"Do You Think Your Brother's Going To Kill You?"

S06E08

Dexter apologizes for leaving Deb in a lurch, and with the power of donuts and coffee she forgives him. But then Dexter takes further advantage of having his sister as his boss, and heads off to Brother's Sam funeral, which is at the baptism spot. While there, he finds out that Brother Sam (RIP, Miss you!) left Dexter his Bible, which is appropriately caked in blood.

After this, Dex goes and visits Travis at work. But Travis is rightfully freaked out about the fact that EJO is totally going to kill his sister. So he turns Dexter down flat. But it's OK, because Dexter gets assigned to go work on a case about a dead call girl. You know, his actual job. It looks like an easy overdose, but someone was definitely there in the room. LaGuerta tries the hard sell to get Deb to wrap this up quickly, under the guise that mothers think the world is ending and are turning suicidal because of all the open murder cases in Miami -- but mostly because she's covering for the john who left the dead hooker on the floor.

Dexter starts reading the Bible and uses that to manipulate Travis. At the same time, Deb starts looking for Travis and pays a visit to his sister. But none of that really matters, as Lisa ends up in the schoolyard as the Whore of Babylon (with bonus Deb Morgan business card pinned to her skin). EJO even has a lovely mural about it hiding up in his dusty old church... along with Travis, who he's chained up to teach him about penance.

-- Angel Cohn

While all this is going on, Deb starts freaking out because Dexter doesn't want to talk about his feelings with her. Especially since she finds a pen from Nebraska in Dexter's bag (Why would a smart guy like Dexter take a hotel pen if he was trying to keep his whereabouts a secret? Irritating). Deb even tells her therapist about it, and while said shrink admits that Dexter may suck ass as a brother, Deb doesn't actually ever let anyone get a word in edgewise while she's rambling about her own problems. It took someone all this time to realize these two have a dysfunctional sibling relationship?

Anyway, Deb confronts Dexter by making dinner at his house, when he's finally realized where Travis is hiding. See, he went to visit this nice old dementia ridden priest, who mistook him for someone else, absolved him of all his sins (including the murders!) and gave him the lead he needed. Dex leaves Deb all pissy and goes save Travis, but doesn't actually get his hands on EJO because he gave away his arrival by using a car. He's not very good at the sneak attack. You'd think a serial killer would be more cautious. Still, EJO did see him, so now Dex is all worried. He should be more worried about the splinters he got from the floorboard he crashed through.

In other awful plots, Quinn gets drunk at a strip club with Masuka (yeah, you read that right) and Batista tries to keep Greene away from his sister by telling him that Jamie's slutty.

Dexter and Harrison buy pastries and coffee at their usual place, but Dexter tells "Francisco" that today he'll need something that's good for an apology for his sister. Ugh, their relationship is gross. (Dexter's and Deb's, not Dexter's and Francisco's.) DVO also babbles something insipid about kids being very trusting, although I'm assuming that he's excepting kids who watched their mothers be killed in front of them and then took a bath in their blood for days.

Dexter shows up to Deb's place, and she tells him he's got five minutes, because "some of us actually have to show up for work." Tough, but fair; I'm more focused on the realization that this set looks suspiciously like Dexter's apartment. He tries a little small talk, which, also reasonably, gets shot down, so he tries apologizing. Deb, being more level-headed than I expected (don't worry, it won't last), says she's sorry about Mos Def and Trinity both, but what she's concerned about is people thinking she gave him a week off in the middle of the DDK investigation, "which is only slightly better than them knowing that I didn't give you a week off!" Of course, she didn't bring up her professional reputation last week when she was bleating into her phone about her being his sister, but Dexter does admit that he exploited their personal relationship to avoid professional consequences, and Deb forgives him so she can bring him up to speed on their DDK revelation about there being two killers.

DVO is of course less than thrilled to learn that Miami Metro might be closing in on Colin Hanks, but Dexter asks the salient question of why "they" let the girl from last week, Holly, go. Deb's like, they tied body parts to mannequins and strung a girl up, who knows why crazy people do anything, of course completely missing the point that those events had specific significance vis-à-vis the Book of Revelations, whereas getting ready to sacrifice the Whore of Babylon and then letting her go isn't so much in Scripture. DVO agrees with me, saying that it sounds like Colin Hanks is having second thoughts, and you can make your own joke about how Colin Hanks has lots of "second thoughts" with EJO being a figment of his imagination. They head out, but not before Dexter obtains grudging permission to attend Mos Def's funeral. Man, I liked the character and all, but even I am ready to move on here.

