Dexter Review: “A Little Reflection”

Well, despite Time Warner Cable and CBS’s best efforts, I managed to watch Dexter last night even though Showtime no longer existed in my channel lineup. I won’t say how, but I’ll give you a hint: It’s something I don’t feel bad about considering I’m paying an extra $15 a month for a channel which has now been yanked away from me because of corporate squabbling that I have nothing to do with.

Last week, Dexter seemed to hit sort of a reset button by seemingly ending the major plotline of the season with the death of the supposed Brain Surgeon killer. Deb and Dex are friends, Vogel is a cool new mother figure, and all is well.

Now, for the last seven episodes here, we have to be building toward some sort of grand finale, even if the plot has cooled down. As you’ll note in the paragraph above, I use words like “seemingly” and “supposed” because in no way do I believe the dead man from last week was the Brain Surgeon killer.

“You mean you’re kind of insane yourself wanting to train psychopaths to murder better? Who would have thought?”

Rather, you commenters have convinced me that Vogel is actually the killer, something I will admit I didn’t think of on my own, but really is the only thing that makes sense now that I’m considering it. The killer is unseen, a rarity for the show, and at least once, forced a victim to kill another victim at gunpoint. That seems like something a frail, older, female killer would have to do. Though I’m not sure how she hung that last guy on a meathook by herself.

Vogel would have staged the killings in order to reveal herself to Dexter and ask for his help so that she could continue to study him in his adult years. I would imagine that would be the full extent of her plan if this turns out to be true, and I just hope it isn’t the big series finale reveal. I will say that I didn’t immediately see it coming like I did with Travis Marshall and the ghost of Professor Gellar, but it’s also not exactly the most brilliant twist I’ve ever heard of either.

But for now, Vogel is content trying to expand her studies further by adopting a new student, Zack, who she believes can be taught the code the way Dexter was, and be molded into a vigilante superhero killer as well. It’s a rare case for the show where what appeared to be a useless subplot, the murder Quinn is trying to solve, crosses over to actually be relevant to the central plot.

Kid is a psychopath obsessed with taking pictures of blood. Dexter: “We have nothing in common!” Come on.

The problem I have in this season is that over the years, there have been many people getting close to Dexter’s secret. Doakes in season 2, Quinn in season 4 and La Guerta in season 7. You would think as this is the FINAL season of the show, and there are only seven episodes left, that SOMEONE would be turning up the heat on him now, but that just isn’t the case so far. Rather, he’s adopted a new little protégé, even though we already did the whole “let’s train a new killer” thing back with Miguel Prado in season 3. This is sort of a better scenario, with him being a surrogate son Dexter can teach, but I can’t see it ending well in any case

In actual useless subplot land, we have Quinn failing to make sergeant, which I’m sure is as gripping to you as it is to me. Quinn is proving to be somewhat useful to the central story now though as he’s tailing Zack, and therefore could discover some of his and Dexter’s secrets. If anyone could end up getting close to Dexter’s truth in the next few episodes here, it’s him.

Probably the best scene of the night, and the most relevant Quinn has been in years.

Otherwise, Masuka did exactly what I said he would do and offended his daughter by implying she was a golddigger. Womp womp. And I’m ready to write off Deb’s boss Elway as one of the show’s famous red herrings at this point, as I don’t know how or why he would plausibly turn out to be evil, and I think I was just reading too much into him making mixed drinks for Deb. I think he just has a crush on her, and mercifully, we appear to have abandoned the whole “Dexter and Deb want to secretly bang” thing that reared its ugly head last season. At least I hope so, but it would be weird to have that as a plot point, then just completely forget about it as the show concludes.

And of course we finally saw the return of Hannah, poisoner extraordinaire who roofies Dex and Deb and asks Dexter if he remembers her when of course he f***ing remembers her. I had no idea how they were going to bring her back this season, and I still don’t. The only thing I can think of is that she’s somehow connected to Vogel, maybe an ex-patient, or that she finally found out that Dexter killed her asshat father in the worst episode of last season, and she’s out for revenge. Or she just wants to piss him off enough so he screws on her a kill table again, I don’t know. I never liked Hannah as a character, and I can see no good from her returning to the show. I wish Lumen would come back instead.

I don’t know what this show is building to other than the possible Vogel/Brain surgeon reveal. These episodes just feel like a lot of empty space, and far from the pulse-pounding early seasons that had me on the edge of my seat. There’s still time to make this an epic finish, but at its current pace, I don’t think the show has anything quite so spectacular planned.