Dexter - That Night, a Forest Grew

 In That Night, a Forest Grew, I was struck by the ongoing stories and how I felt about Rita, in particular. A prevailing thought stays on my mind...being free of Dexter keeps Rita safe. Yes, mother Gail is controlling and overpowering with how she seems to overbearingly throws her weight around as an authoritative voice. With no father or potential father there, Gail has assertively took on that role. Rita comes home with groceries, just spent. Her kids rush her with big hugs so thankful to see her after hours with the wearisome Gail. There was comfort with Dexter. Rita seemed happy. However, Dexter is a serial killer. And he's a night hunter as well as a blood spatter crime scene analyst with a compulsion or Dark Passenger that will never go away. Whether or not you dislike Doakes' attitude and short trigger temper/fuse, he is right in that ever nagging feeling that Dexter has something wrong, something suspicious about him. And Dexter feels the heat, too, needing to paint Doakes as a hothead, so he tells the sergeant one thing about blood evidence involving a father with his daughter's blood on him while giving LaGuerta totally different information. So Doakes is hammering the father in the interrogation room with LaGuerta stopping it, releasing the suspect. Dexter is beginning to work on decimating Doakes' reputation, as LaGuerta warns him to tone down the attitude and chill out on the obsessive stalking of a fellow member of law enforcement. So Rita, at this point, is free of Dexter. Dexter, instead, is highly involved with Doakes' investigation of him and this very sexual, intimate relationship with Lila. I laughed out loud at how Deb responds to "skank" Lila...she shrugs at Lila, with breasts exposed, followed by, "Eww." Although it is obvious Rita will be reunited with Dexter, and Doakes and Lila will eventually be taken out of the show, I felt while watching this episode that Rita would have been so much better off. But Deb takes Dexter to task for his issues with Rita. You can just see Dexter descending further and further into trouble. As Lundy has his team, including Angel as his Miami department leader, picking apart pages of nonsense Dexter put together simply as time-consuming waste of resources, Deb looks forlornly at Lundy, clearly madly in love. I still think "Daddy issues" with her, but she listens to Chopin due to Lundy's influence and her eyes hangs on him when they are alone. 3/5

Rita's reaction to Gail's persistent remaining presence in her home already shows signs of frustration, and Gail waking her up after three late sleep days in a row just further adds to that. Margo Martindale's Camilla, coming to Dexter about her concerns regarding Doakes searching for files on his family and how their destruction at Harry's request could cost her a retirement pension really instigates action from Dexter. So lots of drama piling up on Dexter...par for the course, I guess.