The Murder Games

S07E03

Okay, this season is really not kidding around. Slower burns first: Nadia turns up to the station asking about the bracelet Soroka was wearing, but of course we know Viktor took it off her corpse, so Quinn can't help her. He does score a date out of the deal, though, and it's a good thing Deb's got too much on her plate to hear about that. Although I'd imagine she will eventually, since this was all a setup job – as Jason Gedrick tells Nadia, they need to get the bracelet back because it has a GPS signal that they use to track the mules in their heroin business, which is their real cash cow. Isaak Pullo then drips culture and menace all over Nadia in ordering her to get close to Quinn in an effort to find out what the police know, and after she leaves while gamely covering her terror, Isaak Pullo speculates that Viktor took the bracelet to keep the police from finding it, and instructs Jason Gedrick to get the IT man who set up the system on working on a way to track the prior data. Surprisingly, Nadia confesses her orders to Quinn, so they devise a plan for her to play double agent, and this is the first time they've involved Quinn in the story in a meaningful way in some time, although he won't be our Joey if he doesn't find a way to screw it all up.

Randall's mother (played by the redoubtable Beth Grant; the show is certainly doing well with casting this season) turns up to give Deb some evidence from his killing spree that Randall sent her fifteen years ago. While she wasn't willing to give it up while Randall was alive, as it might have been enough for him to have been put to death, she figures now there might be something in there that could give the families of the victims some peace. There's enough for the team to conclude that Randall was telling the truth about there being more bodies buried out there, so Deb sends Batista and Dexter to talk to Randall's old flame Hannah, played by Chuck's Yvonne Strahovski, another inspired casting choice. On the way, though, Batista stops in at the strip club to give Jason Gedrick a piece of his mind about Tony's recently discovered corpse, leaving Dexter free to have a little getting-to-know-you chat with Isaak Pullo. Then, when Batista and Dexter show up to Hannah, she's both remorseful for her involvement with Randall and cold and uncooperative to Batista, but she does seem to take a shine to Dexter, so we've got our love interest for the season.

Dexter sets Greene up by sending a package to Masuka containing the ITK hand and a letter asking Greene for a refund. Masuka cans Greene on the spot, and, obviously unable to explain the real truth, Greene slinks away – only to find Jamie at his place watching the video of Greene and that hooker, which apparently happened after they started dating. Greene tries to inform Jamie that Dexter's behind it, but she tells him she never wants to see him again. This leads Greene to try to sink Dexter's boat, which proves to be an exquisitely poorly-timed errand, given that Isaak Pullo and his goons, having located the slip from which the bracelet left, show up to catch him in the act. Isaak Pullo solves Dexter's Greene problem by putting a bullet in his head, but not before Greene gives up Dexter's name and the fact that he works for the police, which brings recognition to Isaak Pullo's face from the turn he and Dexter had earlier.

Dexter is feeling the pressure of Deb's constant surveillance to the point where's he's envisioning killing people right and left, and his fantasy of stabbing Masuka may be audience pandering, but I'm not going to be the one to turn it down. When he physically assaults an uncooperative detainee, Deb hauls him outside, and they have an intense conversation in which Dexter effectively conveys how much like a ticking time bomb he feels. Deb agrees to give him a little space, but not without invoking Harrison to try to get Dexter to mend his ways.

This doesn't stop Dexter from doing a little kill research, coming up with a simply charming fellow by the name of Raymond Speltzer, a lady-killer in the less fun sense. After some recon, Dexter correctly senses that Speltzer is getting ready to claim his victim, so he tries to get Deb's blessing to stop him the only way he knows how. Deb won't be pulled down the slippery slope so easily, though; instead, she goes to LaGuerta to try to follow up on Dexter's vetting work and see if they can bag Speltzer through legal means. Unfortunately, LaGuerta's judgment is that there isn't enough evidence for a search warrant, but she does sanction Deb to put a patrol car on Speltzer.

