Dexter - See-Through

Lila is infatuated with a dead body she sees

 Dexter sees Deb fucking some gym trainer...yeah, awkward. Dexter makes sure the next morning to keep the subject of that changed. He desperately needs to know what Matsuka found that might be a turning point in catching the Bay Harbor Butcher because he is the Bay Harbor Butcher. Algae tied to a specific boat might just be what snakebites Dex. So what will he do to keep his boat from implicating him? 

This episode had plenty of "Dex-isms" that amused me to no end. His immediate feeling about Rita's mom, Gail (JoBeth Williams!) and altering that when she remarks about how the Bay Harbor Butcher perhaps isn't so bad considering his targets were all bad people. How he considers parents aliens from a distant world. His comfortable attraction to Lila (Jaime Murray), even as he attempts to "break up" their "sponsorship" relationship when Rita lays out a hint he should find an older man as his mentor in addiction therapy. Lila's ease and intrigue with a dead body Dexter introduces her to in Lundy's major crime unit lab...she sees behind his mask and could very well be okay with who he really is. Dexter's thoughts about how that algae on the rocks helped to weigh dead bodies down could be the evidence that sends him to the electric chair or receiving a needle in the arm.

No matter how Dexter might seem to avoid certain capture, it seems he never can quite completely remove himself from the equation. Like the algae rocks or from the suspicion of Gail, Dexter never quite feel free from the restraints of what he's done. With all the memories of Harry making sure Dexter was "free and clear", even convincing him as a child to tell a doctor conducting a behavioral test the opposite of how he feels or things he has done (like kill animals). I thought to myself in the episode, "Lila will more than likely enable him". That seems like a disaster in the making. The episode has plenty of Dexter wrought with paranoia and feeling the turn of the screw the longer the Bay Harbor Butcher cases continue. He's close to those involved in the case so there is that advantage. It sure as hell doesn't hurt.

The melodrama inside the department sure gets plenty of time in the episode. That LaGuerta is the other woman sleeping with Pascal's fiance and gets her Homicide Department head position back because Pascal falls apart is really fucked up. LaGuerta made Pascal feel as if they were allies. And Captain Matthews seeing Pascal just deteriorate while LaGuerta seemed to be protective of her, only to happily accept her old position back...that's stone cold. The obvious hints of Deb being attracted to the much older Lundy (who tells her the "once in a lifetime love" most humans have he already had seems to indicate she died), I don't know how I feel about. I don't see the chemistry between them, but the show is still going that route with how Deb smiles at him. Lundy seems so oblivious, of course. He's like the mentor parental figure. Maybe this is one of those sexual Daddy kinks Deb might have. Yikes. 

Angel really wants to figure out why one of the Bay Harbor Butcher's victims seems so unlike twelve other victims who fit such an unsavory profile. The wife of the victim gives him nothing to go on and Angel takes her to task for it. He needs this guy to fit that "dregs of society" profile. Perhaps the victim will. Dexter's selection of victims are quite specific. Angel feels if he can make sense of why the victim was chosen, it will bring him one step closer to identifying the Butcher. This series is ingenious because we know who the Butcher is and his very department is trying to identify him. So both sides are presented to us. When Dexter uses a refrigerator break causing heat to effect the bodies in Lundy's lab, this act of desperation still doesn't let him off the hook...Dexter hopes "the garbage man did it" will stick. It was worth a shot. The back and forth of Dexter getting information and trying to undermine the very people he works with is quite a series arc. Never can Dexter quite get away from who he is and what exists inside him will always place him in the cross-hairs of the police.

Not to be left out, Doakes' Army Rangers/Special Ops background helps to locate a fellow Ranger who killed his wife. Dexter's gunshot/blood pool/spatter analyses helps Doakes feel confidant that the killer is the husband. Locating the killer to his boat and their conversation about their past and what they were responsible for (and had seen that caused PTSD and trauma), it doesn't stop the inevitable...guns pulled, an arrest or gunfire the only outcomes. 4/5

The Lila storyline, and how she's a thief who steals art from homes (and the city, such as when she wrecks into a post purposely with her jeep), has taken some turns that seem destined for something very, very dark. I can only see this revealing a side to her Dexter might encourage to get worse.