Previously: The Ice Truck Killer struck again, this time leaving the body parts strewn like gifts at a Christmas store under a tree. The ITK had been messing with Dexter's head for a while, leaving cryptic clues at his crime scenes that hinted at tableaux of Dexter's childhood. Dexter discovered what the ITK had meant for him to see all along: a newspaper article that revealed that Dexter's mother, Laura Moser, had been slaughtered by a coke dealer in a shipping container, leaving Dexter to sit in blood for days. Angel got stabbed by an unknown assailant, but was able to head-butt the guy in the face, resulting in a blood droplet on Angel collar. Dexter matched the blood to Rudy's after connecting the dots of the tooth marks in Angel's head to Rudy's split lip. Dexter laid out FIP with a frying pan, and framed him to put him back in jail. FIP told Rita he had no idea why he was back in the clink. Captain Mathstor decided to replace LaGuerta with a new Lieutenant. As Dexter was discovering who Rudy was, Rudy proposed marriage to Deb on a rented yacht, and then abducted her.
Well, here we are: the finale. How's this going to go down? My butthole is tight with anticipation!
Here's Dexter, overlooking the marina, VOing, "I've lived in darkness a long time. Over the years, my eyes adjusted until the dark became my world and I could see. But then Rudy turned on the light. He flooded my memory and now I'm blind. I don't have much time. Or, to be more accurate, my sister doesn't have much time. He wants me to find them, but I don't know where to look. I can't think; it's too bright." He begins to run off the dock, and a light washes the screen to white.
Deb is awake, and she's completely bound with duct tape. Rudy tells her to let him know if the tape is too tight: "There's no need for you to be uncomfortable." "Why are you doing this?" Deb says, breathing heavily and totally panicking, which...word. I would have had about eighteen heart attacks by this point. "Want me to spoil the surprise?" says Rudy as he empties a bag of scary-looking surgical tools in front of her. Deb starts screaming and crying, and Rudy tells he's "just checking supplies, okay? Things are just moving a little faster than I had planned." "This isn't you," says Deb. "There's more, I've seen it." Rudy crouches down and comfortingly says, "I never wanted to hurt you." "I know," she cries, believing him. "Does this make it easier for you, because I could keep going." Wow, that shit is cold, Rudy! He tells her not be ashamed, because she's not the only one who bought it. She asks if his name is even Rudy Cooper, and he says no, "but he died for a good cause." Deb tells him that so will he, because he kidnapped a cop. "It's all part of the plan. Jesus, it's hard to believe it's all come to fruition." What? What is your game, Ru-- uh, whatever your name is? "This is a lot of years in the making." What is? Argh!
Dexter's just gotten home. "He wouldn't have taken Deb unless he left everything a clever monster would need in order to find him." He starts searching the house frantically. The fridge? Nope. The blood slides? No, nothing there, either. Craig's List! He must have a new message! Uh-uh. Ooh, I know! I know! The photo albums! Rudy loves those! Alas, nothing. Frustrated, Dex throws his coffee table aside and begins tearing up his couch, when out of nowhere the song "Born Free" begins playing on his laptop across the room. Dexter walks over to it, and looks at the screen, which now depicts various killings in the wild. "It seems I have a new screen saver. I knew he wouldn't leave me stranded. But, 'Born Free'?" He reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a picture of the bloody hotel room. "Of course. Thanks to Rudy, now I know where Dearly Disturbed Dexter was born." He flashes back on the chainsaw killing his mother. "Born free of all that's human. That's where I'll find him." Wait, where? The shipping container or the hotel room? He grabs the newspaper article that says "Shipping Yard Massacre," and that answers my question.
Rudy has loaded Deb onto a small motorboat, and begins putting away from the rented yacht into the dark of the night. Deb looks a little miffed.