Dexter's lack of faith in the legal system proves warranted when Deb allows the patrol car to leave on another errand in advance of this waitress we saw earlier turning up to Speltzer's for a date, and he finally finds the proof he needs that Speltzer is a killer. Meanwhile, Deb, a part of her trusting Dexter's instincts more than she'd like to admit, decides to drive by Speltzer's house on her way home, which is good, given that he's inside wearing some kind of Viking-looking helmet and hunting the girl in this death maze into which he's turned the house. Deb gets tangled up in some barbed wire, and it's only through Dexter's delayed-but-still-timely intervention that her life is saved, which is more than we can say for the poor girl; on top of that, Speltzer gets away.

In the end, Deb is forced to admit that what Dexter does might be "a necessary evil," but while she reluctantly accepts it, she doesn't like it – especially the part where he likes it so much. She sends him back home with a warning that things will never be the same between them, and Dexter realizes that his freedom has come at a price he didn't want to pay. Still so many nitpicks, but it's amazing how a tightly-packed story makes those seem so much less relevant.

Dexter's in line at the Post Office, and the way people are crowding into each other's personal space is enough to demonstrate how trapped he feels without the ensuing explanatory DVO; moreover, you'd think the sweltering City of Miami would have passed an ordinance about maintaining a reasonable distance from others as a matter of olfactory courtesy. Deb the babysitter is outside, I think playing Cat's Cradle with her iPod headphones, and Dexter looks like he's going out of his mind until, after one of the clerks closes up in front of him in one of those cartoonish ways they do, Dexter picks up something sharp and slices the throat of the OBVIOUS dummy. Also, this must be one posh part of Miami that doesn't use Plexiglas in its Post Offices, no? Anyway, snapping him out of the dream sequence is Deb, who enters and complains about how long this is taking, which is hilarious given that she and Dexter are both public employees, before asking him why he looks so guilty, like, NICE QUESTION TO ASK OF YOUR SERIAL-KILLER BROTHER IN A CROWDED ROOM. Dexter finally gets his turn at the window, and as we see one of the packages he's sending is addressed to Miami Metro Forensics (return is an "A. Thompson") as DVO lets us know that this is his play to get Greene out of his life. I wouldn't have said this last season, but I hope it works.

Speaking of Greene and Des Moines Metro, Dexter enters in time to have a little slo-mo pass-by staring contest with Greene after which they both seem to claim victory, and then Dexter heads into the briefing, and really, show, you're doing so much better, but given that we JUST saw that Deb took the time to escort Dexter to the Post Office, what sense does it make that they would come in separately? Deb asks Batista for an update on the Anderson investigation, but he only gets a few seconds in before Deb starts glowering in Dexter's direction, and as boring as Batista might be, it's still intense and out of character enough that Masuka notices and surreptitiously asks Dexter what's up. Dexter looks understandably freaked that Deb's surveillance of him is becoming this noticeable, but doesn't have time to dwell on it, because after Quinn presents some sort of plan that won't be relevant anyway, Deb orders Dexter to get a standard forensics sample from some suspect they just hauled in. Masuka can't let it go about how Dexter must have fucked up in Deb's eyes, and yammers at him until Dexter hilariously takes a pen and stabs "Masuka" in the carotid artery, producing a veritable fountain of blood for which I had no idea I was rooting so hard, and Dexter's "Ahhhh" reaction kind of agrees with me. Also hilariously, everyone's dream reaction is "Ohhhhh!" like "That's gotta hurt" instead of "grisly murder of a co-worker" - while I'd expect this crowd to be pretty hard-boiled, that's still cold. Deb then gives a little spiel about the end-of-month open-case numbers...

By Couch Baron

...and then Dexter is trying to get the requested samples from this prisoner, who's rather conveniently uncooperative to the point where Dexter starts choking him, and given that I was tempted to do the same thing, I'm not sure this is definite evidence of Dexter losing control. Deb, however, enters and hauls Dexter outside for a little chat...

