Dexter - There's Something About Harry

Damn, this episode was HEAVY. Harry died...by suicide. He didn't die by heart failure. It was overdose. And the reason why he did that? He walked in on Dexter chopping up a killer that was able to escape prosecution on a technicality. Harry saw the body on the slab, Dexter all bloody and puked on the plastic covered floor. He told Dexter to stay away. This all connects as Doakes is in the chain cell shell-shocked by Dexter's gory activities killing, chopping up, and bagging up the body of another killer (with a body count). This whole "Harry's Code"...Dexter thinking to himself that Harry had seen what he had done and couldn't live with the fact he created a monster. It is one thing to talk about it, to discuss it. It is a whole other thing to actually see the manifestation of that in a room with a body on a slab all cut up. Up to this point, it wasn't fully articulated. Memories of Harry that Dexter would relive came in snippets and brief interludes. Now this episode tells us that Dexter's entire code and reason to hunt killers and remove them from society has been called into devastating question. This allowed Dexter to commit to his murderous ways and feel as if it was okay...because of who Dexter was taking off the streets. Doakes, someone who only killed when on the job and in accordance to the law, sees Dexter's at work, though he's spared the gruesome details thanks to plastic wrap shielding him from visually absorbing this horrifying activity, though the sound of the saw cutting through flesh and bone would leave many of us deeply disturbed by it all. Because we spend so much time with Dexter, hear his thoughts, experience his memories, follow him around, it takes an episode like this with someone in the room having to realize what is happening just feet from him to remember that the main star of the show is a monster.

The subplot with Lila is developing with Angel drawn into her crazy. She learns from Angel that Dexter and Rita are working on their relationship, trying to make it work. That is obviously not okay with her. She fucks Angel mad in her loft, then takes a drug purchased from a street seller, hitting her head on something in the bathroom, collapsing to the floor. Lila and Angel were painting walls together, while Dexter is fully distancing himself totally from her. Rita wants to go slow and see how just hanging out with each other goes. Rita's mother is out of the picture, and the kids really need someone in their life, so she's willing to work on a relationship with Dexter. Dexter tells her that his father committed suicide, impacted by this news, told to him by Captain Matthews, a partner of Harry's.

LaGuerta is working hard to find evidence that Doakes is not the Bay Harbor Butcher, with Lundy very frustrated with her over not reporting the phone calls with their prime suspect. Lundy wanted to bring Doakes in cold and try to prove if he is innocent, but LaGuerta possibly jeopardized that. A notebook with notes, details, diagrams of a stakeout isn't enough to help Doakes...Lundy scolds her and tells her to find something else. Debra and Lundy's up-and-down romance is wholly realized in this episode as he speaks about soon leaving Miami once the case is closed, while she is quite shaken at the thought of their relationship ending. 

With all the ongoing drama, this episode excels when it gets Dexter and Doakes in the cabin together. Doakes even begs Dexter not to kill the guy he brings in the cabin, trying to talk to him about his having a conscience. It doesn't work. Dexter even drugs some water that Doakes drinks, uses his prints for a hatchet, dumping a "tool kit blanket" in the harbor for implication at a future date. So Dexter is committed to the lie. Whatever code or reasoning, rationale or means to ease that issue of conscience in his mind, Dexter has done things to Doakes to save his own skin. Dexter is not a good guy. Context is key. The show makes sure we realize that. 5/5