| Season 8 | Episode 4
Quinn passes his test, and he and Jamie have apparently reconciled again, but when they're out at Batista's restaurant celebrating, they overhear the patrolman who brought Deb in engaging in some disparaging gossip about her, which pulls Quinn into a fistfight. Jamie's actually not upset about that one, which speaks well of her, but Quinn's situation goes south when Matthews strongly urges Batista to consider Angie for sergeant instead of Quinn. This doesn't even get resolved this episode, so zzzzz.
Dexter has crossed off three more potential suspects from Vogel's book, and as such is now up to an "A.J. Yates," a violent criminal from an early age who's now a seemingly normal cable guy – but also bears a scar that indicates he may have had brain surgery right in the area from which The Brain Surgeon has been harvesting his trophies. Suspicious of Vogel's methods, he confronts her, and Vogel admits that Yates had a lesion on his brain she guessed was contributing to his violent tendencies, so she recommended it be removed, although she never knew for sure that her prescription even came to pass.
Dexter checks out Yates' place and finds a closet full of women's shoes, individual ones at that – unaware that Yates is in the house, watching him from a secret surveillance room in which he's holding a helpless woman captive. Yates sneaks up on him, but pauses to listen when Dexter calls Vogel on speaker to report his findings, mentioning his son in the process, whereupon Yates lets him go, possibly planning to use him to get to Vogel. When Dexter returns to the house, he realizes Yates saw him and makes him as The Brain Surgeon – and also finds one of Yates' victims he thought was dead but in fact survived his stab wound.
After taking her to the hospital, Dexter grabs Vogel and returns to Yates' house – and, on his computer, discovers Yates hacked into Vogel's patient files, which contain her cold and clinical assessments of Dexter's interactions with her. Feeling dangerously betrayed, he accuses her of making him his lab rat and informs her she'll be out of his life as soon as Yates is dead. As Dexter himself notes, though, it's not clear how the girls and the shoes fit into the Brain Surgeon MO, so even if there weren't eight episodes to go it'd seem likely enough there's more going on here.
Deb, tormented by flashbacks to LaGuerta's last moments in which she sees herself shooting Dexter instead of LaGuerta, consents to visiting the scene of the crime with Vogel, and Vogel proves her acumen by getting Deb at least to admit her feelings. With Deb now staying with Vogel, Vogel also shows Deb some of the tapes of her sessions with Harry in aid of making Deb see that Harry protected Dexter in the same way she did. Returning to the shipping container, Vogel closes them in and throws Deb's crimes in her face to make her realize she'd kill LaGuerta to protect Dexter again if faced with the same choice. Deb, finally seeing the light, asks how to make it right, so Vogel counsels her to realize she made the best of an impossible situation.
Later, though, Deb sneaks a look at another of Vogel's recordings showing Harry's remorse over Dexter becoming a killer and wonders how, if Harry couldn't bear Dexter's crimes, she's supposed to live with her own. Eventually, Dexter and Deb mutually reconnect for a car ride – only Deb asks if Harry committed suicide because of what Dexter had become, and Dexter is forced to admit that he did. Deb then goes through with her plan by grabbing the wheel and steering them off a bridge into a lake, planning to kill them both. When a nearby witness saves her, though, Deb reconsiders and yanks her unconscious brother back to the surface, and although he'll survive by definition, at least at this point, it'll be very interesting to see where this will lead.
We're back in the shipping container, with the echoing of LaGuerta's lines and shuddering visuals adding to the haunting effect, and the whole thing plays out exactly as it did in real life - only this time, Deb shoots Dexter dead. As the camera spins around her, a seamless effect transitions us from the horrific red light of the flashback to the soft white tones of the present, as with sunlight streaming in from behind her, Deb enters the place. After she kneels down at roughly the spot on which LaGuerta died, Vogel – wearing a trench coat that can't be temperature-appropriate even in Florida's winter, which this most decidedly is not – appears and asks Deb to tell her what she saw. Deb says she doesn't want to talk about it, as it won't change anything, but Vogel's like, well, repressing what happened isn't exactly doing wonders for your psyche, so how about we skip the bullshit? I mean, she doesn't say it like that, but with her accent I kind of wish she would. Deb, not listening, throws some expected shade, so Vogel remarks that Dexter's need to kill was born in a container not unlike the one they're in now, and I wonder if she knows about Dexter giving Estrada some poetic justice here or if she's just being generally astute. Either way, her point is that as a psychopath, Dexter will never be able to break free of his container-related damage, but she can if she'll relive the events of the night in question.