Miami morning. At the hospital, Angel's roommate is obviously a psych patient, because he keeps repeating "she knows" over and over again. Doakes and LaGuerta come in, and Angel's all, "All fucking night with that." Doakes shuts the guy up for a second, and turns back to Angel. "We need your help. Masuka says you were following up a lead on the ITK when you were attacked." "A hooker with a prosthetic hand. John painted her nails different colors, but it didn't go nowhere." LaGuerta tells him she was the one who just got hacked to bits. "Holy shit, Monique was a victim?" They explain that the ITK was on his trail, and that his stabbing wasn't a car-jacking at all. Angel says he doesn't get it, because the only other person who knew what he was doing was Masuka. LaGuerta asks him if there was anyone else involved. "I consulted with Rudy, Debra's boyfriend, the prosthetics guy." A look of understanding hits LaGuerta and Doakes. "But, that's crazy, right?" asks Angel, knowing immediately what they're thinking. Doakes tells him it's not, because she never returned from her date with Rudy last night. "That's not like her," says LaGuerta. "Go, just fucking go!" says Angel. Damn, can you imagine what that feels like, to come to that kind of realization? Man oh man. Doakes and LaGuerta peace the hell out of there.
Back with Dexter, whose place is a total mess seeing as he's been up all night looking for clues. He sitting as his desk, looking over documents with a magnifying glass. He's on a picture of the cargo container where he was left as a toddler. "There are over five-thousand cargo containers in the port of Miami. Finding the one where my mother was butchered took a bit of magic." He's found it: CBAN 3489. He writes the number down and says, "Presto." There's a knock at the door. He looks out the window to see who it is, and says, "Shit." Probably Doakes. Dexter yells, "Just a second!" and hides some of his more important files. He answers the door, and it's Doakes and LaGuerta. "I told you he was here," Doakes says to LaGuerta. "Is there some reason you're not answering your damn phone?" "Ambien," says Dexter, trying to appear casual. Noticing the torn-up room, LaGuerta asks him what happened. "I couldn't find the remote." Good answer! Doakes asks where Deb is, and Dexter says he has no idea. LaGuerta says that Rudy is connected to the ITK somehow, and they're working on a warrant to search his place. "Oh, wow," says Dexter, putting a hand up his face and acting distraught. "Cut the crap!" says Doakes, seeing right through it. "You know something, dammit. What?" LaGuerta reprimands Doakes, but he continues: "I saw him skulking in the halls last night, ordering secret blood tests." LaGuerta asks Dexter what that's all about, and he answers honestly, saying that the blood on Angel's collar matched Rudy's. "Motherfucker," says Doakes, approaching Dexter aggressively. LaGuerta tells James to cool his jets, and they ask why he didn't tell them. "I couldn't destroy Deb's love life on a hunch. I needed the facts." "Well, here's a fact: if he kills her, it's your fault," says Doakes. "What else do you know?" "That's it," says Dexter. Doakes thinks he's lying, but LaGuerta tells him to give Dexter a break: "It's his sister, right?" Doakes storms out, and LaGuerta comforts Dexter, telling him to call if he hears anything. Once they're gone, Dexter pulls out the shipping container number from his pocket.
Rita answers the phone, and it's FIP. "Please don't hang up," he says pleadingly. Rita tells him the kids don't want to talk to him: "You need to give them more time." He says he's not calling about them, but about how he was arrested. "Yeah, with a needle in your arm, I know all about it." "Well, I don't!" he says. "I take responsibility for all the shit I pull, but Rita, I was in the program. I kicked the hard stuff." He keeps trying to convince her that he can't put together how he was at her house one minute, then at his motel out of his mind on junk the . "It's called a blackout, Paul." "It's called a setup! Last thing I remember, I was talking to Dexter in the kitchen." He then floats the idea that Dexter hit him over the head, and proceeded to do...everything Dexter actually did do. "I'm telling you, Rita, Dexter's not who you think he is." That's true, but you're a douche. Don't call here anymore. Go get stabbed. Rita hangs up.
"She knows. She knows. She knows!" Oh, Christ, not this asshole again. Poor Angel is trying to hear the TV, but can't over this guy's constant whining. "If she knows, then you yappin' about it isn't going to change it, so shut the fuck up," says Angel, as Pascal starts a press conference. She reveals that Rudy's been operating under an alias, and his real identity is still unclear. An orderly comes in and apologizes for the asshole in the other bed, but he's overflow from the county psych ward. "This one's harmless. We never take the violent ones. They have the arsonists, rapists, the psycho killers over there." A stunned look crosses Angel's face, and he asks the woman if they fingerprint psych patients over at County. She answers affirmatively. "Half of them don't know their own names. Gotta ID them somehow." Once she's done drugging She Knows and leaves, Angel sits up and makes a call. He tells whoever answers that he needs them to run Rudy's print against psych institution records. I would have thought that was a no-brainer, but hey, I'm no cop. Whatever. Good work, Angel.
