Episode Title: "Practically Perfect"
Writer: Manny Coto
Director: Ernest Dickerson
Previously on "Dexter":
While dealing with his wife's murder and the departure of her children, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) set his sights on Boyd Fowler (Shawn Hatosy), an odd man who works in dead animal retrieval. After an in-person meeting orchestrated by Dexter, it soon became apparent that Boyd was murdering young women and dumping their bodies in a nearby swamp. Unfortunately for Dexter, Detective Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington) became suspicious of Dexter's involvement with Rita's death and noticed that Dexter looks similar to the composite sketches of Kyle Butler (Dexter's alter-ego when he befriended the Trinity killer).
Meanwhile, Dexter's sister Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) began investigating a death cult named Santa Muerte with a young officer named Cira (April Lee Hernandez). Elsewhere, Sergeant Angel Batista (David Zayas) showed his jealously that his wife Lt. Maria LaGuerta (Lauren Vélez) made a lot more money than he did and drowned his sorrows at a bar. When another officer made a disparaging remark about Maria, Angel beat the man mercilessly.
Story:
At their shared apartment, Debra harshly grills prospective nannies for Dexter's infant son Harrison before Dexter settles upon Sonya (Maria Doyle Kennedy). Later, during a visit to a grief counselor, Dexter is assured that Harrison is too young to remember Rita's murder and will probably grow up unaffected by it. Relieved, Dexter heeds her advice to do something for himself. In other words, he's ready to kill again. Settling upon Boyd as his next target, Dexter sets up another meeting and introduces himself as Darryl Tucker, an unemployed man looking for work. Boyd is very eager to speak with him and even invites "Darryl" for a ride-along on his next shift.
Debra's investigation with Cira leads to another beheaded victim in the Santa Muerte case, while Quinn continues to try to link Dexter to Kyle Butler. Angel's fight with the other cop in the previous episode comes back to haunt him when the man suffers from internal bleeding and presses charges. Maria is also informed that an internal affairs investigation into the incident has been opened.
Back with Dexter, he sets up an elaborate kill room with photos of Boyd's victims in the middle of nowhere and then places a call to animal control in the hopes of sending Boyd's patrol to the area later. During their ride-along, Boyd continues to surprise Dexter with his skill for observation when he notices that Dexter's ring finger indicates that he used to be married. Dexter also underestimates Boyd when it comes time to trigger the trap and gets shot in the chest with a tranquilizer dart. Both men awaken in an ambulance and lie to the attending medics about what happened while eying each other warily. In the emergency room, Boyd seemingly gets up first and begins searching for Dexter but is unable to locate him before sneaking out of the hospital.
Back at his home, Boyd searches every corner until Dexter finally executes his trap and knocks out Boyd. In a makeshift kill room, he laments that Boyd won't see the effort that he put into his earlier kill room. Over Boyd's objections, Dexter kills him. But Boyd's death doesn't bring the cathartic response that Dexter hoped that it would. Dexter soon hears a noise from a nearby locked hallway and sees a woman looking in through the glass. He opens the door and finds her moments before she passes out, realizing that she has just witnessed him killing Boyd.
Breakdown:
If you noticed that the episode was written by Manny Coto, then you may remember him from his "Star Trek" days. He actually made "Enterprise" interesting, which was such a miraculous accomplishment that his canonization for sainthood has already started. Seriously, he's very good.
And Coto made Boyd into an interesting antagonist for Dexter. With his keen eye for detail, he was almost the redneck Sherlock Holmes. Which probably made him one of the more formidable one-off killers that Dexter has run into. Credit also has to go to Boyd's portrayer Shawn Hatosy for keeping up with Michael C. Hall. The scene in the ambulance where both men lied to the medics while glaring at each other was beautifully intense. So much so that their final confrontation suffered by comparison. I think Boyd could have stuck around a little bit longer. He was no Trinity, but it would have been interesting watching him try to track Dexter.
Of course the big twist here is the introduction of Julia Stiles' character in the closing moments of the episode. She was clearly a prisoner of Boyd and probably would have been his next victim if not for Dexter. The question is how much of Boyd's murder did she see and what is Dexter going to do about it? He doesn't kill innocent people and I think that the only other time he saved a live victim was when Debra survived the Ice Cream Truck killer at the end of the first season. For a killer, Dexter is basically a decent guy. Having said that, I could definitely see Dexter holding this girl prisoner until he's sure that she's not a threat to him. There's a lot of ways that this could go.
While the main thrust of this episode was extremely entertaining, there were a few week points. Coto's script called for Dexter to vocalize several emotions that were already on Michael C. Hall's face. That's usually a case of a writer not trusting the actor to convey the moment onscreen. It just wasn't necessary here. Also, the Angel and Maria subplot is beyond boring. They are collectively the least interesting members of Dexter's supporting cast. Angel is tolerable in small doses, but I'd rather see Masuka get a spotlight than see this play out. At least with Masuka, the writers don't try to treat him as if we care about his relationship issues. Sometimes background characters should just stay where they are.
But aside from those minor gripes, this was the best of the first three episodes of the season. And I am still curious to see what's coming next for America's favorite serial killer...
Crave Online Rating: 8 out of 10.