...and in an alley (the acoustics look like they might be kind of great in there, I have to say), Dexter informs Deb that her constant watchdogging is the reason he snapped in there. He points out that he was true to his word in calling her the last time he had the urge to kill, but she wonders if he can promise that if she weren't all over him, he wouldn't slip. I'd point out that the last time, he got himself into a position to kill in spite of her "being on [his] ass," but Dexter's got an even better answer: "I can promise that if you don't get off my ass, something bad is gonna happen." He definitely seems fairly off the chain, and I think it's genuine; either way, it's effective. Deb, surely a bit scared, asks what that means, and he explains that if he doesn't control his need, it will control him - he needs to kill. Deb refuses to accept that, but she's running out of ideas, so she pleads with him to think about Harrison. Dexter tells her he does think about him, all the time, but Deb is sure that sooner or later, Dexter's crimes will catch up to him, and to his son. Dexter's similarly running out of things to say, but Deb temporarily breaks the impasse by conceding that she'll give Dexter some space. She puts a hand on his arm and asks him to hang in there with her, and Dexter nods, but when she's gone, he still looks fairly desperate. Guess what will make him feel better? A Frosty Swirl!

Oh no, that was last episode. The answer is killing! Inside, Dexter, surreptitiously starts on a little research and comes up with just the most genteel-looking male specimen named "Ray Speltzer," who just was paroled from an assault charge. Looking at his build, I wouldn't be surprised if the attack was directed at an African elephant. I mean, this actor recurred on The Shield. Dexter, however, discovers in his file some strong suggestions that the guy is a serial killer of women, and in rather violent fashion too. Unfortunately, the police were never able to make those charges stick, so after noting that one of the victims seemed to have lost one of her earrings, he resolves to vet Speltzer as a potential target...

By Couch Baron

...which involves keeping an eye on the guy and his bad wig as he works a heavy bag at the gym. Dexter then gets a call from Deb, whom he blows off rather quickly, only to see her hanging out in front of the place, which, funny, sure, but if you're going to give him "space," maybe you should park down the street?

At Helena Metro, Quinn is happy to find Nadia waiting for him. The girl who rolled out "ploy" with no problem doesn't figure out the expression "giving milk to a stray cat" despite obvious context, but since it leads to flirting later, it's certainly not worth discussing, so let's move on to where she asks him if she could have the bracelet that Soroka was wearing when she was killed, as she knows that she would want to be buried wearing it. Quinn is only too happy to oblige - only, as we know because Viktor took it, the police didn't find a bracelet. Nadia at least doesn't give away the importance of the thing, but when Quinn asks her out, she says yes. Well, I suppose he's a step up from the men with whom she regularly comes into contact. A fairly small step, but a step nonetheless.

Nadia returns to Jason Gedrick and informs him of the news, and adds that she knows Quinn wouldn't lie to her, because he likes her That Way. Jason Gedrick tells her that if the cops find the GPS chip in the piece of jewelry, they'll figure out that's how the Ukrainians track their mules, which will bring their heroin operation to a crashing halt. Nadia is sitting in front of an ornate chessboard that has Isaak Pullo's style all over it, so it's not a huge surprise when Isaak Pullo's voice chimes in from behind Jason Gedrick that this is good news, and then sits to Nadia as he talks about some Russian mezzo soprano about whom it was said, "Her voice could unlock the mysteries of the heart. And so can I, but I generally use a sickle." Well, not really, but his ensuing story about pushing this music teacher who encouraged him to feel and then gave him a failing grade down a flight of stairs kind of suggests the same thing.

This little incident resulted in Isaak Pullo being shipped off to a disciplinary school in England. "Now, I'm afraid, my love of opera is all that's left of my sensitive side." The writing is pretty stock "cultured villain" - he's even drinking champagne and eating caviar during this conversation - but Ray Stevenson has the chops to sell it. He reaches out and strokes Nadia's hair, causing her to flinch involuntarily, before instructing her to get close to Quinn so she can find out what the police know about Viktor. Nadia nods her agreement, and upon being dismissed, controls her obvious terror in a game and successful effort to make it out of there without hyperventilating. When she's gone, Isaak Pullo notes that Viktor "is" smart, and probably is hiding out somewhere after having taken the bracelet off Soroka so the police wouldn't get it. Jason Gedrick points out that they can't know for sure, with the signal having died over a week ago, but Isaak Pullo isn't so sure, and barks at his silent, fingerprint-wiping goon to find the IT man who set the system up, who I hope for his sake hasn't been dating any of the strippers.