Deb blurts out what she saw – killing Dexter instead of LaGuerta – so Vogel asks how that made her feel. When Deb confesses she doesn't know, Vogel asks what else she thinks she could have done, and when Deb tries to say she could have arrested Dexter or they could have run, Vogel points out that Death Row would have been the likely result for Dexter in either case. "You've become so obsessed with the life you've taken, you've forgotten the life you saved." Well, if last week showed us anything, it's that reminding Deb of lives she's saved doesn't always have the desired effect. Deb snaps that of course Vogel is defending Dexter – she created him – but Vogel authoritatively tells her that they're not at issue – her mental health is. Deb gets up in Vogel's face, yelling that she doesn't know why she should trust her or why Vogel even cares about her, but Vogel, completely unintimidated, mildly inquires if Deb is upset, and Deb admits that she is, which Vogel tells her is good – she's no longer avoiding her feelings. She then tells Deb that they're done for the day, and Deb tries to take some calming breaths. I'd imagine they'll be more effective once she's left the scene of her murder, though.
| Season 8 | Episode 4
Dexter's at an indoor crime scene featuring a young female victim with some severely fatal head trauma while DVO makes a ridiculously shoehorned and facile observation. (Yes, even for DVO.) Upon examination, Dexter notes that despite all the blows to the woman's face, there's no sign of a struggle or defensive wounds, and with Batista adding that there's no evidence of a break-in, they conclude that "Norma Rivera" knew her attacker. Quinn reports that she was a housekeeper in Biscayne Bay – an upscale neighborhood, the show is kind enough to tell us – and that she had an ex-con ex that came in and out of her life, and since his last name is long and the spelling isn't obvious you're going to have to be content with "Roberto" unless the guy actually becomes relevant.
We then hear that Quinn aced the sergeant's exam, and with Quinn making a pun about STDs I think we can all agree not to spend any more time on that. And speaking of subjects we can skip over quickly, Angie references a "little hottie" who stopped by the station looking for Masuka, but my stomach settles down when Quinn asks Dexter about Deb and Dexter tells him she's hanging in there. Quinn requests that Dexter tell Deb she's in his thoughts, and Dexter says he will, although offhand I can't think of many things he's less likely to do. Much more to himself than Quinn, though, he hopefully says she's going to be okay…
…and then we cut to the beach in the early morning, as Dexter is waiting with two coffees when Vogel arrives, and it's as tenuous as the worst DVO but I'm still going to take that as a shout-out to the similarities between Dexter and Bob Benson on Mad Men. Vogel reports that "you still remain the focal point of your sister's pain" – don't sugarcoat it there, Vogel – and when Dexter says he wants to see Deb, Vogel tells him it's not a good idea at this point. Dexter protests that it's been almost a week, and rather than point out that that's the smallest of potatoes both for therapy in general and against the fact that Deb's been spinning out for six months, after saying she's not sure if Deb's hit rock bottom yet, Vogel steps it up a notch and tells Dexter that he should prepare for the possibility that Deb will never again want Dexter in her life. Again, the British accent mitigates the sugar-free delivery, which always seemed to me to be the best reason to have one. Dexter freezes for a moment before saying he can't do that, and he paces petulantly for a bit until Vogel changes the subject by asking about their killer. Dexter tells her he's up to Chapter Seven in her book, prompting Vogel to recall the name "A.J. Yates," and the thoughtful tone in her voice makes me shiver at his potential M.O. Dexter tells her he'll check back once he's vetted him, and he doesn't add "and you'd better have Deb fixed by then," but I kind of heard it in his tone.
