Dexter “Practically Perfect” 

Saving the best for last is a nice touch for this week’s episode of Dexter. On his quest to overcome his feelings of emptiness post Rita, Dexter was set to bring Boyd Fowler, the road kill pick up worker, to his death for killing young women.
Dexter planned to kill Boyd when he tagged along on Boyd’s daily pick-ups. Dex staged a meeting where he knew Boyd was eating lunch and he got Boyd to invite him on his daily runs by pretending like he needed a job. Dexter set up his kill room in an abandoned visitor welcome center and phoned in a pretend call for a gator.  He was so eager to bring Boyd down he failed to notice Boyd was carrying a tranquilizer gun when he stuck him in the neck with his own tranquilizer. It was instantly lights out for both of them and they woke up in an ambulance on their way to the county hospital. When questioned about the attack Boyd knew Dexter stuck him with the needle but pretended like he didn’t know why he passed out.

They both snuck out of  the hospital before any test could be done and Dex had to go to Boyd’s house that night to finish the job.
This snafu in his plans made it so Dexter didn’t have time to do his usual prep work thoroughly surveying his kill site before committing the act. The result was Dex now having a skittish and very frazzled Julia Stiles on his hands. Julia made her debut at the very end of the episode as they revealed she was locked behind the door to the attic steps. Next week should be super exciting when we find out exactly what Dex is going to do considering Lumen (Julia Stiles) was Boyd’s next victim and saw Dex kill Boyd on the table wrapped in plastic. Dex also called his new nanny, Sonya, at Boyd’s house before he killed him so Lumen could have heard some of his personal information. Dexter’s first planned kill since Rita’s death turned out to be anything but smooth. He needs to be careful because Quinn is on his tail following the Kyle Butler leads and is thisclose to finding out Dex is Butler.

An unfortunate consequence of this unsatisfactory kill is that Dexter also missed his son Harrison’s first steps. He planned on Boyd’s kill to make him feel better but it didn’t change a thing. Boyd was supposed to “be the start of his healing process” but it just dug his hole a bit deeper. At this point the hole might almost be Six Feet Under.HA.

The irony of the situation is that watching Harrison take his first steps would have helped him heal far more than killing Boyd. His father did warn him that offing Boyd wasn’t going to change anything and Dex is now in a sticky situation because he broke the most important rule of the code – Don’t get caught.

For the less eventful parts of the episode:

Laguerta and Batista: Laguerta found out about the bar brawl over her involving Batista. Internal Affairs came to talk to Laguerta about launching an investigation against Batista because Lopez, the cop he beat up,  is now in the hospital with internal bleeding. Batista’s in serious trouble; he could be charged with assault with a deadly weapon and possibly serve jail time. Does this mean Batista is going to get kicked off the force?

Deb: Deb is following leads to the homicide case involving the decapitated women and her husband who was shot. She brought a local cop named Cira, played by April Hernandez Castillo, on board to help her with the investigation. A witness the Cira interviewed turned up dead the next day with the same brutal treatment as the decapitated women. Deb also helped Dexter find a nanny, the very Mary Poppins-esque Sonya. In fact she seems so good I wonder if she’s going to be Dexter’s saving grace later in the season seeing as though he’s in a bit of a pickle.

Quinn: Quinn called the FBI to see if he could show Trinity’s family a picture of Dexter to determine if its a match for Kyle Butler. I cant wait to see what happens in the next episode when he gets a chance to confront them. I wonder if Trinity’s family is going to talk.