Episode 05 | Aired Jul 28, 2013

We're nearly halfway through the final season. So why does Dexter feel like business as usual?
sa pamamagitan ng James Hibberd @ EW





The good news: We've escaped the muddled Brain Surgeon storyline! He's apparently dead as Trinity after Sunday's "This Little Piggy" episode.

The not-great news: The episode was otherwise pretty sleepy, and a new murder case was introduced that looks right out of a CBS murder-of-the-week crime procedural.

So I'm going to say it: Five episodes into Dexter's final season, it feels like we're killing time before the dramatic fireworks that we assume/hope are eventually coming. The season 8 premiere was tense, emotional and gripping; it felt like the ipakita was evolving into an interesting and non-formulaic animal for its final round. But since, we've been Nawawala in Dr. Vogel's psychotherapy and chasing a Not-So-Big Bad.

Maybe everything we've seen so far will pay off later. Maybe all these various threads will tie together into a stunning knotty climax. And there have been developments this season -- Deb and Dex's relationship has continued to evolve. But I wish the final season was increasing stakes and tension every week and felt madami like a cohesive story instead of a compartmentalized series of new killers for Dex to dispatch. There was the Brain Surgeon (and his minion), now there's the Maid Murder, and the return of Hannah McKay is still waiting in the wings. Plus there's the Jake Elway character who will eventually be doing ... something other than drinking electrolytes, presumably.

If this season only exists to set up the rumored Deb-focused spin-off, then okay, maybe we care whether Quinn or Miller become sergeant. Otherwise, Quinn's test, Masuka's daughter and Dex's hot neighbor all seem like pretty low stakes situations for what should be a ramp-up to a stunning climax (FX's The Shield, for example, kept turning the screws on its characters every oras during its final season). Yet sa pamamagitan ng the end of this episode, Dex and Debra's relationship with each other and with the suspicion-free Miami Metro (you can't even convince them you're guilty sa pamamagitan ng confessing!) feel like everything is madami or less back to normal (more on this at the end of this recap).

It's perhaps worth nothing that this final season of Dexter was written faster than nakaraan years. The summer premiere petsa was picked to help fuel the launch of Showtime's sinag Donovan, instead of Dexter returning in the fall like usual -- which hugely crunched deadlines. So we arguably shouldn't hold this season to the same standard as other seasons. But we gotta focus on what we're given.

So let's recap Sunday's episode with eight things that happened:

1. Dexter and Deb had to scramble in the wake of the accident. Crashing a car into a lake along a suburban kalye in front of a witness and nearly killing Dexter naturally had plenty of serious consequences for our characters and the story -- the police were called, Dex had to go to the hospital after being revived, the Morgans had to explain what happened to the insurance company, Dex had to buy a new car and .... and ... and ... oh. None of that actually happened! Or maybe it did and we were just spared it. Okay, there was some reaction, and that brings us to the first real thing that happened this week:

2. We see a new side to Dexter. Our paborito blood-spatter vigilante was uncharacteristically pissed about his sister trying to murder him. "You almost left my son an orphan," he tells Deb. "I'm not perfect! You think it's easy being your brother!?" Yeah, you tell her! We're ready for mopey Deb to get a verbal matunog na halik upside the head. She has every reason to be depressed and upset, of course, but we're ready for her to turn a corner. Dex declares to Dr. Vogel he's going to get back to hunting a serial killer, "which according to you is all I'm really good for ... don't forget to write all this down." Seeing bitter, angry, self-pitying Dexter is actually pretty fun.

3. Quinn can kinda run a meeting. Batista continues to favor his grouchy ex-partner over the less interesting but perfectly competent-seeming Det. Miller in the competition for Miami Metro's susunod tuktok Sergeant. He lets Quinn run the morning meeting. Mr. Mumbles goes through the motions just fine. We learn there's a new case that's going to occupy their attention -- the maid/lover of a wealthy guy named Hamilton who was found murdered.

4. Dexter gets a Mini Me: The Miami Metro team investigate the Hamilton murder, where a man was having an affair with his devious maid and we realize almost immediately that his skulking creepy preppy teenage son probably did it. The son, Zach, takes an interest in Dexter and seems to be doing his best Michael C. Hall impression. Quinn later tells Batista that Zach was seen leaving the crime scene. "I wasn't expecting that," Batista says -- because, as we've already established, he's not a very good detective.

5. Masuka's daughter may be a moocher. We're not sure. I suspect she's not. I'm not sure adding cheese to your burrito order at a pagkain truck really exemplifies mooching. But as a single guy dating in Miami, Masuka is probably sensitive to excuses like "I left my pitaka in the car." He employs Deb to dig up dirt on her.

6. Dr. Vogel, you're going to be taken: Yates is apparently the brain surgeon, but he also might be a foot fetishist with pliers ... I guess he's both. Why the hell not. In my paborito scene from this episode, Yates simply walks sa pamamagitan ng Vogel's window, crashes through it and tackles her. There's an invasive violence to this moment that worked for me. Just don't think about Yates too much. Yates has been doing an extremely elaborate psychological tormenting of Vogel this season, re-arranging crime scenes and leaving little gift boxes of brains and so forth. He seems like a totally different character than somebody who would just do a rage-filled smash-and-grab. His major personality traits are being shouty and wearing a hat.

7. Jamie isn't a great matchmaker. Dexter comes tahanan in a rush during his hunt to find Dr. Vogel, but he's ambushed sa pamamagitan ng his nanny who has invited cute neighbor Cassie over for drinks to set her up with Dexter. She had breezily mentioned the idea of hapunan previously but not really made it clear all she had planned. It's "less awkward this way" she explains. Sure Jamie, there's nothing remotely awkward about coming tahanan after a hard araw at work to a surprise first petsa in your own living room! Dexter protests and she's outraged. "I planned this whole night for you!" she says. Dexter briefly relents, and agrees to spend some time with Cassie, who proves to be a good sport about everything. "Serial killer bested sa pamamagitan ng 100-pound nanny," he quips.

8. The brain surgeon dies -- maybe: Deb wanted to help Dexter rescue Vogel since that will help her presumably get madami over killing LaGuerta. Works for us! Vogel fends off Yates sa pamamagitan ng pretending to be his mother and slapping him. She uses his phone to call Dexter, tipping him and Deb to their location. The killer Morgans arrive and rescue her, with Dex impaling Yates with a curtain rod. The therapy feels complete, for now -- Dex and Deb seem like they're on the same page again. "The family that kills together..." Deb says. All three of them participate in the solemn body-dumping/fish-feeding ceremony off the Slice of Life, one murderous family. Deb has it exactly right when she says: "If anyone really knew us, they'd run screaming."

I know some of you will be in the "you're being too hard on the show!" camp. It's not like "This Little Piggy" or kamakailan episodes have been unusually lacking based on nakaraan seasons. It's just that ibingiay the creative components this ipakita has to play with -- a final season, a serial killer working in a police department, his unhinged sister -- you would think the regular characters would be actively working at cross-purposes against each other rather than merely getting into occasional arguments. You would hope each episode would leave you cliff-hanged with "I can't wait to see what happens next," or "How can Dexter possibly get out of this?" rather than "Well, I guess that wraps it up for that killer in the hat."