Born Free
Updated 2008-04-18 19:17:02
Previously: The Ice Truck Killer struck again, this time leaving the body parts strewn like gifts at a Christmas store under a tree. The ITK had been messing with Dexter's head for a while, leaving cryptic clues at his crime scenes that hinted at tableaux of Dexter's childhood. Dexter discovered what the ITK had meant for him to see all along: a newspaper article that revealed that Dexter's mother, Laura Moser, had been slaughtered by a coke dealer in a shipping container, leaving Dexter to sit in blood for days. Angel got stabbed by an unknown assailant, but was able to head-butt the guy in the face, resulting in a blood droplet on Angel collar. Dexter matched the blood to Rudy's after connecting the dots of the tooth marks in Angel's head to Rudy's split lip. Dexter laid out FIP with a frying pan, and framed him to put him back in jail. FIP told Rita he had no idea why he was back in the clink. Captain Mathstor decided to replace LaGuerta with a new Lieutenant. As Dexter was discovering who Rudy was, Rudy proposed marriage to Deb on a rented yacht, and then abducted her.
Well, here we are: the finale. How's this going to go down? My butthole is tight with anticipation!
Here's Dexter, overlooking the marina, VOing, "I've lived in darkness a long time. Over the years, my eyes adjusted until the dark became my world and I could see. But then Rudy turned on the light. He flooded my memory and now I'm blind. I don't have much time. Or, to be more accurate, my sister doesn't have much time. He wants me to find them, but I don't know where to look. I can't think; it's too bright." He begins to run off the dock, and a light washes the screen to white.
Deb is awake, and she's completely bound with duct tape. Rudy tells her to let him know if the tape is too tight: "There's no need for you to be uncomfortable." "Why are you doing this?" Deb says, breathing heavily and totally panicking, which...word. I would have had about eighteen heart attacks by this point. "Want me to spoil the surprise?" says Rudy as he empties a bag of scary-looking surgical tools in front of her. Deb starts screaming and crying, and Rudy tells he's "just checking supplies, okay? Things are just moving a little faster than I had planned." "This isn't you," says Deb. "There's more, I've seen it." Rudy crouches down and comfortingly says, "I never wanted to hurt you." "I know," she cries, believing him. "Does this make it easier for you, because I could keep going." Wow, that shit is cold, Rudy! He tells her not be ashamed, because she's not the only one who bought it. She asks if his name is even Rudy Cooper, and he says no, "but he died for a good cause." Deb tells him that so will he, because he kidnapped a cop. "It's all part of the plan. Jesus, it's hard to believe it's all come to fruition." What? What is your game, Ru-- uh, whatever your name is? "This is a lot of years in the making." What is? Argh!
Dexter's just gotten home. "He wouldn't have taken Deb unless he left everything a clever monster would need in order to find him." He starts searching the house frantically. The fridge? Nope. The blood slides? No, nothing there, either. Craig's List! He must have a new message! Uh-uh. Ooh, I know! I know! The photo albums! Rudy loves those! Alas, nothing. Frustrated, Dex throws his coffee table aside and begins tearing up his couch, when out of nowhere the song "Born Free" begins playing on his laptop across the room. Dexter walks over to it, and looks at the screen, which now depicts various killings in the wild. "It seems I have a new screen saver. I knew he wouldn't leave me stranded. But, 'Born Free'?" He reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a picture of the bloody hotel room. "Of course. Thanks to Rudy, now I know where Dearly Disturbed Dexter was born." He flashes back on the chainsaw killing his mother. "Born free of all that's human. That's where I'll find him." Wait, where? The shipping container or the hotel room? He grabs the newspaper article that says "Shipping Yard Massacre," and that answers my question.
Rudy has loaded Deb onto a small motorboat, and begins putting away from the rented yacht into the dark of the night. Deb looks a little miffed.
Miami morning. At the hospital, Angel's roommate is obviously a psych patient, because he keeps repeating "she knows" over and over again. Doakes and LaGuerta come in, and Angel's all, "All fucking night with that." Doakes shuts the guy up for a second, and turns back to Angel. "We need your help. Masuka says you were following up a lead on the ITK when you were attacked." "A hooker with a prosthetic hand. John painted her nails different colors, but it didn't go nowhere." LaGuerta tells him she was the one who just got hacked to bits. "Holy shit, Monique was a victim?" They explain that the ITK was on his trail, and that his stabbing wasn't a car-jacking at all. Angel says he doesn't get it, because the only other person who knew what he was doing was Masuka. LaGuerta asks him if there was anyone else involved. "I consulted with Rudy, Debra's boyfriend, the prosthetics guy." A look of understanding hits LaGuerta and Doakes. "But, that's crazy, right?" asks Angel, knowing immediately what they're thinking. Doakes tells him it's not, because she never returned from her date with Rudy last night. "That's not like her," says LaGuerta. "Go, just fucking go!" says Angel. Damn, can you imagine what that feels like, to come to that kind of realization? Man oh man. Doakes and LaGuerta peace the hell out of there.