Colin Hanks's sister (Lisa, I think?) emerges from the shower to discover that Colin Hanks has made breakfast for her. She thanks him and goes to get dressed, and he, of course, decides to take the garbage out so the show can have EJO appear and still make it technically, pathetically possible that he actually exists. He berates Colin Hanks for how he's chosen a "mundane" life, as if that isn't exactly the kind of non-sinning life he's been preaching for people to live, and recalls that when Colin Hanks lived with Lisa before, she treated him like a child, and he had no friends. Okay, (a), he doesn't have to be living with her at all; (b) he was a child when his parents were killed, and (c) he has no friends because he is a CREEPY SERIAL KILLER. EJO then shows Colin Hanks a lovely drawing of the Whore and suggests that Lisa would look wonderful "in red," prompting Colin Hanks to tell him to "stay the fuck away." Language, Colin Hanks! You probably picked that up from your Whore of a sister! He stomps back in, trash still in his hand, which of course gets an eyebrow from Lisa, who asks if he's okay. He tells her he is, but then suggests they go away for a couple days, maybe to Disney World, and if that suggestion doesn't get her to stop treating you like a child, I don't know what will. Lisa, of course, is like, "I have work, weirdo," but suggests they do it when she's on break in a couple weeks. In response, Colin Hanks grabs the breakfast plates and stomps into the other room, and seriously, Deb and Dexter aren't the only effed-up siblings on this show. For the moment, at least.

That disciple of Mos Def's who's the only one that's allowed to talk asks, "How many of us can say that [Mos Def] changed my life?" Probably all of them, but that's still not the usage for the meaning you were going for, dude. Poor Mos Def, dying before he could teach his group the finer points of grammar. Anyway, they're on that same beach, and after the dude reads from the Bible for a while, he scatters Mos Def's ashes into the water...

...and then later, by a photo of Mos Def and some floral wreaths, the guy catches Dexter on his way out and gives him Mos Def's blood-soaked Bible, which Mos Def had told the dude (presumably on his deathbed, otherwise: Weird) he wanted to bequeath to Dexter. Dexter hesitates, offering that perhaps someone more religious would get better use out of it, and instead of replying that messing with the wishes of the dead equals bad juju, the dude spouts some platitude about finding the right question and whatever before asking if Dexter has, by any chance, seen Nick. It's a ridiculous thing to ask, because why in the hell would he have, but Dexter's like no, not me, before DVO has to come in all Captain Obvious about how HE DROWNED HIM RIGHT AT THIS VERY SPOT, like, DVO is written like such a five-year-old.

As if to support my point, DVO wonders if Mos Def brought out some light in him, since he didn't kill Jonah when he had the chance, as if Dexter had killed everyone he ever came in contact with up to that point. Just as tenuously, he wonders if he passed the light on to Colin Hanks in some kind of Pay It Forward way, but he decides to investigate this latter point as he sneaks into Colin Hanks's office and intones that he did the right thing. Colin Hanks jumps up and says he knows who Dexter is, because he remembers his voice, as if he didn't see the undisguised Dexter in his rearview mirror the whole time, and Dexter, not exactly one to display any skepticism once he's come up with some cockamamie theory, asks him why he let Holly go. Whether it's because he believes it or that he senses that's what Dexter wants to hear, though, Colin Hanks tells Dexter it's true -- his words made him realize that he doesn't have to do what "he" says, and he told EJO he's done. Dexter inquires how EJO took the divorce, and Colin Hanks admits it wasn't great and EJO is still harassing him. Dexter, a crafty look on his face, wonders why Colin Hanks doesn't just go to the police, prompting Colin Hanks to sputter that he'd go to prison for his part in their crimes, and he's a good person and thought they were doing the right thing.