Lansing Metro. As he chats with Masuka, Greene surreptitiously scratches his beard with his middle finger pointed in Dexter's direction, but Dexter has the last laugh when his package finally arrives, and when Masuka opens it, he finds the ITK hand (do they not have Security check these packages first?) and a note to Greene complaining about the hand's condition and requesting a refund. Okay, I can't imagine that anyone would think Greene would be dumb enough to have used the station as his address of record on handBay or wherever the thing was originally sold, so Masuka is being a total idiot falling for this setup job, but I could believe that Dexter factored that in as part of his plan. Also, Greene doesn't come up with that point in his flustered state (and I could believe the fact that he did actually play a big part in the hand ending up here could be contributing to his inability to make a plausible denial here), and Masuka, who's probably getting used to this kind of thing by now, cans him on the spot. Greene looks balefully at Dexter (didn't catch that dirty look, did you, Masuka), but given that his ability to defend himself seems to have left along with his passion for his stupid game, he has no choice but to slink out. Masuka complains that he has the worst luck with interns, although even with everything Greene's done recently he STILL is a million times better than the Horrific Nightmare Of An Intern. DVO lets us know that he's got one more card to play in his Get Rid Of Greene deck, but for now he's going to focus on Speltzer.

Meanwhile, Batista is showing Beth Grant into Deb's office, and I can't believe they got an actress of her talents for a one-scene role, but I'm not complaining. (Then again, her part in The Artist was even smaller.) Beth Grant is playing the deceased Randall's mother Donna with an accent I would tactfully place as "northern Florida," and after Deb offers her sympathies, Donna hands over an old bag of stuff that Randall sent her right before he got caught for his killing spree. Deb wonders why Donna held onto the stuff for fifteen years instead of turning it in, but Donna was afraid that it might have been enough to produce a death sentence for her boy. Now, however, with that no longer a concern (I wonder if that little patch of road will be named after him), she's ready to hand it over in hopes that there's something in it that might give the victims' families some peace. I probably need not add that Beth Grant is acting circles in this one scene around almost everyone else in the show; I'm going to do it anyway. Deb thinks it might be junk, but they'd better check it out...

By Couch Baron

...and we cut to Dexter and Batista in the process of cataloguing everything when Deb comes in and asks if there's anything interesting. The answer is not yet, but as it happens, Dexter comes to three items that were wrapped up separately from the other stuff - a plastic toy giraffe on a pedestal, a lighter, and a necklace. The necklace has one of the victims' names on it that Randall claimed to have killed, so the group concludes that Randall was definitely telling the truth about there being more victims out there. They don't have time to dwell on this, however, as Quinn enters with the news of Tony the bouncer's corpse having been found. The officers head out, but not before Dexter tells Deb that he won't be home for dinner - he's going to hit the new gym. Deb doesn't look like she believes him, as she hasn't had a lobotomy recently, but she leaves without questioning him.

Someone who's not going to get away that easily is Greene, who arrives home to find Jamie watching that video we saw last week of Greene with that hooker. Greene tries to claim it was before they started dating, but Jamie recognizes the shirt he's wearing in it as one she got for him, and aside from the poor planning, Greene, that's pretty poor form, so I'm surprised Greene gets away with only the remote being flung at him. Greene wonders how she got the recording, and Jamie spits that his hooker mailed it to her anonymously, probably. "What'd you do, cancel her check?" Haha, yes, because most hookers take checks, made out to their real names, for illegal services rendered. Again, this is flimsy, but I could believe that Jamie's too upset with Greene's cheating to think about much else right now. I'd respect her if she asks some questions in the cold light of day, though, especially since Greene tries to put the idea in her head that Dexter is the one behind it. For now, though, she storms out, on the way telling him she never wants to see him again. Spoiler: You'll get your wish! When she's gone, Greene curses in frustration and looks impotent, the latter of which would have obviated this whole problem.

