Dexter - Return to Sender

****/****

Dexter being put into a bind makes for such a better show, I think. Just that “noose squeezing and tightening”, as Dexter observes in his ever-worrying mind, builds up the suspense…will Dex be caught? And if he isn’t caught, how does Dex get out of it? That is really it. With the turn of the screw, how does Dexter escape before all the evidence pythons him into the coil? That is what ultimately increases the tension. A little immigrant boy found in a trunk, his eye peeping out of the hole where the lock once was, Oscar seeing Dexter inject the tranquilizer into Jorge’s wife…one among many turns of the screw and tightening of the python coil. The Ice Truck serial killer diving into the drink to secure the Castillo woman, leaving her dead naked body for the police to find. The animal tranquilizer substance found by Matsuka who was running a list of those who could secure it. And Rita’s “soon to be” ex-husband getting out early, wanting to insert himself into her life again. Dex is about to dump his “trophies” (blood drops from all his victims, kept on glass, kept in a box inside his air conditioner. His homicide cop sister putting together the correct profile…mimicking him! How could any of this go well for Dexter?

Is the Ice Truck killer getting even with Dexter out of anger towards him not finishing off the victim left for him? Or is the Ice Truck killer just issuing a challenge to see if he can squirm out of it all without getting caught?

So seeing Dexter avoid the noose as he sets off to control the situation through cunning and cover-up is part of the brilliance of the episode. Obviously he can’t get caught in the first season, right? It is too soon (as Dexter mentions in some narration), and Dexter needs further challenges besides the first serial killer to know of his handiwork before truly suffering “capture”. I speak as someone working his way through without all the answers.

But seeing Dexter battling achingly (he doesn’t like it so obviously it is something that resembles feeling) against his sister, Deb, and having to undermine her is also a major conflict he’s up against. He must implicate the husband in order to save his own skin. In doing that, Deb’s theory must be extinguished. Live to solve the next case, Deb, so that Dexter can continue to “do what he does best”.

Oscar sees a savior, not a murder