Episode Title: "Hello Bandit"
Writer: Scott Buck
Director: John Dahl
Previously on "Dexter":
In the aftermath of Rita's murder, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) could barely even fake regular emotions as his police colleagues investigated the crime scene in his house. Although Dexter came under early suspicion by Detective Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington), the initial information suggested that the Trinity killer was behind the crime, leading Lt. Maria LaGuerta (Lauren Vélez) to turn over the investigation to the FBI, over the objections of her new husband Sergeant Angel Batista (David Zayas). Dexter's adopted sister Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) shielded him from an initial FBI interview, but she was also worried by his increasingly bizarre behavior.
Upon breaking the news to Rita's children, Astor (Christina Robinson) and Cody (Preston Bailey), Dexter decided that they and his infant son Harrison are all better off without him and made plans to flee Miami. Debra met with Quinn at Dexter's house to clean Rita's blood from the bathroom, before Debra suffered an emotional meltdown that led her to sleep with Quinn. Embarrassed and angered afterwards, Debra denied Quinn's subsequent advances. However, Quinn took the time to confirm with Dexter's neighbor that he was once punched out by Dexter after he learned that the neighbor had kissed Rita.
At Rita's funeral, Dexter was nowhere to be seen. While making his getaway, a rude man made a crack about Dexter's dead wife that caused him to snap and bludgeon the man to death. Then a vision of Dexter's dead adopted father, Harry (James Remar) appeared to him and convinced him to go back to his family. Hours later, Dexter finally arrived at the funeral and gave the closest thing to heartfelt eulogy that was possible for him. He also admitted to himself that he loved Rita.
Story:
During his interview with the FBI, Dexter tries to cover for his whereabouts during Rita's murder but they tell him he's not under suspicion because he was with the police team at Arthur Mitchell's house while Rita was murdered. However they express their interest in finding Kyle Butler, the alter-ego used by Dexter when he attempted to befriend Mitchell. While moving his things into a rental truck, Dexter fixates on a blood stain in the back. Dexter investigates further and learns that the previous renter of the vehicle was a man named Boyd Fowler (Shawn Hatosy), who works in dead animal retrieval. Dexter plants a dead raccoon on the side of the road and reports it in order to draw in Boyd. Dexter stays behind to introduce himself to Boyd and he is visibly annoyed when Boyd seems to realize that the raccoon was planted.
Elsewhere, Debra and the rest of Dexter's team miss his presence when investigating the death of a woman who was found decapitated, with her eyes and tongue cut out. One of the younger officers named Cira (April Lee Hernandez) suggests that the crime might be the work of Santa Muerte, a death cult located in the area. After the woman's husband ends up dead as well, the cops are quick to rule it as a murder/suicide.
Meanwhile, Dexter begins stalking Boyd to determine if he is a killer. At first he believes that the man is extremely boring and Dexter is almost caught when Boyd returns home for lunch. While eluding Boyd, Dexter learns that he aggressively shouts back to his motivational tapes and that he collects locks of hair belonging to women identified only by numbers. He later trails Boyd as he drives into the wilderness to dump a large barrel in the swamp. Before he can examine the barrel, Debra calls Dexter to tell him that Astor and Cody are missing. Realizing that they have returned to the home they shared with Rita, Dexter finds them in the bathroom standing over the spot where Rita's body was found.
Dexter attempts to reach out to them in his own way, but Astor rejects him and tells him that she wants to live with her grandparents. Back in the police department, Angel grows bitter over the size of his wife's retirement account and takes Vince Masuka (C.S. Lee) out drinking to drown his sorrow. A fellow officer makes a crude remark about Angel's wife, which leads Angel mercilessly beat the man. Meanwhile, Quinn realizes that three different composite sketches of Kyle Butler resemble Dexter when pieced together.
Early the next morning, Dexter sees off the children despite the fact that Cody wants to stay with him. Dexter even realizes that he cares for the children while revisiting the site where Boyd dumped the barrel. When Dexter finally opens it and sees the dead body of a woman within, even the joy of finding a new target seems to be denied to him.
Breakdown:
Amazingly, Dexter has only killed one person in two episodes this season. Which means clearly, he's slipping.
But it's also telling just how soft Dexter is compared to the relatively emotion-free killer he used to be. When Dexter found the body of Boyd's victim at the end of the episode, he seemed more exhausted than elated at the idea of a new victim. He obviously doesn't love the kids enough to give up killing other people, but his farewell to Astor actually led to one of the more humorous moments of the night when she gave him a half-hearted hug in return. If anything, sending the kids away this quickly kind of makes things too easy for Dexter. If he's only got his baby, then he doesn't have to explain his late night activities to anyone.
As for Boyd, the man most likely to be Dexter's next kill, the slow revelation of just how screwed up he is was very effective. The series works best when giving Dexter someone even more disturbing to hunt down. And Boyd had an inordinate amount of red flags even before Dexter found the woman's body. He's no Trinity killer, but there was something about this guy's barely contained rage that made him seem even more dangerous.
The Santa Muerte killings are intriguing in that its not clear how Dexter will play into them yet. The killings seem designed to inspire terror in a different way than the killers Dexter usually goes after. They also seem to be the work of more than one person.
There's a really odd subplot in this episode about Angel's jealousy over his wife's bank account, which just seemed out of place and very boring. As a C-story, it was a waste of time. The B-story of Debra acknowledging that she slept with Quinn was also pretty pointless. Carpenter and Harrington don't have any apparent chemistry together, so their "romantic" scenes tend to fall flat. Although Debra's "I came over here to sleep, not to have your fat little sausage fingers all over me" was easily the funniest line of the night.
The only part of Quinn's story that's really interesting is that he's actually closing in on Dexter. He may be a repulsive lover, but he's not a bad cop. And he's the only one who's realized that Dexter looks like the composite of the Kyle Butler sketches; which only serves to feed his theory that Dexter killed his wife. Essentially, his motivation is to get Dexter accused of the crime without letting it interfere with his pursuit of Debra. Which is kind of sleazy if you think about it, but it does make him a good foe for Dexter to deal with. At this point, I don't think the threat that Quinn represents to Dexter is even on his radar. The mistake that Sgt. Doakes made when he suspected Dexter back in the second season was that he was too open about it. It's harder for Dexter to defend himself if he doesn't even know he needs to.
Overall, this was a fairly slow episode, but it was still compelling. Dexter may not be the killer he used to be, but someone is going to end up on his table very soon...
Crave Online Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
