Dexter “Everything is Illumenated” 

Finally, some exciting suspenseful action happening on Dexter! This was the thrilling Dexter liveliness I’ve been yearning for. While he was in the middle of prepping his kill for the episode, he got a call from Lumen in distress as she stood over the body of Dan the Dentist. Dan was one of the men involved in her horrific kidnapping. She tracked him down and forced him to the Bay Harbor Marina where she shot him. She thought she killed him, but the episode wouldn’t leave us with this simple conclusion.  I loved the suspense when Dexter showed up at the scene in the warehouse. Not too long after he arrived at the Harbor, Deb, Masuka and a team of cops received a call that there was a possible homicide at the Bay Harbor Marina warehouse 12, their exact location. Dex originally thought someone saw Lumen shoot Dan, but I guess it was concluded Dan used a pay phone in the warehouse to call the cops (while Lumen was calling Dexter for help). Luckily, Dexter received the same message so he was aware homicide was on their way. This was another close call for Dexter getting caught. When he showed up, Dan was gone and they tracked him down to the other end of the warehouse. He tried to convince Dexter that Lumen was crazy so Dex didn’t finish him off right away. When Dex pulled Lumen aside to get a handle of the situation, Dan called another man involved in her kidnapping (with Lumen’s phone) and alerted him she was still alive! I guess this means the remaining men will now be hunting Lumen while she and Dexter are hunting them. Dex immediately killed the man and instructed Lumen to start wash the blood away.

Side note: Dan was played by Sean O’Bryan from the recent NBC mini series Persons Unknown.

Dexter had put his “kill of the episode” in the trunk of his van when he got the call from Lumen. When he returned to his car the man had awaken from his tranquilizer and took off running trough the Marina, naked, still wrapped in plastic. As Dexter chased him down Masuka and Deb were right around the corner. Miraculously Dexter was able to strangle the guy as he dragged him into the room where Dan was and staged a scene Masuka concluded was some sort of sex act gone wrong. It was something he termed “Auto-erotic mummification”. Lumen was able to slip out undetected and made her way to Dexter’s old house (which he was in the middle of packing up). In conclusion to this debacle, as Dexter put it, the evidence will go into storage filed away and locked in the dark. Let’s hope this is true!

The suspense was awesome! Deb almost caught Dexter in the middle of something he wouldn’t have been able to explain, but of course he was able to cover his tracks and wrap everything up in a nice package. Not very neat – as he is famous for – but it was believable enough for Masuka and Deb not to suspect Dex of any wrong doing.

When Dexter arrived at his old family house after the fiasco to meet Lumen, he found her lying in the tub exactly how Rita was positioned when he found her lifeless body. It was interesting to see this have an emotional effect on Dexter – the hardship of death does shake him when its someone he cares about. This is a very human emotion we don’t see in Dexter too often. I think this season we’re going to see a lot of that from Dexter in relation to Lumen and his son, Harrison. It’ll be interesting to see how these new feelings will affect him in the long run. I wonder if he’ll come to a point, after he is through helping Lumen, where he’ll be in a situation where he wants to take a pause from his “dark passenger” but won’t be able to because of his mistakes. Quinn and Peter Weller may end up being the forces that uncover his many “fuck-ups” of the season. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Quinn: Quinn and Stan Liddy (Peter Weller) met at Quinn’s apartment to discuss Dexter. They went over a file Stan put together on Dexter, which to Stan, seemed “all too neat and a little too phony.” Deb showed up at Quinn’s place on her way to the club stakeout thinking she would give him a “debriefing” (sex talk) only to find Quinn meeting with Stan. Quinn claimed they were going over Stan’s case (the one involving the sting Laguerta busted him on). Of course Deb bought his story and left completely unaware of any secrecy. He mentioned Stan’s union rep meeting was the following day. We don’t know if this is actually true but if it isn’t I hope Deb will catch on to Quinn and realize he’s up to no good. After she left, Stan made a comment that Quinn was boning their target’s sister! hahaha I love his lingo. Too bad he was only in this one scene in the entire episode. I want to see more Weller!

Deb: The Chief chewed Deb out for wasting tax payers’ dollars on the stakeout at the club to catch the Fuentes brothers. They found out the Fuentes brothers forced their victims to withdraw money from the ATM before they murdered them and then used the money to buy VIP tables at the club. The Chief came down on Deb because if the Fuentes brothers did show at the club it meant someone else would be dead. Poor Deb, she tries so hard to be an exceptional cop and the higher-up always put her down. Deb also made her relationship with Quinn official. At the club stakeout she was stuck in the truck with Batista and had to watch an undercover Quinn hitting on other women. I guess it was at this point she realized she had feelings for him so they made their relationship official by the end of the episode. This probably isn’t going to sit right with Dexter when he finds out. This relationship is going to make it easier for Quinn to know Dexter’s whereabouts.  Deb probably is going to unknowingly feed him information about Dexter that will give him leads to whatever investigation he’s started with Weller.

Laguerta and Batista: Nothing really interesting happened with these two. It seemed as though Batista was still mad at Laguerta. Batista was in the truck with Deb at the club stakeout waiting for the Fuentes brothers to show. When Deb left the truck to answer the call for the Bay Harbor Marina, Batista had his eye on a female at the bar and approached her. They made it seem like he was going to take her home and cheat on Laguerta, but the good man he is, he brought her to Laguerta’s office. While in the truck he noticed she was wearing a Santa Muerta necklace and found out she knew the Fuentes brothers. She had a record and was willing to cooperate with the police and help them catch the Fuentes brothers in exchange for clearing her record. Not bad for Batista. This seemed to mend his relationship with Laguerta. I hope this is the end of their drama because this storyline is terribly boring.

Harrison: Harrison said his first words (“Bye Bye”) which Dexter thought eerily sounded like “Die Die.” Sonya called him while he was in the middle of cleaning up Lumen’s mess at the Marina. Dex went outside to talk; Sonya insisted on dad singing to Harrison over the phone, so they proceeded to sing “Skip to My Lou” while we could see Lumen and Dan in the background. It was an interesting juxtaposition of Dexter’s worlds. We’re seeing a lot of this in the current season. I like how the writers are integrating the theme of Dexter’s responsibilities as Harrison’s father while he’s knee-deep in the middle of a murder scene. I think this is going to be a recurring thing. With all of the Lumen drama happening and the fact that Dexter has gone back to work, he doesn’t have much time to spend with Harrison. He missed Harrison’s first steps because he was killing Boyd and he missed hearing Harrison utter his first words. Sonya recognizes the importance for Dex to be more apart of Harrison’s world, which is why she keeps calling him while he’s taking care of business. Seeing as though Dex is going to devote his extra time to helping Lumen track down her kidnappers, I wonder if Sonya’s going to put more pressure on him to spend more time with his son.

Dexter and Lumen: The episode ends with Lumen and Dexter having a heart-to-heart on the bathroom floor in front of the tub where RIta was murdered. Lumen explained she felt a brief moment of peace from killing her kidnapper and she won’t be able to rest until all of them are dead. Dexter is now willing to help! When they were in the warehouse, Dexter mentioned in the height of his frustration with Lumen that he’s responsible for her and everything she does leads back to him. Dex now has to help her kill the remaining men so he can free himself of the burdens she’s placed on him and move on. He’s also building a friendship with Lumen of sorts. She now knows about the kids and the fact that Dex works with the cops.  He feels compelled to help her because he realized Lumen was also born in blood in a way because her experience changed her. He, once again, has someone he can relate to, someone who also has a “Dark Passenger”. Everything is now illuminated…for the both of them.