Crocodile
Updated 2008-04-18 19:17:06
Previously, on Dexter : "Tonight's the night." Yeah, we know. Mike Donovan was a bad dude, now he's not much of a dude at all. There's a body in a pool, hacked to bits...but no blood! Dexter's psyched. The file lady (let's call her "Filene") wants to know what Dexter's up to. Dexter's girlfriend, Rita, is "perfect," because in her own way she's "just as damaged" as Dexter is. Debster reveals there's a serial killer on the loose. Harry, Dexter's stepdad, helps Dex channel his murderous streak. The hooker killer is "raising the bar" by refining his technique. Dex creeps Doakes out. Deb follows up on Dex's ice truck idea, much to Lt. LaGuerta's non-chagrin. Dexter follows an ice truck, and the driver tauntingly chucks the last dead prostitute's head at his windshield. LaGuerta is suspicious, yet still flirtatious. Dexter finds a chopped-up Barbie in his freezer, which Dexter thinks is an invitation to "play," which he wants to do. He really, really does.
Dexter's floating in some water with his eyes closed. He seems to be in some marsh or small lake. He VOs, "I dream I'm floating on the surface of my own life, watching it unfold, observing it. The outsider, looking in." Wow, how cool and detached of you. Suddenly, some Chipsters and Betties skim by on their jet skis, making water cascade over Dex's face. Dexter gets his hate on as he watches them play, and he looks like a crocodile lurking in the water, which I suppose is fitting, considering this episode is titled "Crocodile." "Look at them. They can laugh and play. It comes so easily for them." He goes on to say that even though he's not one of them, that he can "really be a monster, today I'm just a sea-monster." Cool, man! ...Wait, what? He pulls himself back onto the bow of the Slice of Life, and dries himself off a bit. He grabs himself an apple, and takes a hefty chomp that's very reminiscent of his over-chewing in the opening credits. We fade to red as he mentions, "Pretty soon I'll have to get back to doing what I do." You mean selling your old 45s on eBay, right? Oh, wait, I forgot that he's pretty much all about meting out his own unique brand of justice via murder. Sweet!
Fade back to Dexter in his apartment, admiring one of his blood slides, when there's a knock at the door. Quickly, he replaces the slide in its box, and returns the box to its home in his AC unit. On his way to the door, he notices that the head of the "souvenir" the Ice Truck Killer left him is still mounted on his fridge door, so he hastily shoves it into the freezer, presumably where the other body parts still reside. "Explaining it could be kind of...awkward." Yeah, I'll bet.
It's Deb at the door, and she's got bagels! Yes! Dude, if she forgot his everything-pumpernickel with lox spread, she's in for a world of pain. Dex lets her in, and she comments on how depressing it is inside the apartment as she opens his drapes. When he offers her OJ, she says, "with ice," so of course he has to open the freezer door just a tad to get it, and it totally looks suspicious. They make some small talk, and Dexter asks her what's really up. Deb tells him that LaGuerta is searching all over the place for the ice truck, but she thinks that the killer is "hiding it in plain sight." Dexter says, "Finding that truck is your golden ticket into homicide." Deb knows this, but LaGuerta still has her undercover with her hookers over at the motel, searching in vain for a witness that everyone knows doesn't really exist. They both decide that Deb should continue the search on her own time. Well, duh, Dex 'n' Deb.
Changing the topic, Deb picks up a tie on the counter and asks what it's for. Dexter apparently has court later on. Changing topics again , Deb wants to know why they never talk "brother-sister stuff." Dexter reminds her (and everyone who missed the pilot ) that "our father was a cop. You're a cop. I work for the cops. For us, this is 'brother-sister stuff.'"