Look, I know we can't trust half of what we've seen this season, but -- and remember Dexter saw this as well -- after that waitress was gorily murdered and those locusts were released, Colin Hanks observed it all with an absolutely delighted look on his face, a look that could only come from the truest and most insane (I mean that word literally) believer. To me, it's not credible for Dexter to take what he's hearing now at face value. For the moment, however, I suppose that's irrelevant, as Dexter tells Colin Hanks that he'll forget his part in all this and will dispense with EJO for him. Colin Hanks, however, doesn't want to hear any of this and stomps off, and (a) I'm so glad they're having this conversation in a visible space where any casual observer could link them together, and (b) maybe Dexter should just tell Colin Hanks to give up the location or he'll go to the police? I mean, I've never been a serial killer with an agenda, but given how hard Colin Hanks clenched at the idea of prison you'd think it might be an effective strategy. However, after Dexter has been standing around alone in this office in which he doesn't work for a while, his phone rings...

...and then he's at a crime scene, and given that this is the first time Anderson and the chuckleheads have seen him in over a week, you'd think they might make mention of that, but they're too focused on the naked female corpse on the floor, who they ID as a high-end call girl. Anderson adds that the physical evidence suggests heroin use, so she probably ODed and then fell and hit her head, and Masuka speculates that the maid "must have" wiped the place down before she found her, as there are no prints anywhere except the girl's on the tub, and you MIGHT WANT TO CHECK THE MAID'S STATEMENT ABOUT THAT, NO? I mean, I don't expect strict realism on TV, I really don't, but the incredible laziness of the writers in allowing their characters to exhibit not even the most basic grasp of police work and crime-scene protocol is maddening.

Regardless, Dexter quickly finds evidence in the blood pattern that suggests the woman was moved after the injury to the head occurred, and also notes that if she'd ODed, her heart would have stopped instantly, resulting in no further blood loss, which is contraindicated by the physical evidence. And again, that latter point does not seem obscure at all, so I guess I have to have some more sympathy for Deb being frantic that Dexter was gone, because if none of the rest of these idiots could have figured that out, Dexter's the only one who can help get the department's numbers out of the shitter.

Dexter then gingerly touches the corpse and discovers broken ribs, and Masuka wonders if it could have been the EMTs, but Anderson says they didn't attempt CPR, as she was long dead when the maid found her. Dexter advances a new theory: She did OD and hit her head, but someone else was in the apartment, and that someone flipped her over and attempted CPR to no avail, wiping the place down afterward. Anderson's demeanor then gets a little more rigid than usual when he sees that LaGuerta has arrived on the scene, but he goes over and doesn't ask why she'd be turning up for what's probably a less-than-high-profile case, particularly since she's a level above his immediate superior, nor does he seem to raise an eyebrow at her insisting on being copied on the ME report, but once she hears that it's an apparent overdose, she goes downstairs to find Batista for some reason...

...and then Dexter is arriving at Miami Metro to Greene bounding up to him, saying he heard how he figured out the call girl situation, and it's so cool, and could Dexter explain his thinking to him sometime? Dexter's like sure, we'll do it at a quarter past never, and I have to go over there now. The two of them head into a staff meeting, wherein Deb tells them that the entire city is freaking out because of DDK, and then she credits Greene with narrowing down their search for EJO's accomplice, to which Dexter gives Greene a hilarious surreptitious sour look. Deb says they're going to split up the two hundred names, and by the way, they shouldn't let on that they know EJO has an accomplice. DVO wonders how he can get Colin Hanks to trust him before the police find him. Oh, I don't know, maybe by popping up out of nowhere and giving him a heart attack again?

Quinn finds Batista and apologizes for not being at the crime scene that morning, like, you'd think there might have been some official notice taken rather than this just being a lovers' quarrel, but Quinn tells Batista he's got tickets to the opening night of some new strip joint, and Batista's like, thanks, but I've seen what happens when you horn up, so maybe take Masuka, who's built for this sort of thing? Quinn's like fine, then I'll see you at home after, and then Jamie turns up with Harrison and is all, we were in the neighborhood and Harrison wanted to say hi to his dad, and Batista thinks she really wanted to say hi to him, but then Greene blows up her spot by appearing and saying he got her text, and she invites him to go a walk as Batista jealously glowers at the two of them, even though last week he was casually fine with it. I mean, sure, why should Batista not get a perfectly ridiculous subplot when everyone else is, but there's no way I'm spending any time on it, so suffice it to say that Jamie gamely invites Batista to join the two of them for dinner so he can get to know Greene a bit, and Batista grudgingly accepts. !