Back with Dexter, whose place is a total mess seeing as he's been up all night looking for clues. He sitting as his desk, looking over documents with a magnifying glass. He's on a picture of the cargo container where he was left as a toddler. "There are over five-thousand cargo containers in the port of Miami. Finding the one where my mother was butchered took a bit of magic." He's found it: CBAN 3489. He writes the number down and says, "Presto." There's a knock at the door. He looks out the window to see who it is, and says, "Shit." Probably Doakes. Dexter yells, "Just a second!" and hides some of his more important files. He answers the door, and it's Doakes and LaGuerta. "I told you he was here," Doakes says to LaGuerta. "Is there some reason you're not answering your damn phone?" "Ambien," says Dexter, trying to appear casual. Noticing the torn-up room, LaGuerta asks him what happened. "I couldn't find the remote." Good answer! Doakes asks where Deb is, and Dexter says he has no idea. LaGuerta says that Rudy is connected to the ITK somehow, and they're working on a warrant to search his place. "Oh, wow," says Dexter, putting a hand up his face and acting distraught. "Cut the crap!" says Doakes, seeing right through it. "You know something, dammit. What?" LaGuerta reprimands Doakes, but he continues: "I saw him skulking in the halls last night, ordering secret blood tests." LaGuerta asks Dexter what that's all about, and he answers honestly, saying that the blood on Angel's collar matched Rudy's. "Motherfucker," says Doakes, approaching Dexter aggressively. LaGuerta tells James to cool his jets, and they ask why he didn't tell them. "I couldn't destroy Deb's love life on a hunch. I needed the facts." "Well, here's a fact: if he kills her, it's your fault," says Doakes. "What else do you know?" "That's it," says Dexter. Doakes thinks he's lying, but LaGuerta tells him to give Dexter a break: "It's his sister, right?" Doakes storms out, and LaGuerta comforts Dexter, telling him to call if he hears anything. Once they're gone, Dexter pulls out the shipping container number from his pocket.
Rita answers the phone, and it's FIP. "Please don't hang up," he says pleadingly. Rita tells him the kids don't want to talk to him: "You need to give them more time." He says he's not calling about them, but about how he was arrested. "Yeah, with a needle in your arm, I know all about it." "Well, I don't!" he says. "I take responsibility for all the shit I pull, but Rita, I was in the program. I kicked the hard stuff." He keeps trying to convince her that he can't put together how he was at her house one minute, then at his motel out of his mind on junk the next. "It's called a blackout, Paul." "It's called a setup! Last thing I remember, I was talking to Dexter in the kitchen." He then floats the idea that Dexter hit him over the head, and proceeded to do...everything Dexter actually did do. "I'm telling you, Rita, Dexter's not who you think he is." That's true, but you're a douche. Don't call here anymore. Go get stabbed. Rita hangs up.
At the station, a maintenance guy is taking LaGuerta's name plate off her office door, and everyone is meeting about Deb's situation. LaGuerta holds up a picture of Rudy. "Deb was last seen driving to the Miami Beach Marina to meet him." She says they need to canvas the entire area. The random cop from last episode mentions that the judge just approved the warrant for Rudy's apartment, and LaGuerta says, "Let's tear that place apart." Mathstor walks in, and he's got Esmé Pascal, the new lieutenant, with him. He introduces her, saying, "She agreed to put her vacation on hold and come in early to provide us with some much-needed leadership at this critical time." "I hear we have a new suspect in the Ice Truck Killer case," says Pascal. LaGuerta says they're on the way to search his place right now, and Pascal stops her. "You are...?" "Maria LaGuerta, and we have an officer missing so we have to move fast." "I thought Sgt. Doakes was running that investigation." "He's out following a lead." "What lead?" "He said he'd let me know if it came to anything, now if you'll let me --" "I'll take it over from here, thank you, Maria." Rowr! Catfight! Just kidding. Well, no, I'm not. I half expect LaGuerta to bust out the Vaseline, but she's too dumbstruck by Pascal's display of alpha-femininity to even respond. "Who can get me up to speed on the way over?" asks Pascal to the room. "I can, I guess," says a random cop. To rub it in, Pascal tells LaGuerta to "feel free to join us when you locate your partner." Ooh, burn! As everyone heads out, LaGuerta and Mathstor share a Fuck You look. Tensions are high.