He adds that it's for that reason that Harry structured his code the way he did, and if he takes Speltzer down now, no one else will have to die. Deb asks if he's really claiming that he does what he does to save lives, and Dexter manages both to do himself a credit and to sell himself short when he merely says that the end result is the same. Obviously, he does it first and foremost to satisfy the need in him, but even though he wouldn't say so himself, I think saving innocent lives has become meaningful to him. Deb asks if he's really going to commit murder based on a haircut, but Dexter says no - he hasn't even finished vetting Speltzer yet, and he won't kill him until he's absolutely sure he's guilty of murder. Deb, though, won't hear him: "This is done. And nothing better happen to that bald piece of shit over there." I'm only guessing about the bar scene in Miami, but I still feel like "Which one?" would be an appropriate response. Deb takes off, but DVO stays behind to let us know that he's not done with Speltzer...

...so the morning, Dexter's staking out the graveyard at which Speltzer works as a groundskeeper. Dexter kind of hilariously sits with his eyes closed in apparent prayer and his hands clasped around a flower as DVO lets us know that Speltzer has been inside one of the mausolea for twenty minutes. "Since when does a groundskeeper keep the grounds within a private tomb?" Well, there are other things he could have been up to in there, but since you don't appear to have a black light we might as well not worry about them. When Speltzer is safely gone (well, Dexter doesn't actually wait that long, but I'm not going to complain about the show not dragging something like that out), Dexter checks out the mausoleum and discovers from the inscriptions that the person most recently interred within died back in the fifties, so what could be so interesting to Speltzer in there? Unfortunately, he won't get an answer now, as the place is locked up but good; moreover, he gets a call from Deb, and we don't hear her side of it, but it sounds like maybe Dexter didn't leave her any coffee.

Back at the Dacha Stripchev, Isaak Pullo enters the office to get a report from the IT nerd, who tells him that thanks to the original setup, they were able to reconstruct all the GPS data that was transmitted (NO idea if this is feasible or ridiculous; I know which way I'd guess but I still appreciate not being certain) and as such they know that after the girl was killed (this IT guy must be trusted if he knows about that), the bracelet did in fact go to the airport - but then it wound up at the marina, and then eight miles out to sea, which was where the last transmission originated from. Isaak Pullo gets a look on his face like his music teacher just gave him an F before biting out that Viktor is dead. "Dumped in the ocean like a load of garbage." The writers aren't usually the best at subtle humor, but if that's a nod to Dexter's Hefty-bag method of corpse disposal, I have to hand it to them. The IT guy looks a bit uncomfortable at being the techno-bearer of bad news, and when Isaak Pullo asks if he can pinpoint the exact slip at the marina from which the bracelet transmitted, he says he'll need some time. Isaak Pullo: "It's worth the wait." Having seen the episode, I kind of agree.

Dexter heads into Deb's office, wherein she asks him to tell her he wasn't stalking Speltzer. Impressively, Dexter continues with the honesty, admitting it before telling her about the suspicious mausoleum. She berates him for his lack of evidence, but he counters that he'd have it if she hadn't ordered him back to the station, and even without it, he can tells Speltzer's going to kill again. "An alarm is going off inside my lizard brain." Deb says something disparaging about that, but honestly, the practice of the police consulting killers to catch other killers is tried and true, right? There were many crazy things about Silence Of The Lambs, but that wasn't one of them, I don't think? After saying that Harry taught him to put faith in his danger sense, he leans forward and tells Deb that said sense has helped her on innumerable occasions in the past, even though she didn't know it. Deb looks like this is uncomfortably reaching her, which she tries to stave off by accusing him of screwing with her head, so he offers to go back and get the proof.

Deb doesn't want to play it that way, though, as the evidence would be unusable in court; instead, she wants to try to get a search warrant. Knowing that this is probably going to cost someone's life, Dexter urgently tells her there isn't time, but Deb stands firm: "Do not fuck with me on this, or I swear to God, I will take us both down!" Dexter concedes defeat, although I'd admire his balls if he threw Harrison back in her face. Having won this round, Deb tells Dexter that she needs him to go with Batista to talk to Hannah McKay, Randall's old flame, as they're going to need her help tracking down these new bodies. Dexter wonders why he has to go, but Deb explains that since Hannah was a minor at the time of the crimes, she was able to get her record expunged; as such, they need her DNA for reference. As Deb signals through the window to Batista, Dexter asks if she's giving him busy work to keep him away from Speltzer. Deb: "It's really important that we find those bodies. And yes!" Hee. Batista enters and asks Dexter if he's ready, and Dexter fakes enthusiasm. Batista warns him that they just need to make a quick stop...

