Dexter 4:8
I’m pretty sure I continue to exclaim about how great each episode of this show is. It’s pretty rare that Dexter will disappoint me. Even last season, which I felt wrapped up way too quickly, was good to the last minute. I loved Miguel Prado as the villain! In fact, this show has an uncanny ability to make me really like actors I was previously lukewarm to, specifically Jimmy Smits last season and John Lithgow this one. Excellent bits of casting!
We learn quite a bit in this episode: Trinity’s origin, some more about Lundy and Deb getting shot, additional info about the Trinity murders. Despite that they really put a lot of stuff into each of these episodes, it doesn’t feel like too much and I don’t get confused. I love the pacing on this show!
Dexter manages to go to Tampa with Arthur, his intention of course to kill Arthur while he’s away. However, Arthur has other plans when it comes down to it, and in a way, Dexter ends up saving him. As Kyle, Dexter confesses that he killed an innocent man, and it turned Arthur from a grumpy person who was likely going to complete another Trinity cycle, into a confession machine himself.
Through this change in Arthur, we learn that his sister Vera actually died accidentally. I, and probably most other viewers, assumed that Vera’s death in the bathtub was a suicide. Apparently in reality, Arthur startles Vera while she’s showering and she cuts her leg on the shower glass, bleeding out before the ambulance could arrive. Dexter notices the similarity that both he and Trinity were born in blood, the same similarity he noticed between himself and Brian (the Ice Truck Killer) in the first season.
Arthur goes on to explain that his mother killed herself, and then his father was murdered later on. I’m sure it must be difficult to be the only surviving member of your family at an early age, although I doubt it would have turned me into a serial killer. I really hope they explore more of Trinity’s past and origins, I am curious to see what about all this prompted him to start killing sprees of his own. Or if perhaps he murdered his own father, as Dexter suggests, and that’s what started it all.
Deb goes through all of Lundy’s Trinity files, and finds ash smudges in nearly all the crime scene photos. This prompts her to take the case to La Guerta and have the Miami Metro PD investigate Trinity. Except she pitches it as investigating just the bludgeonings, accidentally leaves a bathtub slide in there, and ultimately La Guerta buys the entire Trinity case. And promptly takes Deb off it because she thinks she was shot by Trinity.
While examining her gunshot wounds, Deb realizes that the trajectory of the bullet was straight, and therefore it’s really unlikely that Trinity, a guy who is 6′4″, was the shooter. She goes to Misuka to verify, who is enthralled by the idea that Deb takes her shirt off for him. He’s pretty annoying, but also funny most of the time. Anyway, they determine that it was probably someone about his height who shot her, and bam! Deb is back on the case!
They also decide to do random DNA checks using cheek swabs at road stops, trying to catch Trinity…cept he’s driving back from Tampa with Dexter, who kind of warns him and Arthur gets around the inevitable he’s gonna get caught moment. I have mixed feelings about all this, because I do love Dexter and what he’s out doing, but I also think it’s dangerous territory for him to be messing with an ongoing investigation again. I mean, he was able to stage the Ice Truck Killer as a suicide, but I don’t think he could pull that off with Trinity since he actually saved him from jumping to his death in Tampa. He has to know that they will continue looking for Trinity unless they find him in some capacity. So I want to know how he’ll stage that!
As usual, this season has managed to get away from me. There are only a few episodes left to air, and of course I am just dying for more. Even though there are about five episodes left, I’m missing the season already.