DVO gives us some more shoehorned, facile observations about children and trust, and then Dexter comes up with the idea to mine the Bible for ammunition to use to get Colin Hanks to trust him. I give the Props Department credit for making it realistically look like the pages are sticky with blood...

...and then, the day, Dexter sits down at the counter of a crowded diner, two seats over from Colin Hanks. No breakfast for Lisa today since she wouldn't take him to Disney World! The intervening guy just happens to get up at that moment, of course, and Colin Hanks sees Dexter, who busts out the Bible, and I'm sure seeing its crimson hue is just going to inspire trust all over the place. Dexter's Biblical argument gives us the episode title -- if Colin Hanks knows he should do something and doesn't, he's committing a sin of omission, so could Colin Hanks cut the shit and tell him where EJO is? Colin Hanks, however, is worried about his sister's safety, but offers to convince Lisa to go to a friend's in Pensacola, as EJO "won't leave Miami." A more inquisitive person would ask why that is, and it would be marginally interesting to hear Colin Hanks justify that to himself, but regardless, Colin Hanks tells Dexter that once Lisa is safely out of town, he'll help him. He leaves, and it was nice of the wait staff not to interrupt their little chat by say, giving Dexter a menu or offering to take his order, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone saw him breaking out the bloody Bible and decided to steer clear.

However, the weekend may be too late for this little plan, as at this moment, Deb has turned up to Lisa's house, and given that she's home during the day it's hard to see why she couldn't take Colin Hanks to Disney World after all. Deb tells Lisa that they just want to talk to Colin Hanks about EJO, which is the indicated play, but I'm surprised she even lets it slip that they're looking at him in connection with three homicides, since that enables Lisa to figure that this is the DDK investigation. No reason not to keep things as vague as possible here. In this case, though, Deb is assuming that she already knew about it, given that EJO's picture has been everywhere, and she's surprised to learn that Colin Hanks didn't mention it to Lisa. Lisa replies that Colin Hanks doesn't talk about his feelings much, which is kind of a horseshit explanation, but she does offer the information about their parents dying and the opinion that that made Colin Hanks "closed off." Deb asks if she's noticed any unusual behavior from her brother lately, like maybe MOVING IN WITH HER FOR NO REASON isn't enough, but Lisa, whatever she might actually think, does a credible job of selling the idea that no, he's the same old Colin Hanks, at which point Deb leaves her card and asks Lisa to have Colin Hanks give her a call.

When she's getting into her car, she removes her blazer, at which point we can see her gun tucked into the back of her belt, and you'd think she'd be a little more protective of that, as a casual passer-by could see it and get the wrong idea. In this case, said casual passer-by is Colin Hanks on his silly little bicycle, and it's one thing for a teacher to be coming home in the middle of the day, but given that she said she had to get back to work, I don't know how the fuck Colin Hanks could be free for this little ride down the lane. Of course, we can't ever let logic get in the way of plot here, so suffice it to say that Colin Hanks sees the gun and presumably makes Deb as a cop...

...and then Deb's back at Seattle Metro washing her hands in the bathroom when LaGuerta buttonholes her and asks for news about DDK's accomplice. Deb tells her they're narrowing down possibilities, and then LaGuerta informs her she has good news -- the ME report on the call girl came in and the cause of death was definitely an overdose, so she can close the case as an accidental death and won't have to worry about it as a homicide. Deb, to her credit, wonders why LaGuerta would have concerned herself with this at all, and LaGuerta gives her a cock-and-bull story about team efforts and whatever before repeating that Deb can close the case now. Deb, craftier than I'd expect, doesn't seem shifty as she's like, great...

...but when she gets back to her office, she immediately calls Dexter and asks him to rush the blood report on the case, as "LaGuerta's acting weird." Heh. Remember when LaGuerta was capable of playing a deep game without being incredibly obvious about it? I realize I'm going back a while here. Also hilariously, Deb particularly is suspicious about the fact that LaGuerta is being helpful, and Dexter promises that he's on it.

