THERE’S BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS
Isaak Sirko is scared. Two hitmen have been hired by the Koshka Brotherhood, which sees him as a liability. This week, he goes to the third man who wants to kill him, Dexter, for help.
It makes sense — Dexter killed a hitman in Isaak’s apartment previously, and he’s proven himself to be cunning. And Isaak told him before they would have been great friends if, you know, Dexter hadn’t killed his lover and all. Isaak tells Dexter he won’t kill him if he helps. It’s a great deal, but Dexter refuses. So, because they’re not actually friends, Isaak’s loyal bald goon kidnaps Hannah.
The dynamic between Dexter and Isaak carries “Helter Skelter,” an episode that otherwise performs a rote checking of the boxes for what should be in a Dexter episode.
Strange serial killings? Check. There’s a new murderer in town who burns his victims while standing near the flames unharmed. Dexter’s calling him “The Phantom” and he suspects an annoying arson investigator. It seems like a story line from earlier seasons and it feels forced.
Angry talks between Dex and Deb? Check. He convinces her to pull surveillance off Isaak so he can nab the hitmen — and, hopefully, Isaak. Compared to the catharsis of last week and the excellent acting from Jennifer Carpenter elsewhere in the season, their conversations this week are surprisingly lackluster. The best moment comes when Deb tells him, “Dex, she is a killer. You will never be safe with her.” He responds, “You’re safe with me.” But is she?
Growing love between Dex and Hannah? Check. They talk about fear and love out on the ocean to start the episode, and Dexter shows some heart when he realizes how scared he is he’ll never see Hannah again. But unlike the carnal excitement of their first tryst and the raw discussions of their urges to kill, their sappy, teary FaceTime chats don’t bring much to the table.
Dexter is rarely bad. Recently, it’s been great. But this episode breaks that winning streak by simply being good.
Throughout the episode, Dexter and Isaak face off in tense, brilliantly choreographed conversations taut with animosity. They consistently put each other on edge — in one scene, Isaak holds a gun to Dexter’s head as he talks trash about Isaak’s decision to send Viktor to Miami. And Isaak tries to get into Dexter’s mindset, realizing the blood spatter analyst simply likes to kill.
In a welcome return, LaGuerta resurrects Tom Matthews from a boozy house-boat-ridden retirement to help with the reopened Bay Harbor Butcher case. He will assist if she can pull the strings to get him reinstated so he can get his pension.
In a satisfying scene at a shooting range, Dexter stabs the first hitman.
Meanwhile, in a Coen brothers-esque turn of events for the worse, Hannah murders her captor but gets stabbed in the process. She seems dead.
Dexter lures the second assassin to Isaak, who kills him. As Dexter cleans up that murder, Isaak’s disgruntled club-owner lackey George arrives and shoots Isaak in the gut.
Isaak has one final request for Dexter: Bring him out to the ocean and dump him so he can be with Viktor. Dexter obliges. As they ride out together, Dexter driving and Isaak sitting in back bleeding out, they share the episode’s most beautiful scene.
They talk about love in the choppy waters. “Death has always calmed me,” Dexter tells him. Isaak looks at him with real respect and talks about how losing everything — including his sense of control, Dexter’s folly — was worth it for the time he spent with Viktor, when he felt alive.
“There’s hope for you yet,” Isaak tells Dexter as a piano melody soars in the background. He dies.
If Dexter were a little bolder, that would have been the end of the episode. How poetic that would have been: Dexter realizing he wants to give up control to stay with the woman he loves just as she apparently bleeds out elsewhere. And if Dexter were a lot bolder, she’d actually die. That would have been a better send-off for Isaak, who I already miss.
As “Helter Skelter” stands, though, five minutes of sap plays between this excellent scene and the credits. Deb has saved Hannah by finding her before she died, and as she recuperates in a hospital bed, Deb talks to her about saving her — she was doing her job.
“I think it’s about f—ing time I start doing things for myself,” she says, indicating she won’t depend on Dexter for as much in the future.
Dexter arrives, and he tells Hannah about the two scariest moments in his life: His mother’s murder and realizing he might lose Hannah. He feels out of control.
“All I know is that when I’m with you, I feel … safe,” he tells her to close out the episode.
Next week: more killings from “The Phantom,” more Matthews — sweet, sweet Matthews — and Hannah’s frightful discovery of Dexter’s Dark Passenger.
diversionsdbk@gmail.com
