Episode Report Card Jeff Long: B | 6 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Killbaya
By Jeff Long | Season 5 | Episode 12 | Aired on 12.12.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Dexter gets ready to save Lumen. He tells Harry that he wants to share his life with her and refuses to let her die. Just as he's about to walk out the door. Sonja shows up with Astor and Cody. They want to spend the summer with him. They miss him. He can't very well run out after that. He finally gets away and calls Jordan. He volunteers to turn himself over to Jordan, but Jordan refuses. After the call, Jordan is at a stoplight and Lumen, who is bound and gagged in his trunk, kicks and muffle screams until some dude selling fruit hears her. But, Jordan drives away before the guy can do anything. Then, he pistol whips her.
Deb studies the videos of the Barrel Girls being tortured. It reminds her of when Rudy kidnapped her. Dexter does a property check for Eugene Greer, to maybe see where Jordan might have taken Lumen. Then, word comes in that RoboCop's body was discovered in his van. Dexter has to do the blood work at the scene. That's like recapping your own television show. Poor Lumen is dragged into a remote house, where she has flashbacks of being there before and being attacked.
At Liddy's murder scene, LaGuerta confronts Quinn about his relationship with Liddy, as there were lots of calls to Quinn on his cellphone. Then, she sees that drop of Liddy's blood on Quinn's boot. He decides that he'd rather get lawyered up than tell her any more. Dexter gets a call that Eugene Greer owns a camp -- the same place where he and the assholes attacked Emily. Lumen and Jordan have a struggle, but it's too early in the episode for her to escape.
Quinn won't tell Deb anything about his involvement with Liddy. Dexter steals a car and wrecks it near Camp Jordan. Jordan is waiting with a gun when he climbs out of the wreckage. Deb gets a police report of a Jordan sighting from the street vendor. At the camp, Jordan is taunting Dex and Lumen when he realizes that one of Dexter's knives is missing from his killing knapsack. Just then, Dexter stabs the crap out of his foot and it's awesome. They tie him up and he tells Lumen that he made her who she is, which makes her kill him. Just then, Deb arrives. Hooooollllly shitttt. She finds Jordan's dead body, and there's a standoff with only plastic separating her and her brother and Lumen. She tells the vigilante that it's amazing that she's alive. And, she lets them get away. Jennifer Carpenter, folks. She goes to Quinn (who is being held in jail) and tells him that she won't judge him.
Dexter and Lumen dump Jordan's body and are thrilled. Dexter's happy! The next day, Lumen tells him that she has to leave. She doesn't want to kill people anymore. He begs her to stay and it's heartbreaking. At Harrison's birthday party, Quinn and Deb are back together, due in part to Dexter fudging the results of the test of the blood from Quinn's boot. He decides to take off his wedding ring. Dexter seems more alone and darker than ever.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Quinn thought Dexter was involved with Rita's death. Dexter and Lumen proceeded to kill all of the men who tortured her. Dexter also killed Liddy, who was investigating him for Quinn. Lumen has been kidnapped by Jordan Chase.
We begin with Dexter scurrying around his place, packing up his knives. He should really have a travel case on the ready, for those out-of-town killings that pop up when you weren't expecting them. Then, at least, we could have all avoided a lecture from Harry. While I don't mind the actor, I'm glad that we've seen less of him this season.
Anyway, so Harry's there as Dexter is frantically packing. Harry reminds him that the last time he was in a situation like this, Rita ended up dead. Dex is like... yes, I... haven't forgotten that. Because, really, who forgets shit like that. And, it's only been a few months, in show time. Harry asks Dexter how he's going to find Lumen and he says that all of the girls were tortured in the same place and he bets that is where Jordan has taken Lumen. OK, we've reached the season finale. They don't seem to be working to make this any more complex. In which case, I have a problem. The whole Eugene/Jordan killing thing and the motivation. I mean, I get it, I guess, if Jordan is just a person with a dark passenger who was too much of a coward to kill people himself, but... something's off. I don't get how all of the parts of his personality combine to make the person that he is now. So, he was this fat kid and managed to be able to talk people into raping and murdering girls. Then, he transformed himself into a wealthy and fit and powerful man via internal drive and surgical assistance. And... he still continued to talk the same dudes into raping and murdering girls. Dudes who were of vastly varying levels of success (Boyd picked up dead animals, Dan was a dentist). What was their motivation? It's not like this was Jordan's first motivational moment and convinced them that brutalizing these women would change their lives. Or, if it was, then why wouldn't Boyd have eventually been like, "So, yeah, I'd like my money back. Being a murderer hasn't made me successful at all." I mean, seriously. The boys were likely of the same socioeconomic status because they were all at the same summer camp, but three became suit-wearing executive types and one picked up dead animals from the road. I'm not trying to diss sanitary workers, but it doesn't really seem like a match, does it? Unless, I guess, Jordan tried to convince Boyd that the sanitation job was great, so that he would have someone who would dispose of the bodies that they killed. But, Boyd was clearly aspirational, as evidenced by his manic recitation of Jordan's chestnuts, and looking to advance himself. What bothers me most is that all of these fairly cliche inconsistencies make me feel like the writers started with the idea of a bunch of brutalized pretty girls, which ultimately comes off as a little exploitative. I mean, even with the thin premise, there were a lot of answers about Dexter that could have been answered in regards to sex, namely why he seems completely non-violent in that area. But, we got nothing. Structurally, I think the show has been absolutely stellar this season and the reason I've rated the episodes so highly. The tension has been taut as hell for a great deal of the season, which is a hard thing to accomplish. In the end though, where we are now, the sum is not as great as the parts.