The shipping yard, where Dexter is about to break in. "It's in there, somewhere," Dex VOs. "My birthplace. Now what? No cameras, no patrols, no dogs. With billions spent on homeland security, it can't be as easy as a couple of snips." Alas, it is. Dexter busts out his lock-cutter, and with a single snip, he gets in through a gate in the chain-link fence. "So much for the war on terror." He begins sneaking around, looking for his container, being careful not to get caught. He dashes over to a small structure that houses a computer. "Finding a needle in a haystack isn't hard when every straw is computerized." True enough. Dex enters the container number, and after a few seconds the screen gives him the exact location. As he continues his search on foot, he VOs: "I don't like this place. Something nameless was born here. Something that lives in the deepest, darkest hole of the thing called 'Dexter.'" There it is. Dexter just stands there, staring at it for a moment, and he flashes back to Harry's rescue. Harry carries little Dexter out, and tells him, "It's all right, little guy. You're safe, now. Nothing'll hurt you, I promise." The scene fades before Dexter's eyes after he makes eye contact with his younger self. He turns back towards the container, opens the doors, and what's inside? Bananas. A whole shitload of bananas. Mmm, bananas. I'm just going to say "bananas" one more time, okay? "Bananas." Sweet. Anyway, Dexter shuts the doors, disappointed, and there's Doakes. Aw, fuck. "Surprise, motherfucker." How the hell is Dex going to explain this? Dude, Doakes is so fucking on to him.
"You're following me now?" asks Dex. "You better have a hell of a reason for being here," Doakes replies. Dex says he's looking for Deb. "In a cargo container?" "Yeah, I'm kind of working on a theory." "Did you forget that you work for the fucking cops? We love theories! Come on, spin me a story, asshole!" Dexter says what he does in his own spare time is his business, and Doakes mirrors the sentiment: "I'm on my time, now, asshole." "All right, you got me," says Dex. "I ordered some furniture from Thailand, but --" He's cut short by a punch to the gut, and when Doakes swings again, Dexter dexterously (Hee! ...I know, I'm a geek. Fuck off) grabs his wrist and quickly seizes his throat with his other hand, slamming him against the container. "Lab geek, my ass!" struggles Doakes, and Dex slams him against the container. Having watched too much Six Feet Under , I fully expect them to start making out, but alas, no. Their fighting is interrupted by a foreman, who's on his radio telling someone to come down right away. Doakes flashes his badge, and the guy asks if Dexter is under arrest. "That's a good question," says Dexter. Doakes: "You're connected to this. I don't know how, but I'm going to find out, and some of what I find is going to stick to your ass." Dex just shakes his head. They both get texts at the same time, and look at one another.
Rudy's enjoying an energy bar and a piano concerto in the car as Deb's muffled screams carry on from the trunk. Rudy shakes his head and pulls the car over. He gets out and opens the trunk, where Deb is lying next a dead guy with a bullet wound in his head. Rudy says, "Sorry, but you're drowning out Fred's radio, and he was kind enough to lend us his wheels." He grabs a fresh piece of duct tape and shuts Deb up again. I'm getting the impression that Deb doesn't like this.
Dexter's at Rudy's apartment, where the cops have finally gotten in. "His happy place," Dexter VOs as he enters, "where he kills more than time. This is where he'd leave me a clue." As he looks around, we see that the apartment is filled with molds of extremities, heads, and other body parts. LaGuerta points him to the walk-in freezer, where he sees the racks of blood buckets (all empty as a result of the Marina View Hotel incident), as well as the bloodstained hanging rack where Rudy has slaughtered most of his victims. Masuka turns around, wearing an anorak, and tells Dexter to bundle up. "I like the cold." "Hypothermia can easily sneak up on you." "Yeah, so can hypochondria," says Dexter, looking around intently. "A home setup like this would take years to put together. He must have hated leaving it behind." Masuka asks what Dexter's looking for, and he says, "A clue. A signature or calling card, anything out of the ordinary that might tell us where he went." Masuka says he doesn't think the ITK "had us in mind when he did this. But you were right: he rushed his last one." "He killed that girl to keep us busy so he could escape," says Dex. Masuka starts elevating the rack with the remote control. "I can think of a million different uses for this, you know what I mean?" "That's my sister, Vince." Masuka's embarrassed. It's okay. I still love the guy. Dexter tells Karen, who's in charge of evidence, to take photos of everything in the room, and to get him an inventory list when she's done. "Is he in charge?" she asks Masuka. "I guess he is now," he says as Dex start examining the table.
