Harry returns! And…it’s pretty lame.
Dexter has been lonely for a long time. And with Deb hounding him about Rita lately, that loneliness has been compounding. So his rash decisions in “Do the Wrong Thing” with Hannah are understandable.
The palpable sexual tension between Dexter and Hannah sizzles, sparks and catches fire this week. This storyline offers a momentary return to form amid another less-than-stellar overall episode.
Previously, Dexter decided to fudge the facts about the Wayne Randall killings when he found out Hannah had killed too. She’s got immunity anyway, so it’s not taking a case from the police … right?
Throughout the course of this hour, Dexter and Hannah meet up at each other’s houses, each unsure of the other’s motives. Dexter surmises that Hannah’s mentor and her last husband both died from poisoning, as she is a florist. And Hannah just doesn’t know what to make of Dexter. But then again, who does?
They share a great scene in her house when Dexter haltingly tells her about Rita’s murder, showing Michael C. Hall’s acting chops and the depth of Dexter’s lingering despair.
Meanwhile, Nadia convinces Quinn to not allow himself to be bribed. He talks with Isaak’s right-hand man, George, who tells him he’ll send Nadia to Dubai if he doesn’t cooperate and disappear the evidence that would soon be used to keep Isaak locked up.
Quinn, because he’s Quinn, accedes to George’s demands — for now.
In the episode’s most important plot point, LaGuerta talks with Deb about making progress in the reopened Bay Harbor Butcher case. He killed killers, LaGuerta muses before going as far as saying he was involved with the disappearance of the girl-napping gang of season five.
LaGuerta’s right on the money, as we know. It’s a pleasure to watch the tense Deb juggle her emotions and devotions in these scenes. And such connections to previous seasons are sorely needed on a show that fights tooth and nail to avoid being an episodic Kill of the Week. LaGuerta recounting her investigation of the Butcher is a meta deconstruction of the show itself — picking apart previous seasons’ plot holes and inconsistencies, at least from Miami Metro’s point of view.
While I love this direction for the season, I can’t help but feel the show runners are telling the story they aimed to tell in the final season – as the current season was originally intended – instead of in the now-penultimate seventh season.
Another powerful scene comes when Deb presses Dexter about LaGuerta’s ability to find loose ends, such as Lumen, who Deb’s deduced was Dex’s partner in crime and bed. She rightfully airs her disgust with Dexter putting up his girlfriend co-murderer in the house where his wife was murdered. Dexter shows some emotion, too — it’s a necessary catharsis for a plot point that, for me, was one of the most disturbing in the entire show.
Angry as he leaves, Dexter thinks, “I really need to kill someone.” Who hasn’t felt that way after a family argument?
Dexter sees Hannah has recently harvested some poisonous flower, but she finds him and invites him in. There, he charms her and says, “I want to take you out.”
“On a date?” she asks.
“That’ll work.”
Back at the station, Deb sanctions Batista’s thoughts about retirement and then goes out for a drink with Sal Price, a crime writer who has evidence that Hannah was involved in the Randall killings.
Those story lines and Quinn’s are all tired and stereotypical. It’s not what I want out of Dexter and it’s not what we deserve, frankly, after such an explosive opening to the season. Ghost Harry is back again, and he’s pretty much useless. The conversations he has with Dexter could (and should) be entirely narration.
This season is all about dredging up the past to move into an uncertain and likely fatal future. An old cop retiring? A dirty cop being dirty? A stressed lieutenant needing to unwind? Not only have those plots been done before, they’ve been done on this very show. I hope this season picks up steam again and focuses on what makes it great — LaGuerta and Deb, Deb and Dex, Dex and Hannah.
The episode ends with the latter as its focus, and does so with such a wallop it practically makes up for the tiring nature of the weaker stories.
Dexter breaks into a theme park on the aforementioned date with Hannah and they hold hands. They enter a life-size snow globe, which Hannah had said was her dream to visit as a teenager. Dexter approaches her from behind for a kiss on the neck and — needle! M99! She passes out! What!
Of course, we then see her wrapped up on a table, with Dexter in his kill clothes. He takes the duct tape off her mouth and she says, “Do what you gotta do.”
He raises the knife, and … cuts her loose! She’s naked, so she leans up and kisses him, and they have some seriously steamy sex in probably the hottest scene of the entire show. The tension from her near-murder bubbles to the surface and explodes. What an ending. Yeah, Dexter! Yeah, sex!
Next week, Isaak gets loose and Dexter tries to stall Price as Deb demands justice for Hannah’s role in the killings. Also, probably — more sex!
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