Colin Hanks is sneaking around, I think, Lisa's school? Not entirely sure why, but EJO appears out of nowhere, says they have work to do, and clocks Colin Hanks in the forehead with a shovel he was holding in his hand. Well, if nothing else, I appreciate his commitment to not messing around.

It's time for the Dinner of Awkward, and when Jamie excuses herself to go to the restroom, Batista, who's obviously already been dickish through this whole thing, tells Greene that he probably doesn't want to get serious about his sister, since she's a total ho. God, he's gross. I mean, he might literally kill anyone who said the same about her, so for him to use language like this as a ploy is disgusting, especially in service of sabotaging a relationship with someone who's actually nice. I'm hoping reserved skepticism about this tarring of his girlfriend with the slut brush is what I'm seeing here from Greene, but he keeps any comment to himself, probably wisely.

In Dexter's office, Deb has just gotten confirmation that there had to be someone else in the hotel room, and sighs at the dilemma this information presents. She then asks for a pen to sign the blood report, and when Dexter can't produce one, she digs in his bag and finds one -- from the hotel he stayed at in Nebraska.

I mean, this alone should be enough to warrant an F for the episode. We're to believe that Dexter, whom the show presents as amazingly meticulous, kept a pen from a hotel at which he killed the proprietor? I mean, forget Dexter's compulsively private nature -- what if Deb does a casual check of any criminal activity up there? Not to mention, she knows exactly where the Mitchell family was living -- does he want her asking awkward questions about that? It's just another example of how unforgivably lazy the writers have become in the wake of the show's success. Finding a credible reason, one that doesn't fly in the face of everything we know about Dexter's character, for her to discover the pen (or something else linking him to Nebraska) is a story obstacle. Good shows succeed in overcoming them; bad shows fail and hope you don't notice. The latter happens all the time on this show, but this is a particularly maddening and egregious example.

Anyway, Deb at least rather quickly makes the Trinity connection and asks if Dexter talked to Jonah, and Dexter doesn't have to go far to come up with a reasonably believable lie, saying that they both lost loved ones to Trinity, so he felt a connection with him and needed someone to talk to. Might have been better advised to put a slightly different spin on it and say that he felt the need to offer Jonah some support, because then Deb might not be going on to make this all about her, whining that he could have come to her, and she "burdens him with shit all the time," then gagging as an aftereffect of the mouthful she just spat out. Deb does make the point that she's in a position to understand, as she lost Keith Carradine because of Trinity, which, okay, never quite thought about it that way but I'll give that to her, especially because Keith Carradine was awesome and I still miss him myself. Dexter, as is his wont, sits there and says nothing, but he's spared any further braying on Deb's part when Masuka enters and tells them DDK has struck again...

...and oh, boy, we're back at Lisa's school. As Dexter and Deb approach the playground, we see a cylindrical, multicolored curtain set up in the middle. Batista informs them that the janitor discovered the tableau that morning, and opens it to reveal a woman seated atop a throne, the base of which is an ornately carved seven-headed dragon, her wrists lashed to the curtain rod above, naked from the waist up except for two shell-like coverings on her breasts, gauntlets, and a demonic mask, all in gold. Once again, can I point out how difficult it would be for one person to pull this off undetected? On the other hand, I must applaud anyone involved with props, wardrobe, or set design here; they've gone to town with the religious themes this season.

When Batista removes the mask, we see it's Lisa, and I'm kind of surprised they got rid of her this early, but anyway, upon recognizing her, Deb recoils in horror and then orders Anderson to find Colin Hanks, even saying he should put an APB out on him if necessary. Dexter, of course, wonders if this is the result of EJO taking revenge on Colin Hanks, and then examines one of the tapestries comprising the curtain and discovers a label with a name on it as DVO speculates that it once was some kind of vestment. He slices off the label as elsewhere, Deb notes a series of letters written on Lisa's forehead (possibly in blood, but it could be something like henna too), and then Masuka discovers something pinned to the corpse -- Deb's card. Her shrink is going to have her hands even fuller than usual this week.