| Season 8 | Episode 4
Dexter is watching Yates, whom he says attacked a classmate with a chair at age twelve and was institutionalized at fifteen. Vogel apparently tried to channel his violent tendencies but failed, so he was eventually transferred to another hospital. Now, he works as a cable/phone/internet bundler, and if that's supposed to make me think he's less of a psycho now, it's not working. DVO then adds, "But I need to know if murder is part of the package," and I can't decide if that gets all the way back around to awesome or if it should be classified as a hate crime. Yates then momentarily removes his hat, which gives us a look at something interesting – he's got a scar across the back of his head that would seem to indicate some brain surgery at some point, and Dexter rechecks Vogel's notes and sees that there's nothing about it mentioned. "Is that the mark of one of her unconventional methods?" Yates drives off to another bundle, and Dexter departs the scene as well…
…whereupon we cut to Vogel's house, with Deb walking into the kitchen in workout attire and thanking Vogel for letting her use the treadmill. Vogel continues the murderous pace of bad wordplay (yes, I just contributed to it) by saying that she's not much for running in place before offering Deb some tea, and when Deb asks for a beer instead, Vogel tells her drinking and drugs have only made her PTSD worse. After handing her the tea, she lightly adds, referring to Deb leaning against the furniture, "ass off the table," only of course Charlotte Rampling's melodious voice makes it "aahss," and Deb complies before asking how long Vogel expects her to stay. Vogel lets that one be in favor of smiling that she sees a lot of Harry in Deb before assuring her that he too wrestled with a lot of doubts regarding Dexter, and she's not as alone as she might think. I feel like her point loses something due to the fact that Harry is dead, but that will be noted importantly soon enough.
Cut to Deb watching another recording of Harry agitatedly describing Dexter having prepared a kill room for a violent criminal who got off on a technicality, although he does go on that he convinced Dexter to forestall any action due to the potential victim's high profile. Harry goes on that Dexter is becoming a man and is going to kill, but Vogel reminds him that they knew this day would come. As Deb watches, obviously feeling some agitation of her own, Harry asks what will happen when he finally tells Dexter it's okay to give in to his urges, and even though Vogel assures him that the Code will do its work, Harry wonders if they might be wrong.
| Season 8 | Episode 4
At this point, Vogel pauses the recording and tells Deb that Harry came around, because he didn't really have a choice – what was he going to do, lock Dexter in an institution, or do nothing until he took an innocent life? "Or protect your brother, giving him the tools he would need to channel his urges – the same way you protected Dexter in that container." It's clear the parallel Vogel's trying to draw, but again, it's hard not to point out that Harry ended up dead in the end. Deb doesn't actually do that, but she does say that she's not like her father and Vogel – she can't just accept this – but Vogel steps forward to tell her that Harry didn't make a mistake saving Dexter, and neither did Deb, "the loving sister." Those words do land a bit, and Vogel once again assures her that she'll get through it, but the moment is interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. Before Vogel goes to get it, though, Deb asks her if she can keep the DVD, and Vogel tells her yes. When Vogel's gone, Deb reluctantly sits down to watch her father again…
…while Vogel answers the door and is chagrined to find Dexter, whom she tells he shouldn't be there. Dexter launches right into the question of Yates' scar, so Vogel hurries him outside and informs him that an X-ray revealed a lesion on Yates' brain, which she suspected was a contributing factor to his violence and as such she recommended be removed, although she never found out if it was actually done. Dexter tells her for future reference that he needs all available information, and Vogel apologizes but then points out that Dexter didn't need to come to her in person for this – he's obviously there because of Deb. She goes on that she's not judging Dexter's relationship with Deb -- and if that's true she's awfully good at her job – but she does want to manage his expectations. Dexter, once again reverting to impatient anger, tells Vogel she has to get Deb to forgive him, as he needs her in his life. Vogel, however, seizes on his use of the word "need," wondering why he thinks that; she notes that Deb always looked up to him, which must have made him feel good about himself. When Dexter confirms that, Vogel tells him it's no wonder he feels lost – Deb became a mirror for him that reflected a positive image of himself that balanced his self-perception as a monster, and when that mirror cracked (crack'd?), the result was that only thing he sees in himself is darkness. Dexter, you still don't seem to have learned that words said to a psychiatrist can turn around on you. I daresay you're going to, though. Dexter counters that there is at least part of him that is a monster, but Vogel demurs – he's part of the natural order, and once he accepts that, he may still want Deb in his life, but he won't need her. Dexter doesn't look entirely convinced, but as usual, I think at least part of him is desperate to buy what Vogel's selling.
| Season 8 | Episode 4
Dexter pulls up to Yates' house; noting the absence of his van, he figures it's safe to go in, and I wouldn't expect it in most criminals' places of residence but just once I'd like to see one of Dexter's broad-daylight break-ins thwarted by an alarm system. Inside, he doesn't find anything of particular suspicion, but he does discover that Yates has a father in a nursing home with a birthday coming up (on July 9, in case you'd lost where in the year the show is). DVO uses this as a typically tenuous bridge to bring up Deb again, eventually wondering if he'll be able to let her go if that's what she needs, before checking out a closet and finding shelves full of women's shoes – and only one of each.