Rita is doing yard work when she's visited by Bob Hicks, who is FIP's Narcotics Anonymous sponsor. "Having your sponsor do your dirty work? Which step is that?" says Rita sarcastically. "He's just concerned for the kids." "He's concerned for himself." Hicks tells her he thought FIP was lying, too, until he saw the X-ray of his head, which showed a fracture. "Yeah, which I gave him." He says that there were other X-rays from that incident that didn't show a fracture, "but in prison...fracture." Uh-oh. Rita tells him that if he "really knew Paul, you'd know that he'd bash his own head against a wall to get what he wants." Bob tells her that the way Paul was attacked would require skill, but Rita's still not buying it. "Bob, you seem like a nice man, but this is none of your goddamn business." She goes back inside in a huff.
Doakes, at Rudy's place, gets off the phone and tells LaGuerta that he just tracked Rudy's name to a "plumber who mysteriously died in '98." "You've got to be kidding me. We still don't have an ID on this guy?" she says incredulously. "Rudy isn't his real name?" says Dexter. "You tryin' to be smart?" asks Doakes. "Not trying, no," says Dexter, with attitude, which is fun for me. Doakes gets up in his face, and LaGuerta says, "Whatever it is that's going on between you two, it ends now ." They both step back a bit. LaGuerta asks Dexter what he found in the freezer, and he tells her that he only found the obvious, and that Rudy probably killed all of his victims in there. "I'd like to check out the rest of the place before I go." And so he does. After some searching, he finds a little record player, which he opens to find a seven-inch of "Born Free." "It's perfect," he VOs. "Right out in the open. At least he's consistent." Dexter asks the cop nearby if anything else was near the record player, and the guy shows him a doll that looks exactly like the one Rudy left in Dex's fridge, wearing an apron that says "Home Sweet Home" on it. "Is he taking me back before the blood, to a place where a boy was born? 'Home Sweet Home,' but which home?" Dexter hands the doll back to the guy, who looks at him strangely, and leaves with Doakes's eyes trained on him.
Rudy and Deb are in some garage with black garbage bags taped up on the walls and blue athletic mats on the floor. "Down on the floor, please," Rudy says, but Deb, who's blindfolded with her arms bound, breaks free and runs into a wall. It kind of reminds me of Jean Lundegaard when Carl and Gaear get to their wintry hideout. "This is kind of foolish, Deb," Rudy says calmly as Deb continues to bounce off the walls. He grabs her and sweeps her legs, making her fall to the ground. Rudy takes out a syringe, saying, "I don't usually work this way. Call it an homage to a fellow traveller I greatly admire." He plunges the M99 into her neck, and she passes out.
"Laura Moser," VOs Dex as he looks at his mother's mugshot on his laptop at the station. "Addict, dealer. My mother. Arrested in '69 and again in '71, same address listed both times. 1235 Mangrove Drive. They say home is where the heart is. Maybe this is where I left mine." He writes the address down and stands up to leave when Rita comes in carrying coffees and says, "Surprise!" "What are you doing here?" asks Dex, agitated. "White chocolate mocha, your favorite." "I'm going to have to drink it on the road," he says, and books past her. She tries to get his attention, asking him for a tour of the place since she's never been there, and he tells her it'll have to wait. "What's going on?" "It's Deb, she's in trouble." "Oh, God, is it serious?" Dude, Rita? Honey? I love you, but you really need to learn how to read body language. It's pretty clear Dex can't be shagged to deal with your needy bullshit right now, so lay the fuck off. Thanks, babe. You're a sweetheart. Dexter tells her that, yes, it's fucking serious. "I just can't worry about you, too, right now." She looks crestfallen, which I'm getting used to from her. She gets upset pretty easily. She should probably learn to expect less from life, because then she'll never be disappointed.
"She knows. She knows. She knows!" Oh, Christ, not this asshole again. Poor Angel is trying to hear the TV, but can't over this guy's constant whining. "If she knows, then you yappin' about it isn't going to change it, so shut the fuck up," says Angel, as Pascal starts a press conference. She reveals that Rudy's been operating under an alias, and his real identity is still unclear. An orderly comes in and apologizes for the asshole in the other bed, but he's overflow from the county psych ward. "This one's harmless. We never take the violent ones. They have the arsonists, rapists, the psycho killers over there." A stunned look crosses Angel's face, and he asks the woman if they fingerprint psych patients over at County. She answers affirmatively. "Half of them don't know their own names. Gotta ID them somehow." Once she's done drugging She Knows and leaves, Angel sits up and makes a call. He tells whoever answers that he needs them to run Rudy's print against psych institution records. I would have thought that was a no-brainer, but hey, I'm no cop. Whatever. Good work, Angel.
