Dexter - Resistance Is Futile

 When this episode was over, I was like, "I don't even know where to begin". I am like, "No, you better not write a novel on this one! Don't do it!" 

The second season has been building to this conclusion where Doakes and Dexter would be face to face, and the truth about the Bay Harbor Butcher would be discovered. Not all the way, out in the open, because Lundy and his FBI believe Doakes is the Butcher since the blood slides from behind Dexter's air conditioner were found in the sergeant's car at the airport. Doakes needs evidence and tells LaGuerta as much. Lundy even has protection for Dexter, while the show was leading us to believe (as Dexter had believed) he was under investigation. Doakes, like a shark to chum, was always onto Dexter. It was inevitable he would be the one who first discovered Dexter was the Butcher. Well, perhaps Lila knew he was first. That Doakes couldn't arrest Dexter and take him into the station handcuffed without physical altercation was never an option...Dexter isn't about to be arrested in the second season. But the show had to find a route towards getting away without being arrested. So Dexter, even when handcuffed, was able to scuffle with Doakes (even though a gunshot gets him in the leg) and go into water (and, ultimately, subdue him to the point that he goes unconscious and wakes up in a cell in the cabin Dexter uses for his body chop shop), affording him the chance to gain advantage. So the episode closes with the viewer wondering if Doakes will ever make it out of the cabin alive or remain there until Dexter determines how to shut him up. And clearly Doakes will never allow Dexter, "that sick fuck", to just continue his murderous ways.

Lila won't go away quietly. She is addicted to Dexter and won't just exit the picture. Angel, though, is all too willing to be used by her in order to annoy Dexter. Dexter is totally through with her, and the episode makes sure to heal the wounds that have been open between him and Rita. Every time I see Rita and Dexter is around, my stomach tightens because I know that as long as he is in her life, danger and certain violence will be visited upon her eventually. In the second season, Lila is that danger, and Dexter knows it. He wouldn't have fallen asleep in a chair at her home. Rita admits she can't help but want to be back with Dexter, and he feels the same. So they are inexorably linked, to Rita's detriment. Even though she doesn't know the kind of man he really is.

I am the first to admit that I find the sexual relationship between Lundy and Debra is cringe. I just see everything that could go wrong with this situation. LaGuerta inadvertently drawing that out of Debra (she just believes, as the Miami police department crew does, that Debra is Lundy's "pet", her fave) with folks all giving that admission the "look" is that big awkward moment that makes me look away. Cringe city. Debra talking about Lundy being experienced and great in bed while naked on top of him, and Lundy emerging from bed with his bare ass...I just want out of this storyline as soon as possible. I am not the one for this subplot. LaGuerta will surely use this revelation against Lundy. Lundy dressing her down about Doakes being a prime suspect and announcing that to the public...I wonder if he will be so quick to announce Doakes as a suspect after that admission! 

The Lila subplot is clearly that thorn in the side for Dexter, and, yet, it is complicated because she knows he has a darkside, particularly when it comes to the man who killed his mother.. sure she's a nuisance he can't seem to shake. Dexter, though, leaving his apartment to get back to the cabin when Feds are outside as protection (Lundy's protection is terrible!) and being caught by Doakes seems to be that hiccup he might have caused for himself..he gets sloppy and finds himself in more and more trouble.

There is a flashback involving Harry introducing Dexter at a younger age to an execution while the adults in the room judgmentally observes them. Harry needed to reiterate the importance of not being caught. And in this episode, Dexter continues to deal with that very possibility...which is the point.

The Feds in Dexter's lab while others in the department are pissed at Lundy's team just moving throughout their office investigating them is quite a hoot. I always find it amusing how the cops don't like these outsiders just commandeering their work space. But Debra getting it rough for being close to Lundy provides some really intense scenes. They want answers and Debra legit doesn't know. Lundy doesn't tell her until Dexter is brought in to view the blood slides and get the lowdown on Doakes. Seeing Doakes' reputation dragged through the mud while Dexter is seemingly in the clear left me really feeling that ick. And, yet, we all know that Dexter isn't about to be implicated and arrested in the second season. That wasn't even remotely about to happen. 4/5

Oh, and since I did the very thing I yelled at myself not to do, the dream sequence where Dexter is pulling on the dead body of his mother's killer at the station and Lundy yelling at him kicks off the episode just right. The great irony of the episode is Doakes attaining the slides, leaving them in his car, and implicating himself accidentally.