...at the Dacha Stripchev. Batista grabs Jason Gedrick and essentially accuses him and his people of being responsible for Tony's death. Jason Gedrick leads Batista away to talk it over, but the camera stays with Dexter, as a different angle shows that Isaak Pullo is sitting rather near him. Noticing Dexter standing like a fish out of water, Isaak Pullo rather dismissively "asks" Dexter to sit down, but Dexter claims that he's fine, prompting Isaak Pullo to wonder if he's in the wrong place. Noting Isaak Pullo's disinterest in the goings-on around him, Dexter counters that he could say the same about him, and they commiserate, kind of, about killing time there. Isaak Pullo sees Dexter with some newfound respect, and as such favors him with the statement that although the two of them are different from the "leering cretins" around them, they do have something in common with them - they're frustrated. Dexter gives a small smile of assent, and when Batista comes to collect him, tells Isaak Pullo that he hopes he finds what he's looking for. You don't know the half of it, Dex.

By Couch Baron

Deb grabs LaGuerta, shoves the Speltzer file in her face, and asks how she'd like to catch him. LaGuerta admits she still loses sleep over them not being able to put Speltzer away, but when all Deb can produce when asked for probable cause is that her lizard brain is going off (h/t Dexter), LaGuerta tells her that's not going to cut it as far as a search warrant goes, but suggests she keep trying to find a way to get permission to enter the mausoleum. Deb, a bit of Dexter's frustration creeping into her voice, asks what LaGuerta would do if she knew there was a murderer out there that she could stop from killing again. LaGuerta, however, didn't get to where she is without having settled this question for herself: "We're the police, Debra. We have to follow the law." She does, however, suggest that Deb put a patrol car on Speltzer, "but I'd better not see it on the budget." Deb nods and leaves, and then I think we get a shot of an FBI file, just so we know LaGuerta hasn't given up the Bay Harbor Butcher angle. Good, she really seemed equivocal about that last week.

Jason Gedrick, Isaak Pullo, and his goon are finding the boat from which the signal originated, and it's of course the Slice Of Life -- which just so happens to have Greene on it preparing to do something with a power drill to sink it. Greene has his back turned so he can't see anyone approaching, which is surely how I would behave were I in the process of committing a felony, so he's startled when Isaak Pullo mildly asks if it's his boat. Greene, obviously not hip to what he's getting himself into, says yeah, totally, it's his, at which point Isaak Pullo asks who he is and why he killed Viktor. Greene again is slow to figure out the danger, and instead of switching tacks now and assuring this extremely menacing person that there's been a mistake, he blusters about calling the cops, so very soon, he finds himself held by Jason Gedrick from behind while Isaak Pullo takes the drill and prepares to do something that will render the "video" in "videogames" irrelevant where Greene is concerned.

When Greene signals that he wants to talk, though, Isaak Pullo relents, and Greene explains that the boat actually belongs to "this douchebag named Dexter Morgan," whom he hates. Isaak Pullo asks who Dexter is, and Greene gives up that he works for MM Homicide before asking if he can go. I really think the indicated play would have been to offer to spy on Dexter, lead him into a trap - something where he might display some value, at least so he can get out of peril here. But Greene both is off his game and has clearly outlived his usefulness, so I'm not too broken up about Isaak Pullo, after pretty clearly wondering whether Dexter is the dude with whom he kind of bonded earlier, drawing a gun (with silencer, natch) from his henchman's jacket and shooting Greene in the head. Isaak Pullo instructs Jason Gedrick to get rid of the body, and I'd complain about this murder being committed in broad daylight, but of course Dexter would have picked the marina that got zero stars for its security surveillance on Yelp.

Dexter, sporting that old brown shirt he used to wear on all his little excursions such as these, climbs over the graveyard fence...

...while Deb gets a call from the black-and-white on Speltzer, who reports that Speltzer got home from the bar over two hours earlier and looks like he's in for the night, so can they go field this other call they just got? Deb tells him to go, and after she hangs up, sighs that the idea was a waste of manpower. Well, from what I've seen of this department, that's not saying much, at least.