I mean, I guess I need to recap this in case the show pulls a double-cross and makes EJO real (which would be no more or less ridiculous than EJO not existing at this point), but assuming he isn't, it feels incredibly silly to tell you that Colin Hanks is chained up in that creepy church. EJO apologizes for that, but says he couldn't risk Colin Hanks disappearing again, as if he didn't show up in his backyard three times a day, and adds, even more preposterously, that the Devil tempted him with the promise of a mundane life with his family, and by the way, his sister talked to the police, "just like the Whore of Babylon." I...what? Also, not sure how, if EJO is real, we're supposed to think he knows this or why he'd be presenting it to Colin Hanks as information Colin Hanks didn't know, but anyway, Colin Hanks "realizes" that "EJO" killed his sister and gets all upset, but EJO languidly sticks a poker in his fire and hopes that when he returns, Colin Hanks will have had a change of heart. Or another psychotic break will probably do just fine as well.

LaGuerta appears in the break room to harangue Deb ridiculously about not making any arrests in DDK, and then, when Deb brings up the blood report about the call girl, LaGuerta hilariously says she's going to "level with" Deb: The [hearing thing] didn't go well for either of them, which seems amazingly ballsy for her to say given that she's the one who made Deb look terrible, and LaGuerta goes on to say that they can't afford another unsolved murder, as people are in a panic, and the night before, a woman tried to drive her car into Biscayne Bay with her kid inside, because she thought the end of the world was nigh and didn't want him to face the Tribulations. Okay, if she thinks the end of the world is nigh, I don't think the circumstances of a hooker's death are going to register for her one way or the other, and I'm not sure even finding DDK would help, but LaGuerta tells Deb in no uncertain terms that she should focus on DDK, not some john who bailed on a junkie prostitute. Deb, realizing that arguing will get her nowhere, wisely backs down, or so it seems; when she's gone, LaGuerta makes a call and assures the person on the other end that "it's" taken care of, and he or she has nothing more to worry about. I hope that's true, because this subplot sure is boring.

Dexter is having trouble finding any results for the name on the vestment, and DVO adds that it's hard to get anything done with "Intern Puppy Dog" watching his every move. Intern Puppy Dog, however, proves his worth by directing Dexter to a search engine he claims is better than Google, and then disappoints me greatly by deleting an incoming text from Jamie before making himself scarce once Deb appears. Deb tells Dexter that she got the ME report and "it looks like Lisa Marshall was killed the same way as our fruit vendor and our jogger." I...she was cleaved? Didn't really see much evidence of that. Seriously, didn't the other two die by being stabbed with a huge sword? Lisa was barely wearing any clothing, and I sure didn't see even the slightest mark of injury on her. Deb excitedly tells Dexter that, however, there was no number found on her, although why she thinks this is good news is beyond me, and DVO tells us that Colin Hanks was the one who did the numbering (it was his Bible that was used, it's true), so obviously this kill was all EJO. Deb goes on that they found out Colin Hanks works at the museum restoring old Bibles, so she's sure it's their guy, and then is typically oblivious to the fact that Dexter looks shifty as hell as DVO says he's going to have to work fast. Deb then asks Dexter if they can have dinner that night and catch up, like, I wouldn't think she'd be making social plans when it seems like she's getting close to solving DDK, but this is all so Dexter can blow her off, saying he's tired and just wants to spend some time with Harrison. Deb's reply isn't quite at the "Well, fine, I didn't want to anyway!" level, but it's close. When she's gone, Dexter types the name on the vestment into the Magical Search Engine That's Better Than Google...

...and then we cut to Deb in her shrink's office (she has an OFFICE?) apologizing for being late. Deb tells her how she feels responsible for Lisa's death, since she knew there was something Lisa wasn't telling her, and goes on to say that Lisa probably knew there was something up with Colin Hanks, but she was protecting him, "like a good sister does, and then he ends up killing her." Oh, great, a seamless segue into her Issues With Dexter!

If that's foreshadowing of Dexter killing Deb, though, it's possible I could get interested; awesomely, the shrink does in fact ask if she thinks Dexter is going to kill her. Deb says no, but asks if all brothers are assholes, and whines that Dexter doesn't tell her anything, but after hearing her bleat for a while on that subject, the therapist, and I was pretty sure I liked her already, tells her it sounds like their normal dynamic involves her talking about herself, a lot. The therapist goes on that maybe Dexter doesn't feel like there's room in the relationship for his needs, and maybe time they get together, she could make an effort to focus on him. It won't work, but the advice is solid, especially since it's clear from the look on Deb's face that this never, ever occurred to her before.