A bit later, now dressed for court, Dexter is playing in his freezer again. His freezer is surprisingly bare for someone who professes to love food as much as he does. As he fondles the bits and pieces of the doll, he comments, "First he throws a severed head at me, then he leaves me these doll parts, like pieces of a puzzle. I like puzzles." Dude, you should meet my wife. She's all about puzzles. I wonder if she could help? Oh, sorry, you're fictional. Anyway, he picks up the dolls right hand, and realizes the fingernails are all painted different colors. "There's nothing more frustrating than putting a puzzle together and it still doesn't make sense." Agreed. Like, sometimes Mrs. S gets these "impossible" puzzles, and they're all one color or something, and they throw in, like, twenty extra pieces that don't go anywhere, just to mess with you. I imagine your puzzle is probably going to be a bit more complex, though. I didn't mean to trivialize your puzzle, dude, seriously. Please don't kill me.
Now we're in court, where Dexter is on the stand introducing himself as a blood-spatter analyst, which he's apparently been doing for almost twelve years. He's been involved in 2,103 different cases. Damn, that's a lot! The lawyer who's questioning him smarmily says, "Give or take." "No. 2,103." Heh, he's awesome. "So, it's safe to say that blood is your life?" "Safe to say."
After this strained exchange, Dexter is in the hallway of the courthouse, where he VOs that he loves to come to court to "rub shoulders with the good people of The Sunshine State. At the courthouse, everyone is on their best behavior, like they're being watched." He stops and looks at a well-dressed family who are all huddled together mournfully. As he observes the father, mother, and daughter embraces, he remarks, "Some people would look at this family and see only tragedy and heartbreak, but I see so much more than that." Let me guess. You see opportunity? "I see opportunity." Jackpot! Dexter follows the father into another courtroom, where, it turns out, a man is on trial for having hit and killed the father's son in an apparent drunk-driving accident. The boy was taking out the trash when he got sideswiped by Mr. Chambers, our defendant, who fled the scene and left the boy helpless and dying. The lawyer shows a brief birthday clip of the decedent on his last birthday getting a sweater, and even though he's not thrilled about it because he lives in Miami, the dad mentions that he'll need it next year up at Harvard. Ah, I see. We return to present-day Dad, pale and crying, his eyes sunken in, as he gets up to leave. Dexter: "I see their pain. On some level I even understand their pain. I just can't feel their pain." Yeah, it's all about you, Dexter. Jesus.
Now, Dexter's following Matt Chambers. "It's just a matter of time until we find out how far Matt Chambers's crocodile tears will get him." Why do I have a feeling that the Miami-Dade court system will fail the poor, grieving family? Why do I have a feeling our dear Mr. Chambers is going to be tasting plastic wrap in the not-so-distant future? We'll come back to him later, I imagine, because Dexter's grabbing a banana and heading to...
...a crime scene! Woo hoo! It seems some dude decided to end things by hurling himself off of a highway overpass onto some unforgiving concrete down below. Morangel and Lagrossa are both there, talking about the dead guy's ID. Lagrossa greets Dexter with an intensely and inappropriately sexual stare, which Dexter notices. "I thought I was creepy." Word to that. After freeing himself from her glare, Dexter observes that the blood spatter is consistent with a 50-foot drop, but that one side of the highway is only about 40 feet above, so the point of origin must be the "westbound causeway." LaGuerta is off, hollering to get a team up there. Dexter notices something in the dead guy's mouth, which he reaches for with tweezers when the guy coughs up blood in his face. Angel (whose hat I will be getting for my birthday, hint hint, clue clue ["duly noted" -- Sars ]) calls for a medic, who brings a towel over and says, "It's just a death rattle, that guy's gone-zo." Nice, dude. After cleaning himself off, Dexter grabs the peach-pit-sized object from the corpse's mouth. "Call me crazy, but I think this is human flesh." Ewww!
Back at the lab, Dexter sprays his face with luminol, and holds a black light up to his face to observe the remaining blood there. Not sure what he's going for, but maybe we'll see.