Dexter pulls up to Laura Moser's old house, kills the engine, and gets out. When he passes the front gate, the sound of distant voices slowly becomes clearer as the sight of the now-barren front yard becomes lush and healthy-looking again. It's clear that Dex is remembering, bit by bit. Laura Moser, a hippie-ish looking young woman, comes out of the front door, calling for Dexter as though they're playing an impromptu game of hide-and-seek. "Where are you, you silly little bear?" Stepping into his own memory, Dex walks right up to her, and turns around to see his much younger self hiding behind a plant, semi-obviously. Dexter looks at her hand, and her nails are painted different colors, a detail that seems impossible for Rudy to know about, unless... Little Dexter jumps out from behind the plant, and mother and son embrace and laugh. "Hey, where could your brother be hiding?" Laura asks Li'l Dexter, and it all becomes clear. Li'l Dex points and says, "Biney right over there." Dexter looks over and sees a kid of about four or five with a bowl-cut peering around a tree. The kid runs over and hugs Dexter, telling him, "You weren't supposed to tell her." "You remember now?" asks Rudy, who's standing on the front porch, looking at Dexter. "Biney," says Dexter. "You always had trouble saying 'Brian,'" says Rudy, now walking towards him. "I have a brother," whispers Dexter, his mind completely blown to smithereens. "A real brother," elaborates Ru-- Brian. "None of this foster bullshit. We're blood brothers, through birth and death. Watching Mom die...it's amazing that we survived that, isn't it?" Holy crap, you guys. Dexter flashes back to the shipping container, but this time it's little Dexter and little Brian sitting in blood together. "You were there, too," says Dex. "You were young enough to block it out. I have never forgotten the day that we were --" "Born," Dex finishes with a whisper. "Where's Deb?" "I wanted to wait for you before we got started," Brian replies as Dex races into the house.
Inside, Dexter calls out for Deb, but Brian tells him she's not in the house. Dex keeps looking around frantically, and Brian says, "This is not how I envisioned our family reunion. Come on, let's just sit down and have a beer." Dexter opens another door, and the room of his childhood is built up around him. He and Brian are on the floor, and Brian is applying a band-aid to little Dexter's knee, congratulating him on his first skateboard wipe-out and telling him to bend his knees time. Dexter looks at his younger self and says hello. "Hi," little Dexter says back. "Look out!" But it's too late: Brian has already snuck up and plunged a syringe of M99 into Dex's neck. As Dexter goes to sleep, Brian says, "I didn't want to do it this way." Dude...what? Man, that shit is crazy. At least now we know how they're connected. But where is this going?
Brian leads Dexter outside to the garage, where Deb is wrapped up in plastic, Dexter-style. She's still unconscious. "I've prepared her just the way you like," says Brian. "This time we'll do it together." Dexter moves slowly, unbelieving. "Does it have to be Deb?" Dexter asks. "It's the only way," Brian responds. "But she's my --" "Fake sister, I know. Tell me something. Your victims...are they all killers?" "Yes." "Harry teach you that?" "He taught me a code...to survive." "Like a...an absurd avenger?" "That's not why I kill." Brian tells Dexter he can be himself around him, which we know. I'm assuming Dexter heard that message loud and clear as well. "Who am I?" Brian asks, after a pause. "A killer, without reason or regret. You're free." Brian says Dexter can be free, too. He continues to try to convince Dexter that he doesn't really have a code, Harry did, and "he's been dead for ten years." Leading Dex over to Deb, he says, "You need to embrace who you are now." "I don't know who I am," says Dexter, seemingly on the verge of tears. Brian says that's because he's been away from his family too long. "I can help you. We can take this journey together." Brian reaches into his back pocket and grabs a Scientology pamphlet, and...oh, wait. That's actually not at all what happens. Looking down at Deb, Dexter says, "I can't. Not Deb. I'm very...fond of her." Brian yells at Dexter, "You can't be a killer and a hero. It doesn't work that way!" He grabs the knife from Dexter, and as he swings it down to stab Deb in the heart, her eyes open and Dexter's hand catches his wrist, stopping him. A battle ensues and Brian knees Dexter's face, dropping him as sirens approach outside. Brian takes off after seeing the police lights, and Dexter yells, "In the garage!" Doakes rips open the door with his gun drawn, and Dexter points him to the door Brian left through, which is locked. Doakes tells LaGuerta to cover the door and runs back outside. Dexter hovers over Deb, probably wondering how much she heard before opening her eyes.