By Couch Baron

After Jamie takes Harrison out of range of the adults, Deb of course makes a Federal case about it (She came over here "for you, asshole" is one example of her acting like an open wound), but Dexter, as usual, doesn't make himself look too great either with his passive refusal to engage her at all. These two give me such a headache, I swear.

EJO appears to burn Colin Hanks with a poker, but then Dexter drives up and incautiously makes a loud noise closing his car door, like, that's only about five percent less likely than that thing with the pen. I don't know how the writers think holding on to this reveal is helping the story, but this is an example of what I mean when I say they consistently only come to the table with enough seasonal story for only eight or nine episodes and have to find ways to stretch it out to the point of torture. EJO tells Colin Hanks not to say a word before slipping away, and then Dexter enters and finds Colin Hanks. We see EJO on a balcony above, but when Colin Hanks looks his way, EJO walks away before Dexter can see him too. Jesus, this demeans us all. Dexter heads upstairs to try to discover him, but despite the fact that the only means of egress appears to be a small, high window out of which Dexter sees no one, he concludes that EJO has seen him now, so this just got much harder. Well, yeah, given that you didn't think to wear, say, A MASK. I mean, it's not like Dexter hasn't worn masks in the past when the plot required it (that ridiculous subplot where he tried to scare the neighbor kid two seasons ago comes to mind), so this is insulting for everyone. When Dexter returns downstairs, Colin Hanks tells him he'll help him kill EJO. I'm kind of giggling at the thought of Colin Hanks urging Dexter to stab empty air, but man, was this episode another suck-fest.

John Ramos is a writer and film producer living in Los Angeles. Believe it or not, he's worked with Michael C. Hall, as well as Lucy Liu and Peter Fonda, on his film "The Trouble With Bliss," (formerly "East Fifth Bliss") which will be in theaters in March 2012 and about which you can get information here.

Also, he writes about film and television on his blog "Pull Up A Chair," which he would just love for you to visit. And you can follow him on Twitter here.

By Couch Baron

Dexter is in a nursing home, as his search turned up a "Father Nicholas Galway," a Catholic priest who's unfortunately suffering from dementia. A nun shows Dexter into the elderly man's room, and he's lucid enough to carry on a conversation, but Dexter appears to give this up as a bad job before he even begins, and I'm not really sure why. I mean, I guess he's come to the conclusion that the guy won't remember Colin Hanks or EJO even if he had a connection to either of them, but you'd think having made the trip he'd take the time to ask the question. However, the guy clutches Dexter's wrist and won't let him out of the room until he confesses his sins, so Dexter, figuring he's got nothing to lose given the guy's diminished memory, admits that he's killed people -- a lot of people. (He also mentions that he's lied to his sister, so we know that's bothering him.) The priest looks somber before telling Dexter that murder is a mortal sin, but he seems to get lost, probably in the process of adding up all the Hail Marys he's going to ask Dexter to say. When Dexter reminds him that they were discussing confession, the guy forgets to assign any penance and absolves Dexter of his sins. Dexter looks like, improbably, this experience has given him some sort of comfort, and at the very least, I suppose he's no worse off than when he went in there.

Outside, though, the nun casually gives up the clue Dexter was looking for -- the priest still sometimes thinks he needs to go to his church for Mass, even though the place has been abandoned for over twenty years...

...and quickly, Dexter is arriving home to say goodnight to Harrison before heading off to, well, off EJO. Unfortunately, Deb has taken her shrink's advice in the most inconvenient possible way and is cooking dinner for Dexter, saying that he's got to eat, at least. I mean, obviously this is another example of Deb's boundary-less intrusiveness -- Dexter made it pretty clear he wanted some alone time. Still, it feels a bit cruel for him to dismiss Deb by vaguely saying that something came up and he has to go out; as urgently as he's feeling the need to kill EJO, that lead will keep, and he's only going to make things worse with Deb, an issue about which he seems to still care. I suppose, though, if he doesn't have Jamie stay now, he'll be stuck when he needs to go out later. Ugh, Deb ruins everything.

By Couch Baron

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