Two things in tonight’s episode exemplified why I love “Dexter.” One, the little jokes that Dexter seems more comfortable cracking now: I understand he had to mourn his wife and all, but I don’t think I would care nearly as much about the series if it weren’t for the dark humor. And the other is that this is a show where a serial decapitator is running through Miami and it’s perhaps the third-most interesting thing going on in the show.
Maybe I’m a little bloodthirsty.
Deb Morgan got to handle a lot of the jokes in tonight’s episode, first interrogating potential nannies for baby Harrison as if she were in the FBI, and then delivering a very special, unprintable epithet to Quinn if he ever mentions the word “marriage” around her again. He can’t stop needling her about the time they hooked up. I hate Quinn and I find his obsession with both Deb and Dexter creepy and I kind of hope he gets murdered.
Once he’s gotten the nanny settled, Dexter takes Harrison to the grief counselor, who relieves Dex by letting him know the baby probably was too young to register Rita’s murder, unlike Dexter, who remembers sitting in a pool of his own mother’s blood. “Do something for Dexter,” the counselor encourages. “Dexter will,” he muses, and goes off to stalk Boyd Fowler.
At the cafe where he’s spying on Boyd, Boyd spots Dexter first, another indication that Boyd isn’t the dumb yokel that he appears to be. Dexter introduces himself as “Darryl Tucker,” says he’s looking for a job, and agrees to tag along on a future run with Boyd.
Before he rides along with Boyd, Dexter gets the kill room ready at a creepy old abandoned tourist center, relishing “putting my life back in order.” Of course, just because he’s a murderer doesn’t mean he’s not a daddy, so he panics when he gets home and can’t find the nanny who was just out with Harrison and left a note. After his wife was murdered and his kids didn't show up to school, can you blame him for being a little paranoid?
Before I get to Dexter and Boyd, there’s also the matter of the possible death cult decapitations, which Deb is investigating with Cira. She interviews the owner of a black-magic shop, who then turns up missing his head as well, which Cira blames herself for. Of course the storyline with Angel and Maria ranks last in order of interest in tonight’s episodes. With Boyd, Dexter and a beheader on the loose and Quinn apparently trying to prove that Dexter murdered Rita, who cares if Angel is being investigated by internal affairs for defending his wife’s honor?
I loved the whole dynamic between Dexter and Boyd. Dexter notices that Boyd’s more perceptive than he seems but still underestimates him: after he needles Boyd in the neck, Boyd shoots him with a tranquilizer gun and the two end up in the same ambulance. It was an amusing scene, the guys both pretending like it was an accident but eyeballing each other suspiciously. Even though Boyd is obviously a bad guy who won’t live long, I sort of wanted him to survive the episode (and not just because I enjoyed looking at the pictures of the dogs on the wall of his house).
Both Boyd and Dexter escape the ER and they tangle again at Boyd’s house, this time Dexter doing it right (I liked the detail of Dex capturing Boyd’s blood in a dainty little Tupperware). Boyd warns Dexter that he doesn’t know what he’s getting into, but Dexter ignores him and kills him anyway, noting that he doesn’t feel as fulfilled by this murder as he thought he would. Literally still with blood on his hands, he hears a knocking at one of the doors and one of Boyd’s unkilled victims emerges and faints. It’s Julia Stiles! And she’s seen everything.
-- Claire Zulkey