In another really neat effect – I never thought of the VEs on this show as particularly noteworthy, but this episode's full of them – the image flattens into that of a computer screen on which Yates is watching the whole thing via several (presumably) hidden cameras, whereupon he opens a drawer and pulls out what I was thinking would be a gun but actually looks to me (at least on my computer screen) like a taser. I wouldn't be surprised if we get clarification on that point soon enough. As Dexter works to lift a print from one of the shoes, Yates heads upstairs from the basement and sneaks out via a secret panel. Dexter calls Vogel and puts her on speaker so he can work while he's talking, which means that Yates, who's silently approaching, hears Vogel pick up. He freezes with a sharp intake of breath – although not one loud enough for Dexter to hear – as Dexter reports on his findings, adding that while the fact that some of the shoes are old suggests Yates has been doing this for a while, his MO doesn't really add up to him being The Brain Surgeon.
After Vogel shrugs that killers develop over time, Dexter then tells Vogel that he's pulling partial prints, which means he won't get results until the morning, and besides, he's got his son tonight. He disconnects, whereupon he hears a noise – but when he checks out the adjoining hallway, we see Yates has made the choice to withdraw back to his hidey-hole, whereupon he muses to himself that Vogel has a hero. Oh, did I say to himself? Actually, there's a girl, duct tape over her eyes, strapped to a mesh wall in the middle of the room whom we could consider his audience, although she doesn't much look in a fit state to be hearing anything at the moment. Also, in case it means anything, the show continues its tradition of casting more British actors than you'd expect in having Aaron McCusker, a series regular on the original Shameless, as Yates. It's always kind of disturbing when they have hot actors play serial killers, but if the casting director can live with it I suppose the rest of us can too. Yates watches his new foe depart…
| Season 8 | Episode 4
…and then Dexter enters his apartment to find an unfamiliar woman in his kitchen who introduces herself as Cassie (played by One Tree Hill's Bethany Joy Lenz), one of his neighbors – she's a friend of Jamie's come to borrow some laundry detergent. Harrison, followed by Jamie, appears, and after the women leave, Harrison says Cassie's nice, whereupon Dexter says sure – "but does she have a kissy neck?" Well, it seems late in the game to introduce a new love interest, Dexter, but I still have the feeling you're going to find out. For now, though, we get some father-son adorableness…
…before we cut to Papa's (did I ever mention that's the name of Batista's restaurant?), where Jamie, Batista, and Quinn are celebrating Quinn's test results. When Batista gets up to get them another round, though, we hear the patrol officer who picked Deb up last episode loudly making fun of her, and even though Jamie tries to get him to let it go, Quinn marches over and demands some "professional discretion." The guy, who himself sounds on his way to drunkenness levels that parking meters should fear, tells Quinn okay, but as soon as Quinn turns away, the guy tells his friend that he thinks Quinn and Deb "used to bone," and that's how Deb made Lieutenant – on her back. This is enough of Quinn to wheel around and deck the guy, who then tackles him before Batista breaks them up and tells Jamie to get Quinn out of there. On the way out, Quinn apologizes to Jamie, but she tells him it's fine in a tone that implies impatience with the scene but not with the merits, which is fairly big of her, I'd have to say…
…especially since we cut to them in bed, with Quinn's only apparent punishment coming in the form of her playfully teasing his bruised ribs. And I hereby withdraw any mention I made of the show's bad puns earlier, because I have to point out that he's getting off easy.
Dexter's just giving Harrison two pancakes – one for him and one for his imaginary elephant "Dan" – when Jamie arrives with talk of her car dying, which gives her an excuse to bring up potential ride provider Cassie and tell Dexter, essentially, that Cassie liiiiikes him. Hard to say how Dexter feels about that, but he does tell Jamie she can take his SUV while he just grabs a car from the motor pool at the station. Not the best play for his romantic prospects, but definitely for Cassie's long-term health.