Later, still in the lab, Debs is pestering Dex, talking about how she "hooked up with Sean last night." "Cable-guy Sean?" "No, he smelled like cheese!" "So, mechanic Sean?" As she gets into uncomfortable detail about last night's events, Dexter stops her and suggests they go on a double date with this "Sean" guy and Rita. Deb finds the idea a bit repulsive, but agrees.
On the other side of the office, Angel tries to get Doakes's attention, but Doakes is predictably on a short fuse, and essentially tells him to fuck off. "What crawled up his ass?" asks Angel. Deb informs him that he "hates lab rats." "Well, here's a headline: it's lab rats that make us cops look good." He looks at Dexter, and gives him an air-pound of solidarity, which endears Angel to me forever. Dexter air-pounds back, and they are buddies. I like them. LaGuerta, unfortunately, comes in and ruins all the fun. She announces that they have an ID from the body under the causeway; he was a cop named Ricky Simmons. Silence falls over the office, and Doakes looks pissed, which normally I wouldn't mention, but now we're following him and LaGuerta...
...to some house, somewhere. They get out of the car, and LaGuerta says, "Let me ask you something." "Yeah?" "When we were partners you used to do everything you could to get out of a next-of-kin notification." You didn't really ask him anything, but whatevs. Doakes mentions that he knew Ricky from the softball team, and that he was "a good cop. A good guy. It's the least I could do." LaGuerta rings the doorbell a couple of times, but no one answers. Doakes looks through the front window, and immediately, it's drama time. "What the fuck!" he exclaims, before busting the front door down with his foot, gun drawn. Increasingly disturbed by the sight in front of him, Doakes commands LaGuerta to "call it in!" As she does so, the camera pans out to reveal what is presumably Mrs. Simmons, lying on the floor, crying and bleeding profusely from the head. Yikes! Doakes crouches down as LaGuerta checks the rest of the house, and says, "Kara, it's me. It's James. You're okay." Now, wait just a second here. If Doakes only knew Ricky casually from softball, how is it that he's on a first-name basis with...oooooh. They're boning on the side. Dude, Doakes must be freaked! LaGuerta comes back, and seems to intuit what's happening.
Later, Angel and Dex are on the scene, photographing the blood evidence as Angel wonders aloud, "Hunting down a cop's family. Who would do such a thing?" "That's why we're here," says Dexter, a bit too happily.
Later still, Captain Tom Astor is in the place, on the phone, expositioning that "Ricky was deep undercover in Carlos Guerrero's family. He'd been working the gig for ten months and everything was good. But this...going after his wife...Guerrero's crossing a whole new line." What makes you so sure it was this Guerrero character? I guess he doesn't hear me, because he takes off. Doakes asks LaGuerta about "the wife," trying to act professionally interested so as not to give away that he was crossing her line. After LaGuerta says that she's probably in surgery, Dex mentions to Angel that there's "an inconsistency, somewhere." "And that would be..." "I'm not sure, but it's the answer to a question we haven't thought of yet." After saying this, he realizes that some of the blood seems to lead under the couch. He crouches down to find a cell phone underneath it. Angel grabs it, and shows LaGuerta and Doakes that Ricky Simmons was the last number dialed. As Angel bags the phone, Doakes commends him for his hard work. Angel tries telling him it was all Dex, but Doakes has already snatched the phone suspiciously before LaGuerta can, and is storming out of the house.
