Episode Report Card Jeff Long: B | 1 USERS: C YOU GRADE IT In Sickness and In Sickness
By Jeff Long | Season 3 | Episode 12 | Aired on 12.14.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Everything gets wrapped up so neat and tidy in this episode. Dexter dumps Miguel's body and even skins him a little bit, in order to adequately frame The Skinner for his death. Ramon tells Dexter that Miguel had hired him to protect him… from Dexter. So, he's angry and believes that Dexter is to blame.
Rita's mother can't make it to the wedding, so she sends a card saying that she hopes the "third time is the charm." Rita says that she must be talking about her baby being the third child and Dexter gets his spidey sense all tingly. Looks like Rita was married one other time.
Ramon trashed Dexter's apartment, but luckily didn't find the blood slides. Dexter does a little research and finds out that Rita was married once when she was 16 -- for six months. Angel recommends Deb for detective! Then, he finds out that she was sleeping with Anton. Maria calls her into her office and Deb thinks she's going to be read the riot act for the indiscretion. Deb says that being involved with Anton wasn't a mistake for her personally. Maria had a different plan for the conversation -- they have a really tender moment and Maria gives her the badge!
Maria wants to drag Miguel's name through the mud for having killed Ellen, but Dexter convinces her not to. Instead, she ends the ethics investigation that Miguel had instigated regarding Deb. Dexter had Astor and Cody in the car with him and was being tailed by King. Dexter made him run a red light to keep up and he ended up having a collision with another car. Then, Ramon showed up at Dexter and Rita's rehearsal dinner and pointed a gun at Dexter. He was apprehended and Dexter visited him in jail. He planned on planting Ellen Wolfe's wedding ring on Ramon to get rid of him. But, when he talked to him, he found out that Miguel had lied about kicking his father down the stairs when he was young. That had been Ramon. Apparently, Ramon had also been cleaning up after Miguel's messes for years. Dexter decides that he's no danger -- he keeps the ring to himself.
The day before the wedding, King kidnaps Dexter. Dex tells him that he killed Freebo already -- he also calls out King for being a guy who just enjoys killing people. He doesn't even care about Freebo. Dexter escapes, but ends up breaking his hand in a fall and King cuts him a little bit. He kills King just as the police arrive. From a second story in the factory where he was being held, Dexter throws him beneath a police car. They think that King committed suicide and Dexter leaves without speaking to them.
Dexter and Rita finally get married. Everything is beautiful and happy. Deb and Anton get back together and he's her plus one. As Dexter dances with Rita, a little drop of blood escapes the cast that is holding his broken hand and drops onto the back of her white dress.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Dexter and Miguel Prado became friends who killed together. Miguel wanted to kill a rival defense attorney, Ellen Wolf, but Dexter said they couldn't -- because she wasn't really guilty of anything. Miguel decided to do it anyway. Miguel freaked at Dexter, telling him that he'll do whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it, COUNT ON IT! Seriously, Showtime has shown him screaming that so many hundreds of times. Much like the Empire Carpets commercials, I love it more every time I see it. Dexter decides that he needs to kill Miguel. Maria was on to Miguel and he knew it. She took a sample from his car and it proved that Ellen had been there. He was about to kill Maria when Dexter intervened and killed him first. He plans on blaming it on The Skinner. Deb and Anton are on the outs. Dexter told Deb that Harry had cheated on his wife -- but he didn't mention that his mistress had been his biological mother, only that she had been a CI. No one at the station can get the true identity of George "The Skinner" King. Dexter killed Miguel as he screamed at Dexter that this was not the end for him.
We open with Miguel, in black slacks and tank top, lying dead on a beautiful lawn overlooking the water. Dexter VO's that there are few responses we can provoke that are more powerful than our deaths. That's pretty true, huh? Death and facial hair choices. People are always talking about anything you do with your facial hair. In a stop-start fading style, we see someone discover Miguel's body, then cops arrive. As he's photographing the scene, Dex VO's that Miguel's body, while recently walking and talking and threatening, is now just an empty vessel -- which is not that different from how he already views himself. Vince says that there are patches of skin missing from Miguel's shoulder -- Dexter's attempt to pin the blame on The Skinner. Deb wonders why King would kill Miguel and Quinn says that, since Miguel was going after Freebo, he must have assumed that Miguel knew something about his whereabouts. Dexter sees Ramon glaring from afar. He VO's that some people deal with death by being angry. Ramon deals with waking up in the morning by being angry, right? Granted, I'm a morning person, but still. That guy is pissed about everything. Angel stops him and asks him if he wants off of this task, seeing as how he and Miguel were such close friends. Dex feigns grief and says that he'll be fine, then he VO's that he's going to play the part of the grieving friend who buries himself in his work. As Miguel's body is being carried away, lots of the police and coroner's office folks remove their hats and bow their heads. Dex VO's that you can tell a lot about a man by the friends that he leaves behind -- and this was his best friend. I would agree that it does indeed say a lot about the person who is Dexter's best friend. It says something like, "I'm surprised that you didn't get killed sooner."