Dexter pulls up to Laura Moser's old house, kills the engine, and gets out. When he passes the front gate, the sound of distant voices slowly becomes clearer as the sight of the now-barren front yard becomes lush and healthy-looking again. It's clear that Dex is remembering, bit by bit. Laura Moser, a hippie-ish looking young woman, comes out of the front door, calling for Dexter as though they're playing an impromptu game of hide-and-seek. "Where are you, you silly little bear?" Stepping into his own memory, Dex walks right up to her, and turns around to see his much younger self hiding behind a plant, semi-obviously. Dexter looks at her hand, and her nails are painted different colors, a detail that seems impossible for Rudy to know about, unless... Little Dexter jumps out from behind the plant, and mother and son embrace and laugh. "Hey, where could your brother be hiding?" Laura asks Li'l Dexter, and it all becomes clear. Li'l Dex points and says, "Biney right over there." Dexter looks over and sees a kid of about four or five with a bowl-cut peering around a tree. The kid runs over and hugs Dexter, telling him, "You weren't supposed to tell her." "You remember now?" asks Rudy, who's standing on the front porch, looking at Dexter. "Biney," says Dexter. "You always had trouble saying 'Brian,'" says Rudy, now walking towards him. "I have a brother," whispers Dexter, his mind completely blown to smithereens. "A real brother," elaborates Ru-- Brian . "None of this foster bullshit. We're blood brothers, through birth and death. Watching Mom die...it's amazing that we survived that, isn't it?" Holy crap, you guys. Dexter flashes back to the shipping container, but this time it's little Dexter and little Brian sitting in blood together. "You were there, too," says Dex. "You were young enough to block it out. I have never forgotten the day that we were --" "Born," Dex finishes with a whisper. "Where's Deb?" "I wanted to wait for you before we got started," Brian replies as Dex races into the house.
Inside, Dexter calls out for Deb, but Brian tells him she's not in the house. Dex keeps looking around frantically, and Brian says, "This is not how I envisioned our family reunion. Come on, let's just sit down and have a beer." Dexter opens another door, and the room of his childhood is built up around him. He and Brian are on the floor, and Brian is applying a band-aid to little Dexter's knee, congratulating him on his first skateboard wipe-out and telling him to bend his knees next time. Dexter looks at his younger self and says hello. "Hi," little Dexter says back. "Look out!" But it's too late: Brian has already snuck up and plunged a syringe of M99 into Dex's neck. As Dexter goes to sleep, Brian says, "I didn't want to do it this way." Dude... what ? Man, that shit is crazy. At least now we know how they're connected. But where is this going?
LaGuerta and Doakes are checking Rudy's profile against Interpol's fugitive list, in case he's not American. "Rudy Cooper?" says Angel, limping into the station. "His real name is Brian Moser." LaGuerta asks him what the hell he's doing there, and Angel explains that he got a hit from his search at county psych. "He was institutionalized for antisocial personality disorder. At 21, they said he was cured, and released him." Doakes tells another random cop to check the name against credit cards, utilities, et cetera, when Pascal comes out and says they triangulated Deb's phone, and that it's "twenty miles off the coast, which means he's got her on a boat." Yeah, like he'd be so stupid as to not think of that. Also, I specifically remember him throwing the phone into the water at the end of last week's episode, so it's not only miraculous that the thing is still on, but that it's able to transmit a strong enough signal that far under water. My ass. LaGuerta tells Pascal that they've discovered the ITK's real name, but Pascal doesn't give a shit. "His name's not going to help us find him on open water." Despite Doakes's reminding her of the chain of command, LaGuerta reminds Pascal that the signal died last night (thank you very much), and that Brian's has most certainly moved Deb to another location by now. "Duly noted," Pascal says bitchily. Her plan is to coordinate a Coast Guard search, which is idiotic. LaGuerta follows Pascal into her office. "Fly-overs look good to the press, but they won't find Morgan." "You think the press matters to me?" "It matters to Captain Matthews, and he calls the shots." LaGuerta goes on to say that she's willing to be a punching bag in order for Pascal to define herself, but now isn't the time because an officer is missing. Pascal reveals to LaGuerta that she understands why LaGuerta was reassigned: "It has nothing to do with incompetence, and everything to do with the Captain trying to save his job." She also says that she was hired with a "directive to not make [LaGuerta's] life easy." "So you're going to ignore the lead?" "You don't know me very well, but fortunately for Officer Morgan, neither does the Captain." Oh, cool! So you guys are good, then? ...I really don't care. Can we get on with the story and let you guys reschedule the pissing contest for next season? That would be sweet. They smile at each other. Great.