Over at Rita's, Dexter is hacking around with Cody, playing some sort of airplane/superhero game that actually looks like a ton of fun, and quickly dissolves into a tickle- and giggle-fest. It's when Dexter is with Rita's kids that you see that he really isn't the monster he sometimes fancies himself; he's clearly genuinely enjoying himself. Rita and Astor come out with some homemade chocolate-chip cookies, and everybody's all smiles. Rita's all, "Okay, kids, take the cookies and go to your bedroom," and Astor is suspicious. "You never let us eat in our room!" "Well, I want some alone time with Dexter." "Are you gonna kiss him?" "Actually, yes." Nice! Get some, Dex! Oh, wait, you're "not into that." Whatever, dude. I mean, I'm sure you're attracted to Rita because of her "damage" level, but give me a break. She's a regulation hottie, bro! Don't tell me you didn't notice. Anyway, the chilluns scram, and Dex and Rita make small talk for a bit. He tells her about his day, "court...you know, the blood thing. Then a crime scene...more blood." "I don't know how you do it." "Blood is..." VO: "My life." "...My job." Dexter continues to VO as he and Rita smooch about how whenever he feels comfortable with a woman, as he does with Rita, that's when everything goes wrong. Dex tells Rita that Deb has "been all over" him to set up a double date (lies!), and Rita seems full-on amped at the prospect. "Pick a date!" she says. "I pick you," Dex responds, and VOs, "and I pick Deb to chaperone." Huh? What does that mean? You're a weird one, Dexter Morgan.
Back at the Dex Den, where our main man is sleeping in, presumably the following morning. His phone rings, and it's Deb. "So Miami's a haystack, and the ice truck's the needle, right? Brother, I just found the fucking needle !" Whoa. Dexter bolts upright as an unsettling orchestral flourish swells in the score.
Quickly, he gets to wherever Debs is. "How'd you find it?" "I put the word out with patrol. You know, the whole hiding-in-plain-sight thing?" Yeah, Deb! Work that case! With the ice truck in view, Dexter VOs, "I feel like a kid at his own surprise party. This is the same truck." Deb asks if the truck is the truck, and Dex says it's hard to tell. Deb asks, "Either way, why is it still running?" "Keeps the back compartment refrigerated."
We see the back of the truck open from the inside, and there's a bunch of steam from the instantly evaporating ice. Angel, Deb, and Dexter all climb in to quickly discover the main attraction: a cube of ice with five fingertips suspended in it, as though the rest of the hand were merely invisible. Dude, that shit is creepy as hell! "Clean slices, no blood," says Dexter after an awestruck pause. "My guess is he drained the body entirely before these cuts were made." Deb wonders if he used some sort of pump to do that, but Angel says no. "Our guy is old-school." Dex chimes in, "He hoists the body up and severs the jugular, and the heart takes care of the rest." Ugh. Just thinking about that makes me feel a little queasy. Dexter observes in VO that there are "two hundred and six bones in the human body. He could've left any one of them. But he gave us exactly what we need to identify the victim, like he's leaving a trail of bread crumbs." Ooh! Exciting! What's this guy's angle?
Outside, the Captain has arrived, and he's scoping out the crime scene. He seems pleased when LaGuerta reluctantly tells him that it was Deb's find. "Harry's daughter, huh? Must be in her genes, her and her brother." LaGuerta is quick to steal Deb's thunder: "I encourage all of my officers to think outside the box." Ew, what a bitchy thing to say. Yeah, by the transitive property, it was really your great police work that found the truck. Asshole. Before he leaves, Capt. Astor tells LaGuerta to "congratulate Morgan for me," to which she replies with an insincere "mmm-hmm." What a jerk. LaGuerta quickly goes over to tear Deb a new one. Deb starts, "Chalk one up for Miami Metro, eh ma'am?" "Last time I checked, Morgan, I'm the lieutenant, which means my officers keep me apprised at all times on all things. You pull a stunt like that again, it won't matter who your father was." Damn, them's fightin' words! LaGuerta sucks, dude. Anyhow, she leaves, and Dexter and Deb share a quick, knowing glance.
A crew is disassembling the ice truck under a big tent, looking for evidence. Masuka walks out from under the tent and approaches Dexter with a stained kerchief of some kind. "Dude, is this blood?" "It's chocolate. You have some on your shirt as well." Weird interaction. We see LaGuerta and Angel standing by the tent, and LaGuerta wonders what's taking so long. Angel, trying to calm her, tells her it's a big truck. Dexter VOs, "They won't find anything. Not even a Tic-Tac. He's thought all this through. I know I would." You're probably right about that, my man. Deb comes up, wondering if Dexter's instincts are telling him anything. "Ice-cold," he replies, like, ha ha. Deb thinks the killer is toying with them. "She's right," Dex VOs. "The truck's not another piece of the puzzle," and as he watches the befingered ice block roll by, he adds, "they are."
