Relief.
That’s what Dexter Morgan was feeling. He closed his eyes. He exhaled. He was relieved. That sounds bizarre. But I’m sure of it.
That’s how the first episode of the seventh season of Dexter ended on Sunday night.
SPOILER ALERT: This is a review of the episode and is meant for people who saw it. If you don’t want to know what happened, now’s the time to bail.
Okay, so the previous season ended with Dexter (played by Michael C. Hall, pictured above right) and his foster sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter, pictured above left) having reached a crossroads in their relationship. Deb had walked in on Dexter just as he was completing one of his patented kills.
So for the entire first episode of the new season, Dexter was trying to limit the damage. Or contain the damage. Yes, Deb knew the truth. But she didn’t know the WHOLE truth. Dexter was determined to keep Deb in the dark about that.
It didn’t work.
The final scene has Dexter entering his apartment, only to find his place torn apart, and Deb sitting there. In front of her is all of Dexter’s killing equipment and paraphernalia and souvenirs, including his blood slides.
“Did you kill all these people?” Deb asks coldly.
Dexter has no choice but to come clean.
“I did,” he says.
And then the big question.
“Are … are you a serial killer?” Deb says.
The entire run of Dexter has been leading up to this moment.
“Yes,” he answers.
Finally, there it is.
And I swear, Dexter is relieved. His life as he knew it is over. But being a serial killer, even one who’s trying to live by a code, is a lot to carry around on your own.
That big story line is the reason Dexter still is on the air. But other plot paths were set up as the seventh season began, with some of them having the potential to link up with the overriding arc as things proceed.
The “unrelated crime angle of the season” involves a dead stripper, a strip joint with mob connections in Ukraine, and, notably, a dead cop.
When Detective Mike Anderson (Billy Brown) stops to help someone with a flat tire, he finds the dead stripper in the trunk and instantly is shot dead. Mike always was a secondary character, but still, his murder – especially in the first episode of a season – was a shock.
Dexter later tracks and kills Mike’s killer. It’s a risky move by Dexter, given the Deb situation, but Dexter feels he needs to “centre” himself.
Ironically, that effort to return to normalcy helped lead to Deb’s wider discovery.
She never bought Dexter’s explanation at the church. So she was watching him closely. She learned that Dexter had told his omnipresent babysitter Jamie Batista (Aimee Garcia) that he was working late, when he clearly was not. “Does that happen a lot?” Deb asks, as she starts to put two and two together.
Two other noteworthy plot lines:
Dexter rightfully gets the creeps from Jamie’s boyfriend Louis Greene (Josh Cooke) – and vice versa, right? – but Dexter doesn’t yet understand what a threat Louis is.
And La Guerta (Lauren Velez) found one of Dexter’s blood slides at the church. This raises the spectre of James Doakes again, since the accepted wisdom of the Miami Metro Police Department is that one of their own, the now-deceased Doakes, was the Bay Harbor Butcher. And the butcher is associated with blood slides.
But we know – and Dexter knows – that it wasn’t really Doakes.
God, I wish I had a photographic memory of Dexter’s early seasons, since the show is doubling back on itself for key developments more and more.
All things considered, there was a heck of a lot going on as Dexter returned for season seven. You know, in the real world, I still think Deb would have “called in” the crime right away when she saw Dexter commit murder.
But hey, this is Dexter, so we left the real world behind a long time ago. If you want reality, watch Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
bill.harris@sunmedia.ca
@billharris_tv