Nadia is telling Quinn her sob story about how she left home and her dreams of starting a dog-walking business, like if that's true, maybe she should bone up (I'm SO sorry) on her animal expressions. Nadia then tells Quinn about her instructions from Isaak Pullo, which I guess isn't as surprising as I first thought, given her declaration that she's scared to go back to them with nothing. Quinn suggests that he feed Nadia just enough information to keep her bosses happy, while she keeps her ears open for any news relating to Anderson's murder. Nadia's down but still worried for Quinn, which is nice of her, given that she's the one going to be putting her head in the lion's mouth every day. Quinn, however, thinks it'll be fine, but he probably just wants to get to the sexin'.

Oh hey, guess who got off work "early" and is showing up to "Speltzer's" house to take him up on his "offer"? That waitress from earlier! He promises her "the best mojito in Miami," and I'm guessing she knows the odds of that are pretty slim. It's not going to be the biggest disappointment of her night, anyway.

Dexter has managed to penetrate the mausoleum, and inside, he finds a little shrine, on top of which is the missing earring from that girl referenced earlier. Still doesn't explain what he was doing in there for twenty minutes, but I already made my suggestion. Dexter decides against alerting Speltzer to his having been there and instead snaps a picture of the thing. Unfortunately, the message fails to send thanks to lack of a signal...

...which provides a logical cut to Deb's phone screen informing her she has no new messages. She also pretty much has no charge, which is probably why she turns her phone off, and I'd complain about the plot contrivance, but given that she's got a BlackBerry I actually find this a refreshing taste of vérité. She looks like she's getting ready to head home, but has a reluctant change of heart and calls Dexter to tell him that, thanks to the paranoia she's absorbed from him, she's going to swing by Speltzer's house to make sure he's "tucked in" for the night. "Thank you for fucking up my evening, bro." It'll be a while before they can laugh about that one.

So the waitress' expectations for this date have already been severely tempered, as there's barely any furniture in the place, and what he has is covered in plastic like in a children's book in which a friend of the protagonist has a super-uptight mother. Obviously against her better judgment, she takes a seat, and seriously, of all people, I would think a waitress, who should be used to dealing with creepers of all sorts, would have a developed lizard brain and would use the opportunity of him going to make the drinks to get the hell out of there.

Her potential salvation, though, has arrived, as Deb parks nearby and turns off her lights. She notes that Speltzer still seems to be up...

...while inside, the man himself is staring RATHER INTENSELY at the girl, who takes a sip out of the plastic cup and then tells him that there's like not even any alcohol in the drink. He breathes that she has to be in control of her faculties, "otherwise there's no challenge." Mistaking that as a sexual reference, she puts down her drink and looks uncomfortable, but not as much as when, after he tells her she looks strong and he "like[s] it when they're strong," he grabs her and shoves a hand over her mouth. "Let's play a game." Ooh, is it Global Thermonuclear War?

Deb sees Speltzer's lights go out, and figures that's her cue to go home, but then she hears staticky, dissonant sounds coming from within and a flickering light upstairs. She steps out to investigate...

...while Dexter, outside the mausoleum now, picks up Deb's message. He frantically runs for the exits as he tries to call her, but we know her phone is of no use. Speaking of police protocol, that's got to be a violation, right? Shouldn't an officer entering an unknown situation have to have a working (as much as possible) phone? Set on vibrate so there are no plot-convenient rings, entertainment writers EVERYWHERE?

Deb hears a crashing noise from above and a woman's scream, and upstairs, we see the reason, as the waitress is desperately trying to navigate some sort of death maze as Speltzer, wearing what looks like a Viking helmet and army fatigues, pursues her. It doesn't seem like he can see too well in that thing, so if she were able to manage to get behind him she'd have a fighting chance, but there's shit everywhere up there, including barbed wire and other lovely traps. It looks like he's got her cornered, but she ducks through a low opening...

...while downstairs, Deb is blowing the lock off the door. Again, it's standard procedure for her to call in; if her phone wasn't working she should have been sure to take a wireless police transmitter with her. You're a Lieutenant, Deb. Hope you remember to write yourself up. The girl is definitely still alive as Deb makes her way up the stairs, at the top of which is this simple message: "RUN."