Back at BloodLab 2021, Masuka is melting the ice block slowly with warm water, with Deb at his side. "Stand a little closer, Morgan, and I'll melt your heart." Angel jokes, "I think Masuka's got a crush on you, Dex." Masuka goes, "I was referring to Morgan the sister. This guy swings only one way." Deb: "Yeah, from vine to vine." Booyah! Sorry, I've been looking for an excuse to throw a good "booyah" into the mix for a while, because I'm a dweeb, and Deb just handed it to me. LaGuerta tells everyone to shut up. As the ice melts and gets clearer, Dexter notices that the fingers are all painted different colors, which, I'm sure, gets him pretty psyched. Angel reports how fucked up he thinks it is. LaGuerta says, "What's this sick son of a bitch trying to tell us?" Dex VOs, "Not us. Me ." Well, obviously. "I think he's trying to impress me. And it's working."
Later on, we're treated to a very Spanglish phone conversation between Angel and his wife. He wonders why she doesn't think it's cool for him to call thrice in a day, which makes me think things might be kind of rocky. Is this important? Probably not.
LaGuerta's now reporting on Mrs. Simmons's condition to Doakes: "She's still in surgery. The doctors are hopeful." Doakes plays her the recording of Kara Simmons's last phone call, and she sounds clearly disturbed. Most of the recording is garbled, until "please don't hurt me!" followed by a gunshot. Angel comes back in, saying that "the national database kicked back the DNA match." Some guy named Norberto Cervantes is their guy, and as soon as Doakes hears that, he's out, which Dexter notices with some interest.
At some outdoor domino court or something (I don't know -- it's a bunch of dudes playing dominos and listening to Cuban music), two guys, one of whom is clearly Norberto Cervantes, are talking in Spanish. Naturally, my Spanish is pretty rusty, and my closed captioning isn't working correctly, but the gist is that the other guy (who I assume is his boss, because Norberto calls him "patrón") thinks it's Norberto's lucky day. Or is it? Because he has laser sights trained on his face, and within seconds, Doakes and a whole SWAT-looking team descend on the scene. As Doakes handcuffs Señor Cervantes, the boss asks, "Is that necessary?" Doakes replies, "It's a dangerous world, Guerrero." Ah, I see. So this is the infamous Guerrero we've heard next to nothing about. The plot thickens! But not by much. "One can't be too careful, Detective," Guerrero retorts. Ooh, good one!
Back in court, where our sure-to-soon-be-hacked-up-by-Dexter drunk driver, Matt Chambers, has taken the stand. As Dexter predicted, he's doing his whole "crocodile tears" act now, saying, "Sure, I've had problems with alcohol in the past, but you heard from my AA sponsor, I've been sober for over a year now, so... Look, I'm not disputing that it was my car that hit Mr. Price, but I reported it stolen hours before the accident." At this point, he buries his face in his hands, and fakes crying. Dexter, of course, sees right through this bullshit. "Men like Matt Chambers know how to pull on the invisible mask of sympathy, even empathy, and right-thinking people don't stand a chance."
Out in the hall, Dexter gets his shoes shined and waits. Matt Chambers walks by with his attorney. "Not guilty. Matt Chambers may have found a way to beat the system...but so have I." Yeah, you have! Go get 'im, Blue!