Dexter's waking up slowly; he's duct-taped to a chair, sitting across a dining table from Brian, who's drinking a beer, as he does. "Nothin' personal," says Brian. Really? Because I was under the impression that it was actually everything personal. "I just wanted to have a beer with you before we got started. You made that kind of difficult." "Sorry," says a groggy Dexter. "You don't ever have to apologize to me, Dexter. Not for who you are, or anything you do." Dexter asks who the house belongs to, and Brian tells Dex that he got it for him. "I'm really more of an apartment person," says Dexter. Brian says, "You're trapped in a lie, little brother. The same lie they tried forcing me into." "They?" "Doctors, therapists, group leaders...what a family they were." "You were never put up for adoption?" "Afraid not. You were three, a little bird with a broken wing. First cop on the scene, Harry Morgan. He wanted to make you all better. But me? I could see it in his eyes. All he saw was a fucked-up kid. They all did, so they locked me up." Dexter tells Brian that he didn't even know he existed. "Of course you didn't. Harry wanted to keep you all to himself. And while you were being raised by the Morgan family, I only had the memory of a family." "Me." "Mom always told me to look after you. Imagine how I felt when I tracked you down and found out you were exactly like me?" "I don't have to imagine," says Dexter. Rudy smiles, grabs a knife from the table, and cuts Dexter's hands loose. He tells Dex that he knows what Dex has gone through his whole life, "the isolation, the otherness, the hunger that's never satisfied." He grabs one of Dex's hands and tells him he's not alone anymore. "You can be yourself with me. Your real , genuine self. It takes the breath away, doesn't it?" Dexter looks away, and sees his younger self playing while Brian hugs him. He looks back at present-day Brian, and grabs Brian's hand lovingly. Slowly, Brian slides the knife into Dex's hand, and says, "I think we're ready for Debra."
Brian leads Dexter outside to the garage, where Deb is wrapped up in plastic, Dexter-style. She's still unconscious. "I've prepared her just the way you like," says Brian. "This time we'll do it together." Dexter moves slowly, unbelieving. "Does it have to be Deb?" Dexter asks. "It's the only way," Brian responds. "But she's my --" "Fake sister, I know. Tell me something. Your victims...are they all killers?" "Yes." "Harry teach you that?" "He taught me a code...to survive." "Like a...an absurd avenger?" "That's not why I kill." Brian tells Dexter he can be himself around him, which we know. I'm assuming Dexter heard that message loud and clear as well. "Who am I?" Brian asks, after a pause. "A killer, without reason or regret. You're free." Brian says Dexter can be free, too. He continues to try to convince Dexter that he doesn't really have a code, Harry did, and "he's been dead for ten years." Leading Dex over to Deb, he says, "You need to embrace who you are now ." "I don't know who I am," says Dexter, seemingly on the verge of tears. Brian says that's because he's been away from his family too long. "I can help you. We can take this journey together." Brian reaches into his back pocket and grabs a Scientology pamphlet, and...oh, wait. That's actually not at all what happens. Looking down at Deb, Dexter says, "I can't. Not Deb. I'm very...fond of her." Brian yells at Dexter, "You can't be a killer and a hero. It doesn't work that way!" He grabs the knife from Dexter, and as he swings it down to stab Deb in the heart, her eyes open and Dexter's hand catches his wrist, stopping him. A battle ensues and Brian knees Dexter's face, dropping him as sirens approach outside. Brian takes off after seeing the police lights, and Dexter yells, "In the garage!" Doakes rips open the door with his gun drawn, and Dexter points him to the door Brian left through, which is locked. Doakes tells LaGuerta to cover the door and runs back outside. Dexter hovers over Deb, probably wondering how much she heard before opening her eyes.
Outside, Doakes breaks into the adjoining structure with an axe, and once inside he discovers an escape tunnel under a piece of sheet metal. Brian's gone.
Later, Deb is being examined by an EMT. "Any headache, dizziness?" "No, I'm fine," she says. She is definitely not fine. Even if she is right now, she's going to need some serious therapy. "I just want to go home," she says. "I'm afraid we have to transport you to the hospital," says the EMT.
"You're saying Rudy called you? Why would he do that?" LaGuerta asks Dexter, with Doakes at her side. "I think he wanted me to try to talk him down. He said he was having second thoughts about killing Deb. He seemed to feel like we have some kind of connection." "He's not the only one," says Doakes. "He said he'd kill Deb if I didn't show up alone," says Dexter. Doakes says Dexter almost got Deb killed, and that he's going to request an immediate suspension when he gets back to the station. Hearing this, Deb says, "You're gonna what? Are you questioning Dexter?" "Morgan --" "Back the fuck off my brother! He just saved my life! He's a fucking hero! I want each of you to treat him that way, goddammit!" Dexter leads her away. Amazing that it took all this for her to finally step up and come to her brother's fucking defense. I guess she doesn't have a boyfriend anymore, so...