Outside, Doakes breaks into the adjoining structure with an axe, and once inside he discovers an escape tunnel under a piece of sheet metal. Brian's gone.
Later, Deb is being examined by an EMT. "Any headache, dizziness?" "No, I'm fine," she says. She is definitely not fine. Even if she is right now, she's going to need some serious therapy. "I just want to go home," she says. "I'm afraid we have to transport you to the hospital," says the EMT.
As she lies in Dexter's bed, asleep, Dexter draws the blinds and says, "Don't worry, the sheets are clean. We aim to please here at Chez Dex. I'll be sleeping on the couch with a spring in my side just to make sure you're safe tonight, but we're going to have to talk tomorrow about a long-term plan. After you get a good night's sleep. Deb?" No answer. He pets her head for a minute, and the camera switches to a view from outside as a few double-basses hold a low note in the soundtrack, letting us know they're being watched. Back inside, Dex says, "Good night, sister," shuts the light, and goes to bed.
Dexter's asleep on the couch as some Santa Claus special plays on the TV, and someone is picking his lock. Quietly, Brian opens the front door, and peeks in creepily. He silently walks over to where Dexter is sleeping and watches him for a minute, then turns around and quickly heads to the master bedroom. As soon as he's in there, he stabs Deb in the back, but she doesn't make a noise. He rips up the covers to reveal that it's just a dummy, in parts that look just like the ones he's left at so many of his own crime scenes. In a flash, Dexter has a piece of piano wire around Brian's neck. "I stopped by your prosthetics lab after I left Deb at the hospital." Brian begins to lose consciousness. "Your work is so good, you even fooled yourself." He's out. "Sweet dreams, Biney."
Back at Brian's apartment, Brian wakes up on his own rack, in his own personal freezer. Dexter comes in and says, "Hey." Brian doesn't say anything. "You weren't supposed to wake up." "I guess not." "Sorry. The police recorded all your knives as evidence. Took a while to find your dinner flatware." Dexter puts a big box on the table. "Sterling," says Brian, nonchalantly. "I keep it for special occasions." Dexter puts the big blood bin under Brian's head. "Which you are," says Dex. Dexter says Brian can have more tranquilizers if he wants: "It's a service I don't usually offer." Brian smiles and says, "What am I, one of your victims, now? You gonna collect a little sample of Biney's blood for your slide collection?" "You're not a trophy. But you need to be put down." "Why? Because of your code?" "And the safety of my sister." Brian reminds him that Deb's not his real sister, again. "I know that!" Dexter yells. A tear rolls out of Brian's right eye. "You should know this isn't easy for me," says Dexter, seeing this. "You've done more to deserve my knife than anyone." Dexter crouches down and touches his forehead to Brian's. He's crying now. "And you're the only one I've wanted to set free." "You're the one who needs setting free, little brother. Your life is a lie. You'll never be what you --" Dexter slits his throat with what I think is a butter knife, and Brian looks surprised. After letting out a guttural noise of combined relief and mourning, Dexter says, "Sorry. I can't hear anymore, 'cause you're right." Dexter falls back into the corner, holding the switch that elevates the rack, which he flips. As Brian gets flipped upside down, and his carotid artery fountains blood into the pan below, Dexter sobs, probably for the first time in a really long while.
