Dexter - The British Invasion

 

I failed to mention a subplot for Deb in my bottom review. She planned to leave with Lundy since he was to be sent off to Oregon on another serial killer case for the FBI. The Bay Harbor Butcher case closed, and Miami detectives given commendations for their work helping the FBI, Deb has to choose between helping Dexter or joining Lundy at the airport in a decision to leave behind her career at the department for a brand new life elsewhere. But since Deb is such an important piece in the puzzle of this series, that choice is obvious. 

If there ever was an episode of this show that made me feel like I needed a shower, it's this one. Lila essentially saves Dexter's ass. She even paints a picture of him out of different colors that presents his face as sinister, doing so, I'm sure, lovingly and passionately. She does feel he's her soulmate. This is so fucked up because Lila finds Doakes at Dexter's kill cabin and decides that after discovering a chopped-up body he was so alone and needed rescue...who else to do that for him but her. How else to prove loyalty to him, to define herself as his soulmate than blow up any evidence of Dexter as the Bay Harbor Butcher? Damn, it's downright diabolical. Dexter, at first, believes this was a stroke of luck. He decides to embrace a freedom granted him, not realizing until researching the evidence with Masuka that his GPS was among the items found at the remains of the crime scene/explosion. "Hopelessly consumed by your need", Lila realized Dexter was. There is a great dialogue scene between Dexter and Lila at an aquarium regarding "emotional colorblindness", wanting to feel emotions, "pantomiming" them but not actually feeling them. Who else but Dexter understands this? He told us all of that at the very beginning of the series. Dexter, after a great bit of morning sex with Rita, knows what he really wants, but Lila is the obstruction in the way. How will he remove that obstruction? Appeal to her impulses and take her out when she's most vulnerable. 

There is also this fantastic scene where LaGuerta is handing out fliers for a memorial fund honoring Doakes. She truly loved him and even though he's ruled conclusively as the Butcher, LaGuerta has to believe he was much more than that. And because Deb understands what is like to be in love with a serial killer, she recognizes LaGuerta's pain. Poor Doakes just couldn't catch a lucky break in life...or death.

Deb ruining Dexter's chance to stick the needle in Lila's neck proves to be a major setback. Lila has Dexter's tool organization bag, including a hypodermic with knock-out drug, and so a plan is in place to get some revenge...Rita is that revenge.

The fact that Lila would set her loft on fire with Rita's kids and Dexter inside says a lot about how close in spirit to Dexter she really was. Dexter gets the kids out through a window but must throw himself through a wall that was weakened in integrity in order to save himself. Meanwhile, Lila leaves the country as Deb wanted (and needed to herself in order to hopefully start anew), but she isn't able to avoid an inevitable fate: Dexter. 

This episode is really dark. Dexter jabs Lila in the spinal cord, awaiting her in a Paris apartment. She loses all feeling as Dexter carries her to a plastic body bag, thanking her for embracing who he was. This as he sticks the knife in her stomach watching her go. And, with a whole new blood slide case, Dexter prepares for a future of killing, planning to evolve, not be so careless...just embrace the Dark Passenger inside him. 

Dark, really dark. 5/5

Seeing Doakes unable to escape, trying to get out after unlocking his cage, even attempting to turn off the stove, with the explosion throwing a fireball right into him is quite a wallop. For the past few episodes, Doakes has done everything in his power to get out and find safe harbor. Unfortunately, Dexter had this "miracle" in the form of Lila. And LaGuerta is the one who was there until the end trying to make anyone believe Doakes wasn't the Butcher. Seemingly off scot-free, Dexter appears to be in the clear. We know it, Dexter knows it, but the two others who knew it are dead.