Deb and Dexter are riding in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and Dex says, "Let it go, Deb. I thought you were going to burst a frontal lobe out there." "Assholes," she says, smiling slightly, happy to return to something familiar, no matter what it is. Looking down, she realizes that she's still wearing the engagement ring that Brian gave her, and she makes a disgusted sound while trying to get it off. Dexter sees her struggling and helps her get it off. "He's still out there," she says. "Yeah." "He didn't get what he wanted." "No." "Do you think he'll try it again?" "Maybe." Dexter tells her that he'll make sure she gets an officer stationed outside her hospital room, and she says she's not staying at the fucking hospital. "Well, you're not staying at your home." "Then I'll just crash with you." He tells her to wait and see what the doctor says. After a pause, Deb cries a little and says, "Why me? Why did he choose me?" "Just lucky, I guess," he whispers. She collapses into his brotherly embrace and sobs rack her body. She thanks him over and over, and says, "Dad would be so proud."
Rita's. The phone rings, and it's got to be FIP. "Dexter?" she answers. "It's me," says FIP. Heh. "Paul, this is harassment." "Just tell me he's acting weird," he says. Rita threatens to never let him see the kids again if he keeps it up, and he says, "Fine, if that's what it takes for you to listen to me. I just want to know that they're safe." "Why are you doing this, Paul? You want me to be miserable and alone like you, is that it?" "All I want is for you to look for a shoe." He tells Rita that a shoe was missing from the items the police collected from his hotel room, and he had been wondering why his ankle was so bruised, and he thinks it's because it fell off when Dexter was dragging him. Rita hangs up on him, but she looks around herself for a second before saying, "Screw you," to nobody in particular.
"What did I just do?" Dex VOs as the camera slowly makes its way down the hallway corridor towards him. "I drove away a brother who accepts me, sees me, for an adopted sister who would reject me if she knew, and a foster father who betrayed me. That's what it was: a betrayal. The most important single fact about me. I'm not alone, and Harry kept it from me. What do I really owe him after that?" I suppose nothing, dude, but he's dead. You didn't just save Deb because of Harry's code; I'm just sayin'. A doctor comes out and asks for him. "That's me." "Your sister has a few bruises, but no major injuries. Still, you should keep an eye on her. I'll write a prescription for a mild sedative." "She's okay, right?" "She can go home tonight, as far as I'm concerned, or we can keep her here at the hospital. It's your choice."
As she lies in Dexter's bed, asleep, Dexter draws the blinds and says, "Don't worry, the sheets are clean. We aim to please here at Chez Dex. I'll be sleeping on the couch with a spring in my side just to make sure you're safe tonight, but we're going to have to talk tomorrow about a long-term plan. After you get a good night's sleep. Deb?" No answer. He pets her head for a minute, and the camera switches to a view from outside as a few double-basses hold a low note in the soundtrack, letting us know they're being watched. Back inside, Dex says, "Good night, sister," shuts the light, and goes to bed.
Dexter's asleep on the couch as some Santa Claus special plays on the TV, and someone is picking his lock. Quietly, Brian opens the front door, and peeks in creepily. He silently walks over to where Dexter is sleeping and watches him for a minute, then turns around and quickly heads to the master bedroom. As soon as he's in there, he stabs Deb in the back, but she doesn't make a noise. He rips up the covers to reveal that it's just a dummy, in parts that look just like the ones he's left at so many of his own crime scenes. In a flash, Dexter has a piece of piano wire around Brian's neck. "I stopped by your prosthetics lab after I left Deb at the hospital." Brian begins to lose consciousness. "Your work is so good, you even fooled yourself." He's out. "Sweet dreams, Biney."
Back at Brian's apartment, Brian wakes up on his own rack, in his own personal freezer. Dexter comes in and says, "Hey." Brian doesn't say anything. "You weren't supposed to wake up." "I guess not." "Sorry. The police recorded all your knives as evidence. Took a while to find your dinner flatware." Dexter puts a big box on the table. "Sterling," says Brian, nonchalantly. "I keep it for special occasions." Dexter puts the big blood bin under Brian's head. "Which you are," says Dex. Dexter says Brian can have more tranquilizers if he wants: "It's a service I don't usually offer." Brian smiles and says, "What am I, one of your victims, now? You gonna collect a little sample of Biney's blood for your slide collection?" "You're not a trophy. But you need to be put down." "Why? Because of your code?" "And the safety of my sister." Brian reminds him that Deb's not his real sister, again . "I know that!" Dexter yells. A tear rolls out of Brian's right eye. "You should know this isn't easy for me," says Dexter, seeing this. "You've done more to deserve my knife than anyone." Dexter crouches down and touches his forehead to Brian's. He's crying now. "And you're the only one I've wanted to set free." "You're the one who needs setting free, little brother. Your life is a lie. You'll never be what you --" Dexter slits his throat with what I think is a butter knife, and Brian looks surprised. After letting out a guttural noise of combined relief and mourning, Dexter says, "Sorry. I can't hear anymore, 'cause you're right." Dexter falls back into the corner, holding the switch that elevates the rack, which he flips. As Brian gets flipped upside down, and his carotid artery fountains blood into the pan below, Dexter sobs, probably for the first time in a really long while.