We're back at the shipping container, with Vogel letting us know that she got Deb to return by promising her a beer. Heh. Things get less amusing, though, when Vogel sternly tells Deb she's been determined to shut herself in the container, so why don't they? She closes the door before telling Deb to convince her that killing Dexter instead of LaGuerta would have been a better choice. Deb's obviously resistant, but Vogel goes on to point out that LaGuerta was her co-worker – and by the way, why didn't she just stay at the party? Deb says she had to stop him, and rather than note what a great job she did of that, Vogel points out that Dexter has no conscience – he can't help who he is, unlike Deb. "You knew the moment you pointed that gun at LaGuerta it was wrong – and still, you pulled the trigger. You shot a woman in cold blood. You let her bleed out, and did nothing." She's right up in Deb's face now as she adds that Deb killed LaGuerta for simply doing her job, and it's a powerful moment but I still feel obliged to point out that given MM's track record, it wouldn't surprise me to learn competence is an actionable offense.
| Season 8 | Episode 4
Elway steps into Deb's doorway to find her on the floor, case files spread out all over the place, and when he mildly points out they have filing cabinets, she explains that "this is kind of my process." Heh. Apparently, she's feeling better enough about herself in the wake of her last talk with Vogel that she's cutting short her time off, so he decides to welcome her back by ordering food and joining her. I hope he doesn't opt for steaks and beer, because that would just kill Dexter.
Sometime later, they're eating something that doesn't appear to be steak, and Elway babbles something about being a workaholic before asking what drives Deb crazy; after a long pause, she replies, "Family shit." Like, NO KIDDING. This prompts Elway to give forth on how his father was a big rules-spouting Texas oilman and how Elway moved to Florida to become a cop to spite him, but he soon realized he was surrounded by the same rules-oriented mentality he was trying to avoid. However, he wasn't about to give his father any satisfaction, so he waited until he was dead before striking out on his own as a PI, and I have to say, that's some good spitin'! He hands Deb a beer, and she looks at it appraisingly as she confesses that her dad was everything to her, but he wasn't the man she thought he was. "I'm realizing we're more alike than I thought." Elway proposes a toast to dead dads, but although Deb clinks his bottle, she opts to forego the alcohol. I guess this is a Big Step, but I have to point out that the brand looks likely to be pisswater.
At night, Dexter returns to Yates' house to find the shoes gone, which he takes as evidence that Yates left in a hurry. He soon discovers the secret entrance to the basement and heads downstairs, whereupon he realizes that Yates was one step ahead of him, although I'm not sure he processes the possibility that Yates also overheard the phone call. Looking around, he finds a bone saw and a set of instructions on how to slice open the skull, which he takes as conclusive evidence that Yates is The Brain Surgeon. He makes to call Vogel, but he hears a noise, and opening the large metal cabinet from whence it came, he discovers the frizzy-haired girl stuffed within. She's been stabbed, but Dexter realizes she's still alive – the constriction of the narrow space caused pressure on the partially severed pulmonary artery that apparently prevented her from bleeding out. Dexter grabs a handy TV cable (heh) to bind her in order to keep the pressure constant before taking her in his arms and getting her out of there…
| Season 8 | Episode 4
…and then we quickly cross-fade into the same location – only Vogel is now there, and when she asks if the girl will survive, Dexter tells her he dropped her off at the ER (not literally, I hope) and that she should be okay. Inspecting Yates' computer, Dexter realizes he has Vogel's patient files on there – and that there's one that was only created very recently. Over Vogel's protests, he opens it to find notes on "Subject 0" that can only be referring to him, and although if you pause and read everything available you can see that Vogel is open to rethinking certain of her notions around psychopaths, Dexter darkly focuses on the parts that make his emotions sound completely false and delusional. Sounding betrayed, he asks if this is all material for another one of Vogel's books, and while it's a fair question, her own hand in this particular case would necessitate so much rewriting that I wonder if it would be worth the editorial effort. Regardless, Dexter dangerously announces that she was experimenting on him when she worked with Harry and she still is, and Vogel sounds afraid of him for the first time as she unconvincingly denies it. He wonders if keeping him and Deb apart is all part of her plan before informing her that once Yates is dead, she's out of his life – does she understand? "Or do you need to write it down?" HA! His feelings may be manufactured, but the wit is genuine. Vogel says she does, in fact, get it…
…while Deb, back at Vogel's, restlessly picks up the DVD and considers it. She seems to get an idea…
…and we cut to her sneaking into Vogel's office, getting her desk drawer open, and locating another DVD that looks like it was recorded soon after the one she has in her possession. Popping it in, she sees her father agitatedly telling Vogel about walking into Dexter's kill room, with the blood and the dismemberment and the maniacally proud expression on his son's face. Vogel tries to counter that Dexter's victim was a drug dealer who murdered Harry's partner, and I'd have to say she has a point, but Harry bites out that while the Code is only a theory, what he saw in that room was all too grimly real. He then connects the dots a little too obviously by adding, "I don't think I can live with this," and Deb ups the supertextual ante by spitting, "Fuck, I'm supposed to?" If nothing else, though, the little addition she adds to her father's plan at least solves all the problems he's presented.
