We’re glad Dexter can because the average human on the East Coast is currently trapped by Sandy’s wiles.
Harry Morgan’s ghost has returned, and he’s helping Dexter unwind as he cleans up his boat. Dexter finds some blood from a murder he didn’t commit there, and the confrontation between Dexter and Isaak is set to explode in this week’s Dexter.
“Swim Deep” revolves around three threads: Isaak and Dexter facing off, Hannah’s assistance to the police (and budding infatuation with Dexter) and LaGuerta honing in on Dexter.
Back at Miami Metro, Masuka has discovered LaGuerta is processing blood slides elsewhere, leading Deb to talk with the captain. LaGuerta tells her it smells like the Bay Harbor Butcher, not a copycat, and that the late Agent Frank Lundy had doubts about Doakes’ culpability. LaGuerta momentously hands Deb the files.
In the elevator going to talk to Dexter, Deb drops a barrage of F-bombs. Interrogating him, Deb blurts out, “Dex, we are in a storm of f—ck.” She’s right. Dexter points out suspected BHB victims he did kill, one of whom, a wedding photographer, has family in the area.
On returning to his apartment, Dexter suspects someone’s inside and tricks that person into leaving. It’s Isaak, who had clearly been ready to torture and kill Dexter. In a phone conversation, Isaak tells Dexter he wants to kill all who were involved with the murder of Viktor in the first episode. Dexter tells him he works alone.
Afraid for Deb’s safety, Dexter tells her the situation. In yet another excellent scene framed by the leads standing between cars, Dexter reveals he kept Viktor’s prints in order to keep Miami Metro off him and ensure his own kill.
“You can’t rip a case wide open so that it conveniently falls into your f—cking lap!” Deb snipes at him. She’s overwhelmed: “How did this become my life?”
Dexter can’t afford the risk of Isaak talking to the police if he’s brought in, but he promises to never take a case from the police again. Dex and Deb have to hide out in a motel until he can incapacitate Isaak. There, they wax nostalgic about childhood, and Deb tells him, “You were my hero.” How times have changed.
Hannah, helping the police find bodies from her late ex-boyfriend’s killing spree years ago, seems nostalgic about the murders. At an exhuming of a dead couple, Dexter and Hannah end up alone again, and she muses, “Look at us talking blood and gore like we’re on a date sharing our first sexual experience.” Well.
Because Dexter is a good analyst, he discovers Hannah killed one of the victims, but keeps it to himself. He talks to her about it, and she’s cavalier with her district attorney-granted immunity.
Deb and LaGuerta get wedding photos from the dead photographer’s son, and one of them has Dexter in it! Deb slyly pockets the picture.
Dexter tricks Isaak into entering a Colombian-run bar, and shots are fired. When the police come to the scene, Isaak is gone and the Colombian gangsters are dead. Dexter analyzes the blood spatter as we see slo-mo flashes of Isaak expertly killing everyone around him. It’s a beautiful and intense scene.
We find out Isaak’s right-hand man in America had a bribery deal with Quinn when the detective was still in narcotics division. Quinn, why do you do these things?
Deb orders Batista to let go of Mike’s killing, telling him the patsy bartender from last week’s episode was the killer.
Isaak is apprehended and as he walks past Dexter in the station, they share a slo-mo Trinity-esque hateful gaze. When Isaak is locked up, Dexter talks with him over the prison phone and Isaak threatens to never stop hunting him.
“I don’t know who you are,” Isaak admits.
“If you ever find out, you’ll regret it,” Dexter warns.
Back at his apartment, Dexter talks with Deb about the incriminating wedding photo. Deb wants to opt out of their nascent criminal endeavor.
“I know you’re not gonna stop,” she says, “but I don’t wanna know about it.”
As Dexter burns the photo, he thinks back on the childhood nostalgia of earlier. Brother and sister would go to the ocean on vacation, but Dexter would always win their little competitions.
“I’d swim deep,” he narrates, “because I could withstand the pull of the tide.” Deb stayed at shore. She’s staying there now.
After a lot of slam dunks this season, “Swim Deep” drags. Every plot device is necessary and logical, but that’s the extent of what this episode contributes. Everything in it had to happen, and that’s exactly what it feels like.
The Isaak-Dexter confrontation is intriguing but unhappily conclusive. I never really felt Dexter was threatened.
Ghost Harry is unwelcome; I used to be a fan, but now he feels like a relic. A major facet of the seventh season’s expertise is its willingness to break the usual plot advancement of the show. Why keep him around?
The episode is buoyed by the indelible sexual tension between Hannah and Dexter, and the always satisfyingly emotional conversations between Dex and Deb. But the previous two episodes saw fight-or-flight traps for Dexter and Deb, and I found myself entranced. This week, I felt less engaged.
I hope we can rebound next week, when Dexter suspects Hannah of being a killer now (and possibly setting her sights on him), and Quinn gets roped up in gangster problems.