A while later, the room is a crime scene, yet again. Masuka asks LaGuerta how she knew he was there. "Neighbors saw the front door open." Masuka says, "We got his fingerprints on the knife, note on the fridge, and a single incise wound to the neck with a slight upward angle." It all points to a clear suicide. LaGuerta comments that he did it the same way he did with the hookers, meaning the use of the rack. "Poetic," she says. "Retarded," says Masuka. "Look at him. He's dead." LaGuerta comments that he always flaunted his kills, "like he was untouchable. By taking his own life, he's forbidding us from ever catching him." Masuka says he doesn't care why he did it, he's just glad he did.
Rita' s about to take out the trash when Dexter comes in, holding a couple coffees. "Decaf mochachino non-fat, no whip, just the way you like it," he says, and Rita instantly embraces him. "I got your message. How's Debra?" "Uh, she has all her limbs," he says with a half-smile. "Thank God she's alive. Poor thing must be a mess. Falling for a serial killer?" Heh. "What are the odds?" says Dex, fully realizing the irony of this conversation. "How about you? Are you all right?" "Yeah," he says, and pauses. "No." Another pause, and Rita searches his face. "I've been through a lot, lately," he says at last. Touching her hair gently, he says, "I could use a little more time with you, and the kids." "We could, too," she responds. He tries to apologize for how he's been acting, but she shushes him with a finger and kisses him lovingly. She asks that time, he just tell her what's going on. "When you don't return my calls, I get a little paranoid." "I'll be better about that," he says. "Good. Who knows, you might even find that I can handle the truth." Yeah, I don't know about that. "I wish that was the case," Dexter VOs.
Outside, he continues, "The fact is, there's nobody left alive who can handle my truth." When he reaches his car, he looks down the street and notices Doakes in his cruiser, watching him. "Doakes always sensed I was hiding something. Now he knows. My devil danced with his demon, and the fiddler's tune is far from over." Doakes does the I've Totally Got My Fuckin' Eyes On You motion with his index and middle finger, and Dex gets into his car, pretending not to notice.
Rita's taking out the trash as Dexter's VO goes on: "Sometime I wonder what it would be like for everything inside me that's denied and unknown to be revealed." Rita looks down, and sees Paul's shoe. Frozen, she looks stunned. "But I'll never know. I live my life in hiding. My survival depends on it."
Deb is getting out of her car, arriving at what I'm assuming is a press conference to announce the death of the ITK, and the VO isn't over yet. Well, come on, it is the season finale! "Dearly damaged Debra. She's here to face what's left of the monster, spit on his carcass, mourn him. She's in hiding now, too. Harry's daughter will be damned if she lets anyone see what she's suffering inside. That's her tragedy. My tragedy is that I killed the one person I didn't have to hide from, and I'm the only one who mourns him." Dexter's arrived now, too, and he's making his way through throngs of onlookers. He and Deb meet at the center of what would be the red carpet if they were arriving at a Hollywood premiere, and Dex VOs, "Everyone else would probably thank me if they knew I was the one who drained him of his life." "Good job in there, Dex. You sliced him up good," says one cop, a figure of Dex's imagination. Dex smiles at him, and Deb smiles, too. "In fact, deep down I'm pretty sure they'd appreciate a lot of my work." An imaginary plane flies overhead with a banner that reads, "We Heart Dexter," as the crowd below becomes an imaginary parade for our leading man, with people holding big posters of his face that say "Go Dexter!" "Way to take out the trash," says one guy, as people cheer and red-white-and-blue confetti falls to the ground. "All right, Dexter, protecting our children!" rejoices a woman on the sidelines. Dexter smiles and enjoys the celebration like he's a movie star surrounded by devoted fans. Deb grabs his hand and holds it over their heads while jumping up and down. "This is what it must feel like to walk in full sunlight, my darkness revealed, my shadow self embraced."
"Yeah, they see me," he finishes, as the dream parade continues in slow motion. "I'm one of them, in their darkest dreams."
Well, that was pretty sweet. I figured Rudy/Brian/the ITK was related to Dexter somehow, but I could never have guessed how deep it went. I imagine we're going to have to deal with some serious PTSDeb season, as well as the whole thing with FIP's shoe. You know, all in all, Dexter really only killed a handful of people in the first season. I wonder if the body count will be upped in the coming season, or lowered because Doakes will be on Dexter's ass all the time. I guess we can only wait and see. See you then!