Dexter - Seeing Red

Sure enough, Pellegrino pops up yet again, as Rita's loathsome, trouble-making ex. Tonight's episode presented Dexter with yet another nuisance to rid himself of, as Rita could not get a break unless he was removed from the equation. Dexter continues to try and avoid revealing too much about himself to Debra who clearly would prefer to be closer to him. Debra having an adopted brother who is a serial killer and fucking another that is a prosthetics doc moonlighting as the Ice Truck Killer serves as a twisted bit of story development. And all the other dramas involving the police department Dexter is employed as the blood analyst included keeps the show from getting very much relax time.

IMDb review I just completed for the night is more or less what I felt overall...

“Seeing Red” covers a lot of emotional ground, particularly when it comes to Rita’s contentious relationship with her scumbag ex, Paul, the threat of losing her children if he doesn’t get visitation a real possibility. Even more striking is Dexter’s reaction to a very bloody crime scene at a hotel, a clue of its existence left in a blood-filled jar with a key at the police department. Rudy knowing Dexter’s secret and using trauma from the past (and that trauma being reawaken by Dr. Emmett Meridian) to disturb him allows us to see the lead forensic blood expert rattled and shaken, not the norm for someone who typically doesn’t suffer ill effects at gory crime scenes. But with the hotel room, drenched and spattered throughout with blood, eerily similar to a crime scene Dexter knew all too well as a child (an event that ultimately twisted and warped his psychology and altered his functionality within society, forcing him to pretend to be “normal” when he feels [almost] nothing), the trauma now serves as a mechanism of physical suffering, memories debilitating and seizing him with anxiety attacks. Dexter wants to find the means to be rid of Paul so that Rita can be “enchanting” instead of “worried” but inside his apartment the memories bring on terror he cannot shake. Rudy has a vested interest in Dexter’s condition after seeing the blood in the hotel room, unable to “get wood” so that Debra could have sex, resulting in a cold bedroom. Rudy is totally involved in how Dexter responds to his antics, while Dexter tries to go about his life/career, not quite able to usurp the distractions now laying hold to him. The entanglements of a sister wanting to have a connection with him, Paul provoking him to strike the dirtbag with a skillet when ridiculing Rita, Rita’s possibility of losing the kids due to her striking him with the bat and breaking a custody agreement, Debra not especially happy with Rudy spending time with Dexter instead of her, and the aforementioned trauma rising to the fore at times all begin to complicate Dexter’s cultivated and well-manufactured lie of a life. White roses are what Dex tells Rudy he should have ready when apologizing to Debra about the little rift, with an I Love You to follow…this after Rudy tries to kill Angel because he was investigating painted nails on prosthetic fingers, getting a bit too close for comfort. Dexter setting up Paul by leaving behind drug paraphernalia, a needle in his arm, and called police arriving at his bed as he awakens from the skillet to the noggin would appear to alleviate one heavy burden from Rita’s life due to the Three Strike Law. But memories of chainsaws, blood, and his mother won’t allow Dexter to have peace after his staging of a “relapse” on Paul. Angel trying to recover from his failed marriage, Vince’s continued sleazy banter (and zingers), the five-victim blood soaked room that has sent Dexter into a valley of discontent, LaGuerta’s release to the media that a wrongfully accused Ice Truck Killer and reopening of the case would have all questions directed to her racist, bigot superior (and glory hog), Captain Matthews (Geoff Pierson), Sgt Doakes ongoing tensions with his own cop brethren (for sleeping with a cop’s wife) and a high-level crime family are also concurring subplots / character developments complementing the seasonal arc involving the Ice Truck Killer and Dexter’s peculiar “dance” with him.