By Couch Baron

Her potential salvation, though, has arrived, as Deb parks nearby and turns off her lights. She notes that Speltzer still seems to be up...

By Couch Baron

With a gun in her hand, Deb chooses to walk, but that doesn't make the place any easier to navigate, and the scraping, discordant electronic music is an effective choice both for the maze and the scene. It'd actually help Deb in her search if she could find the source and eliminate it, but soon Speltzer has grabbed her legs from behind and pulled her through another low aperture. After he kicks away her piece, she manages to return the favor in the goolies - always a good idea against a male attacker - but gets tangled up in some barbed wire in the process. She struggles to free herself before he can recover, but it's pretty clear she's going to lose the race - so it's a good thing Dexter conks Speltzer on the neck from behind. Given the adrenaline of the situation and the fact that Dexter already wanted him dead, I'm surprised he didn't make it a killing blow, but maybe even now he knows that that would complicate his life unacceptably.

Also, fairly convenient that Dexter could get here so quickly, especially since you'd think Speltzer would want to set up this operation at a reasonable distance from his place of employment, but whatever, the guy doesn't even put alcohol in his mojitos, so I don't understand the first thing about how he thinks. Dexter kills the music - thank you - and helps free Deb, who tells him about the girl. Unfortunately, when they find her, he's already had his way with her, and one of her earrings is gone to boot. And the bad news continues to pile up, as they hear sounds of movement, and when Dexter goes to the window, we hear the squeal of tires - Speltzer got away. That's not going to look good for the open-case numbers.

Later, outside, Dexter and Deb trade information - the house was a foreclosure Speltzer used in which to set up his maze, and burned plastic was found in the oven (which was operational in a foreclosure, I'm sure), which explains the lack of any DNA. I've never burned plastic, but I'd imagine it doesn't smell so hot? Deb goes on that she sent some munis over to the mausoleum, and the earring Dexter saw was gone, so it looks like Speltzer is on the run. They then observe the girl's corpse being wheeled away, and Deb looks twitchy, like she might lose it at any time. Dexter watches her with a mix of concern and, I think, hope that she's coming around to his way of thinking...

...and, speaking of thinking, we cross-fade to morning, with Deb standing on the beach looking out toward the ocean, and it'd be a really bad time for a body to wash up. She looks pensive and upset...

By Couch Baron

...and then she's returning to the house, where Dexter offers her coffee SEE DEXTER THAT'S HOW IT WORKS. Except not really, as Deb gets right into it: She sees now that Dexter was right about Speltzer, and is willing to concede that things aren't so black and white when it comes to the ethics of what he does; the fact that Speltzer is on the loose and free to kill again proves that. "I hate it, but I get it." She even concedes that it might be "a necessary evil" - and I'm not doing justice to Jennifer Carpenter's work in this scene; she's keeping her conflict under control but you can still feel it everywhere - but the problem for her is that Dexter isn't doing what he does from a place a righteousness, as evidenced by his blood slides. "They're like trophies, like Speltzer's earrings!" Dexter reflexively seethes that he's nothing like Speltzer, but Deb's point is valid, and she urgently goes on that on some level, he likes to kill. He tries to split that hair, to no avail, so he simply tells her he can't change who he is. She tells him she knows - but neither can she. She goes on that she thinks he should move out, and you can tell he wants to jump for joy right there, but this news comes at a price - when he tells her he's still her brother and that nothing's changed, she demurs. "I don't know if it ever can be the same again." She leaves him, and later, DVO lets us know that her words hit him harder than we might think: "I'm finally out of my cage. But freedom comes with a cost." And with Dexter being the one to look contemplatively out at the horizon, we leave him until week.

John Ramos is a writer and film producer living in Los Angeles. His current film, "The Trouble With Bliss," starring Michael C. Hall, Lucy Liu, Brie Larson, and Peter Fonda, can currently be seen on iTunes and other digital platforms, cable VOD everywhere, and Showtime. (Facebook and Twitter here.) You can email him at couchbaron@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/couchbaron, or check out his blog, "Pull Up A Chair," which he'd just love for you to stop by.