Dexter tells Harry that Jordan is like him and needs a routine. Deb created a file of all of Jordan's real estate holding and Dexter figures Lumen has to be at one of those places. Harry chastises him for making another assumption (I feel like the audience has been forced to make assumptions all season), but Dex says that's all he has to go on. He says that Lumen accepts him for who he is and is someone he could share his life with and thusly he refuses to let her die. Then, he opens the door to leave... and finds Harrison, Cody, Astor, Sonja and the kids' grandparents. "Surprise!" they all say. It had been Astor's idea to surprise Dexter and have Harrison's birthday party in Miami. Dex is all squirrelly and weird. Astor asks him to come to breakfast and he says that he has a work thing. Sonja, who apparently has taken on the role of ambassador for the older kids in addition to her non-stop duties as Harrison's caretaker (I guess I'll have to ASSUME why she has no other life at all), says that the kids have something to ask him. By this point, Dexter is super ready to get out the door, but Sonja convinces him to listen to their request. They ask him if they can stay with him for the summer. He says yes. They hug him and tell him that they've missed him. Even in the midst of his urge to get out of there and save Lumen, he smiles and says that he's missed them too.
At the station, Deb points out to LaGuerta that Jordan's plane was gassed and ready to go when they stopped it on the runway. She tells LG that she thinks Jordan is on the run. She wants to put an APB out on him but LG says that they would need an arrest warrant for that and they don't have enough evidence. Deb is getting anxious about the prospect of Jordan slipping through their fingers, but LG comes up with an idea that would keep Jordan under surveillance for a day while they had a chance to collect evidence. This works! Sisters working together once again.
Deb sits at Quinn's desk and asks him where he was the night before. He says that he had a couple of things "crash down" on him. He tells her that he heard about Jordan disappearing. He asks if she thinks the vigilante was responsible, but she points out that killing Boyd and killing Jordan are two vastly different ventures, effort-wise. Jordan has so much security, he doesn't pee without a bodyguard holding his wiener. Her metaphor, not mine. Quinn says that it's a race to see which "couple" gets him first -- the vigilantes or him and Deb. Assuming they're a couple. Wow, that was a stretch. Deb says that you can't assume anything right now, but people are making asses out of us all over the place in this episode. Deb says she's going to re-watch those horrible DVDs to see if she's missed something.
Dexter is in his car and calls Jordan, who answers. He calmly says that it's nice to hear from Dexter. Dex says that, whatever Jordan is thinking, he shouldn't do anything crazy. Jordan says that Dex sounds stressed. He says that Lumen must mean a lot to him, to which Dexter agrees. Then, he says that Dexter must feel cursed, since he keeps losing the people closest to him. Dexter asks him what he wants (and even volunteers to turn himself over to Jordan in return for Lumen) but he says that he has what he wants. And, he'll need to go now so that Dexter can't trace the phone call. Then, he says, "Tick tick tick, that's the sound of Lumen's life running out," which Dexter takes as evidence that she's not yet dead. Jordan hangs up and removes the battery from his phone. We see poor Lumen in the trunk, bound and gagged and kicking and muffle-screaming. Jordan is stopped at a red light and there's a street vendor who is working the parked crowd, Jordan-style. He recognizes Jordan and starts to walk towards his car. Just as he's about to ask Jordan about the sound of someone struggling to break free from his car trunk, the light turns green and he drives away. He speeds around the corner and opens the trunk and pistol whips Lumen.
At the station, Dexter visits Deb's office with his eye on stealing the file with Jordan's real estate holdings. She's watching the DVDs and you hear the screams. He gets the file as Deb explains that she noticed that the guys hurting the girls are always looking offscreen, as if to seek approval from someone. It happens on all of the tapes. Dexter suggests that she thinks that they're looking at Jordan. She does think that. She reminds him that he is a motivational speaker. Dexter thinks that she should stop watching the ta