In the next scene we find Deb passed out drunk in her car. A cop bangs on the window, waking her up and after recognizing who she is, takes her in for property damage resulting from a DUI since she ran over a parking meter. She calls Quinn at 4am from the station, who has been sleeping with the already jealous and possessive Jamie, and asks him to pick her up. Jamie wakes up from the call too, but he lies to her and says it just police business. Quinn picks Deb up and gets her out of trouble and drops her off at work still in the same clothes as last night and then heads to the Sussman crime scene, where Angel is pissed that he's late too. (Later on in the episode Jamie finds out Quinn lied to her and picked up Deb and she's furious about it.)
Dexter & Dr. Vogel
The Miami Metro PD finally finds the body of Lyle Sussman, but when Dex arrives at the scene, he finds Sussman's hanging body has been moved by the BSKiller and now he's staged the scene to look like a suicide by blowing his brains out.
At Dr. Vogel's home she gets a weird text from 'unknown' and it says to look outside. Very hesitantly, she opens the door to find cute little "His" and "Her" boxes on her doorstep. She then goes to the Sussman crime scene to find Dexter and shows him her new gifts from the BSK. They are two scooped parts of the occipital lobe, which is the visual center of the brain. Dexter deduces that the killer is watching the both of them, but may not know who he is. Dexter has been using Dr. Vogel's book, Crave To Kill as source material to try and root out the Brain Surgeon Killer since Vogel believes it's one of her former patients. So far Dexter has cleared two people and tells her next on his list is a Ron Galuzzo. He murdered his best friend when he was in high school and she feels he still resents her since she institutionalized him until he became an adult.
Quinn then arrives at the murder scene and calls Dex over and he proceeds to rat out Deb from the night before. Dexter is freaked and tells Vogel he's got to go and help her. Dr. Vogel is still mystified that Dexter is really torn up over his sister's apparent meltdown.
Dexter leaves her and goes to Deb's job and gets her to agree to have dinner with him. He takes her to a restaurant where he has found a man that she once saved when she was a detective. He has the video on his phone of her rescuing him and shows it to her, then tells her that the man has a family and a good life all because of her. He thinks he can snap her out of her depression by reminding her who she used to be. She does seem moved by the video.
The next day Dexter breaks into Galuzzo's house and finds that the guy isn't the BSKiller after all, but he's a Hannibal Lecter wannabee who finds nice, juicy victims at the gym/mall where he works. He's got this pristine kitchen that's his kill room and it's where he fillets and marinates his prey.
Dexter meets up again with Dr. Vogel and tells her that Ray isn't the guy. She's still mystified that Dexter is so torn up over his sister's apparent meltdown. Vogel reminds him about the first rule of Harry's Code, about only killing bad people, but there is a clause in it that tells him to never get caught.and she wonders why Dexter just didn't kill Debra to protect himself. Say what? She would never want him to do it though. Nah, of course not. This piece of dialog I transcribed was the most meaningful of this episode and is a key I believe to the entire season 8 story line.
Vogel: Why didn't you kill her?
Dexter: What?
Vogel: Not that I'd ever advocate such a thing, but since Debra knows the truth about you she's clearly a risk.
Dexter: I'd never kill Deb, she's my sister. I love her.
Vogel: What exactly do you love about her?
Dexter: What do you mean?
Vogel: When a psychopath speaks about love, he doesn't really mean the same thing as typical people so what do you love about her?
Dexter loves that she's always there for him and that she looks up to him.
Vogel: None of that is really about Debra. It's about what she does for you.
Dexter: Are you saying I'm selfish?
Vogel: I'm not criticizing. Selfless love is hard enough for typical people and for psychopaths it's impossible.
Dexter: Why are you telling me this, so I'll feel bad about myself?
Vogel: Quite the contrary, I want you to revel in what you are. I told you, you're perfect.
Dexter: How can you still say that when you know what I've done to Deb?
Vogel: That's my point, you're perfect as a psychopath. All this talk about helping Debra, loving her is like Michelangelo trying to play the banjo.
At this point I think we can surmise that she is intensely studying Dexter (maybe for another book) and realizes that he's like no psycho she's ever known, but I wonder why she keeps badgering him over his affection for Debra? Even if she's right and he can't really love her, what's her point? Is the end of her experiment going to be to demand that Dexter kills his sister?
Debra, Dexter, Quinn & Vogel:
At work, Deb and her boss have taken pictures of a husband cheating on his wife with a young hottie, but when they show the pictures to their new client, she doesn't believe that it's her husband at all and walks out of the office, canceling the new job. Her boss tells Deb that she's in denial and really doesn't want to know the truth.
Deb takes that to heart because she gets really hammered again. She's in the MDPD parking lot, watching the video Dexter gave her about her heroic days and then she staggers drunkenly into the station. Quinn sees her and grabs her before anybody else in the squad sees her. She tells him that she wants to confess that she killed LaGuerta. Shaken, Quinn ushers her into an interrogation room and calls Dexter to get his ass down there. Dexter tells Vogel that she was right all along, he can't really help, but asks if she can? She nods yes and so they rush over to headquarters. Quinn meets them as they enter the station and Vogel tells him that Deb is suffering from a form of PTSD that's part survivors' guilt and that's why she saying she killed LaGuerta. When they enter the interrogation room, Debra sees them both and starts freaking out. Dexter grabs her to calm down, but then gives her one of his knock out needles and she falls asleep in his arms. Dr. Vogel looks on in surprise and says, 'That's interesting.'
They go to Deb's house. Dexter handcuffs her to the couch and tells her it's necessary because, you don't know my sister. Dex then hands Vogel the key and leaves the house, hoping he can help Debra since he can't.
* What's up with Quinn, Jamie and this damn sergeant's test that Angel is forcing him to take?
* Is this the end of Debra's inebriated period and will Dr. Vogel be able to get her over her grief just enough so she stops trying to confess?
* At first I thought that Dr. Vogel was making up the BSKiller to reel Dexter into her new experiment on him, but she seems genuinely terrified.
*As I said before, what kind of experiment will Dr. Vogel subject Dexter too? Will it undoubtedly involve Deb?
*We know Deputy Chief Tom Matthews had a thing with Vogel, but will she try to get hot and sweaty with Dexter? Or is her being his mommy good enough?
* I get this feeling that Dexter will have to make a choice between Vogel and Debra at some point.
Body count:
This was an unexpectedly low body count episode. There was only one new corpse and that was at the end of the episode where Dex really needed to kill something and Galuzzo was the closest psycho at hand. Dexter comes to realize that he's just like Ron Galuzzo in that he consumes everyone that he loves. Stay tuned....