| Season 8 | Episode 4
Yates is napping in his van – which you'd think he wouldn't park on the street in a residential neighborhood; someone might ask questions eventually – when he gets a call from his father's nursing home. He answers to hear Dexter, in a lilting voice just perfect for the type he's trying to impersonate, that Yates' father's heart is failing, and he might want to come quickly. Yates hangs up and wastes no time getting behind the wheel before Dexter looks over at the sleeping, breathing-tube-wearing form of the father…
…and then a concerned Yates rushes in to take his father's hands – whereupon Dexter, hiding behind the door, closes it. Yates hears the soft noise and stiffens before turning to face his adversary, who's got his trusty needle in his hand, and I'm not exactly sure how Dexter is going to pull off whatever he's planning with no one being the wiser, but as it happens, we won't have to worry about that – because Yates rips the connection out from his father's mask, setting beeping off all over the place, and as Dexter looks confused and horrified as often happens when a psychopathic killer shockingly doesn't roll over and play dead for him, Yates heads straight out the window. Right in time, Dexter returns to the corner, whereupon two nurses rush in and try to revive Yates The Elder. As Dexter slips out unnoticed, DVO can't believe that Yates was willing to take his father's life to save his own…
…and then, in the car, DVO goes on that Vogel thinks he's just like all her other subjects, but she's wrong – Deb is real to him, and family. He then screens a call from Vogel, and I know he's got some complex feelings for her but you'd think he'd answer to at least give her a heads-up that YATES IS STILL ON THE LOOSE.
At the station, Batista hands Dexter a bag of blood evidence that came from the clothes of Yates' (not that Batista knows that part) stabbing victim, "Janet Thornton," who survived. Also, her assailant broke all her toes, and while that's surely tied to his single-shoe trophies, it's worth pointing out that this part still doesn't seem to fit with the Yates-as-Brain-Surgeon theory. Batista tells Dexter he's going to get a statement as soon as Thornton is out of the woods and asks him to let him know what comes back on the clothes, but Dexter puts the bag down in his office, and as such it may not be attended to for a while.
Outside MM, Quinn runs into Deb, and after he asks with kind concern how she's doing, she tells him she's okay before sincerely apologizing for her out-of-control behavior and for blaming him for calling Dexter. She adds that he always looks out for her, which prompts him to tell her how easy things are with her, and it's a touching scene made all the more so if you know what's coming at the end. When Quinn admits that Jamie is jealous because she thinks he and Deb still have something, Deb smiles and tells him to make it work with Jamie, because she wants him happy. She takes his hand and adds that he means so much to her; with an uncomplicated smile, she goes on: "Don't you fucking forget that." It's hard, because TV is so good these days, but Jennifer Carpenter has been spinning gold out of straw for years on this show and this season might be her best work yet, so I'd love to see her get some awards recognition. Maybe there should be a cumulative-series-achievement category somewhere? Anyway, she hugs Quinn, who isn't too dumb to know that this behavior is off the beaten path; accordingly, he asks if she's sure she's okay, but she declines to answer, instead saying she's got to go and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. No sooner has she turned away than Dexter emerges from the station, and when their eyes lock, she favors him with a fond smile as DVO babbles about scar tissue and whatever. Deb tells him they should talk and suggests they take a ride, and Dexter is only too happy to gesture to "his" car…