A while later, the room is a crime scene, yet again. Masuka asks LaGuerta how she knew he was there. "Neighbors saw the front door open." Masuka says, "We got his fingerprints on the knife, note on the fridge, and a single incise wound to the neck with a slight upward angle." It all points to a clear suicide. LaGuerta comments that he did it the same way he did with the hookers, meaning the use of the rack. "Poetic," she says. "Retarded," says Masuka. "Look at him. He's dead." LaGuerta comments that he always flaunted his kills, "like he was untouchable. By taking his own life, he's forbidding us from ever catching him." Masuka says he doesn't care why he did it, he's just glad he did.
Rita' s about to take out the trash when Dexter comes in, holding a couple coffees. "Decaf mochachino non-fat, no whip, just the way you like it," he says, and Rita instantly embraces him. "I got your message. How's Debra?" "Uh, she has all her limbs," he says with a half-smile. "Thank God she's alive. Poor thing must be a mess. Falling for a serial killer?" Heh. "What are the odds?" says Dex, fully realizing the irony of this conversation. "How about you? Are you all right?" "Yeah," he says, and pauses. "No." Another pause, and Rita searches his face. "I've been through a lot, lately," he says at last. Touching her hair gently, he says, "I could use a little more time with you, and the kids." "We could, too," she responds. He tries to apologize for how he's been acting, but she shushes him with a finger and kisses him lovingly. She asks that next time, he just tell her what's going on. "When you don't return my calls, I get a little paranoid." "I'll be better about that," he says. "Good. Who knows, you might even find that I can handle the truth." Yeah, I don't know about that. "I wish that was the case," Dexter VOs.
Outside, he continues, "The fact is, there's nobody left alive who can handle my truth." When he reaches his car, he looks down the street and notices Doakes in his cruiser, watching him. "Doakes always sensed I was hiding something. Now he knows . My devil danced with his demon, and the fiddler's tune is far from over." Doakes does the I've Totally Got My Fuckin' Eyes On You motion with his index and middle finger, and Dex gets into his car, pretending not to notice.
Rita's taking out the trash as Dexter's VO goes on: "Sometime I wonder what it would be like for everything inside me that's denied and unknown to be revealed." Rita looks down, and sees Paul's shoe. Frozen, she looks stunned. "But I'll never know. I live my life in hiding. My survival depends on it."
Deb is getting out of her car, arriving at what I'm assuming is a press conference to announce the death of the ITK, and the VO isn't over yet. Well, come on, it is the season finale! "Dearly damaged Debra. She's here to face what's left of the monster, spit on his carcass, mourn him. She's in hiding now, too. Harry's daughter will be damned if she lets anyone see what she's suffering inside. That's her tragedy. My tragedy is that I killed the one person I didn't have to hide from, and I'm the only one who mourns him." Dexter's arrived now, too, and he's making his way through throngs of onlookers. He and Deb meet at the center of what would be the red carpet if they were arriving at a Hollywood premiere, and Dex VOs, "Everyone else would probably thank me if they knew I was the one who drained him of his life." "Good job in there, Dex. You sliced him up good," says one cop, a figure of Dex's imagination. Dex smiles at him, and Deb smiles, too. "In fact, deep down I'm pretty sure they'd appreciate a lot of my work." An imaginary plane flies overhead with a banner that reads, "We Heart Dexter," as the crowd below becomes an imaginary parade for our leading man, with people holding big posters of his face that say "Go Dexter!" "Way to take out the trash," says one guy, as people cheer and red-white-and-blue confetti falls to the ground. "All right, Dexter, protecting our children!" rejoices a woman on the sidelines. Dexter smiles and enjoys the celebration like he's a movie star surrounded by devoted fans. Deb grabs his hand and holds it over their heads while jumping up and down. "This is what it must feel like to walk in full sunlight, my darkness revealed, my shadow self embraced."
"Yeah, they see me," he finishes, as the dream parade continues in slow motion. "I'm one of them, in their darkest dreams."
Well, that was pretty sweet. I figured Rudy/Brian/the ITK was related to Dexter somehow, but I could never have guessed how deep it went. I imagine we're going to have to deal with some serious PTSDeb next season, as well as the whole thing with FIP's shoe. You know, all in all, Dexter really only killed a handful of people in the first season. I wonder if the body count will be upped in the coming season, or lowered because Doakes will be on Dexter's ass all the time. I guess we can only wait and see. See you then!