Back at the precinct house, Norberto is in an interrogation room with a bunch of angry-looking cops peering through the narrow window. Doakes and LaGuerta are playing him Kara Simmons's last call. When the tape is done, Doakes tells Cervantes that he thinks he's complicit. There's a lot of tough-guy back-and-forth, and Cervantes says that he heard that she had been "fucking around on the side." Then he postulates that maybe Ricky heard about it and tried to kill her and then himself. Doakes socks him in right in the kisser for that remark, and it's a pretty realistic and punchy-looking punch, well played by both actors. Doakes: "You think it's a coincidence your ass is in here? We have you on the causeway when Ricky was murdered." "Bullshit." LaGuerta steps in: "We don't deal in bullshit." She rips off a bandage on his arm that reveals a chunk of missing flesh exactly the same size as the one Dex found in Ricky's mouth. "We deal in good police work," LaGuerta continues, "and good science," as she holds up a canister with the missing chunk. Take that , hijo de puta !
Over at the Simmons's house, Dexter and Angel are doing another walkthrough of what happened when and where. When they get to the end, Dexter notices a single drop of blood on the kitchen floor, and observes, "She never got this far." Well, looky what we have here! DNA evidence! Exclamation point! Angel lifts the (crappy) tile up off the floor with his knife, and whisks it away to...
...BloodLab 2021! Having already run the DNA (which I thought took a lot longer than an hour, or however long it took them), Angel and Dex are showing Doakes and LaGuerta that the blood drop from the kitchen is indeed a match to the chunk of flesh found in Ricky Simmons's mouth. Doakes is pumped to charge Norberto, but LaGuerta's thinking of cutting him a deal for Guerrero instead, which gets Doakes's goat. "Come on, Lieutenant, we already got a win!" "It's not about your win, it's about the big picture." I guess I agree with her. "Your win" isn't what police work is about, Doakes. Dexter follows Doakes out with his eyes, and notices the other cops hanging around. "I've seen this before. Whenever a cop has been killed it's like everyone's life has been stopped mid-sentence."
And that brings us to a flashback, with who else but Harry Morgan, who is giving a eulogy for Davey Sanchez, his just-fallen partner. "Davey Sanchez was my partner. Davey Sanchez was my hero." Say "Davey Sanchez" one more time. "Davey Sanchez." Thanks. Harry sits down next to teen Dexter, who says, "That was great." Oh, so he was just practicing. Harry: "Ever since Davey was killed my world feels out of control." "How do you fix it?" "Two ways, I guess. Honor Davey's memory, and catch the bastard who did this to him." He goes on to explain that it's not about vengeance or retaliation, it's about "something deep inside." Now, usually platitudinous phrases like that get on my nerves, but from Harry it makes sense. He's not an over-thinker, but rather someone who is very in tune with his gut, and James Remar does a great job getting this across. Harry needs Dexter to get this, because he knows it's the only way Dexter can channel his killing urges into something resembling a positive.
Back to the present day, at a bar, where Matt Chambers is already tying one on in celebration of his legal victory. "'Happy Hour,'" muses Dexter's voice. "Now there's a misnomer." "I'll have what he's having," says real Dexter, having sat down next to his prey. They make small talk: Dexter asks if he's celebrating something, Matt says, "Something like that," and asks Dexter if they've met, Dexter replies in the negative, et cetera. Ultimately, Dexter is able to coax out of Mr. Chambers (through personality mirroring, a wise choice) that he's skipping town, something he's made a bit of a habit of. Advising Dexter on what he thinks are his real troubles, Chambers says, "Remember, there's nothing a new city can't cure." Visibly tipsy, the not-long-for-this-world Mr. Chambers takes his leave, but not before Dexter asks, "You sure you're good to drive?" "Been a lot worse." Hmm. Dexter covers Chambers's last shot glass with a napkin and pockets it, and I think we all know what he's up to. From his seat at the bar, Dexter watches Chambers peel out in his car, and VOs, "I hope he doesn't go kill himself. That would be...tragic."
Now home, Dexter's doing his research, starting with collecting the prints from the shot glass. He scans them into his laptop and starts checking them against AFIS records, as he VOs, "The good people of Florida only went so far as to validate their own assumptions that Matt Chambers is a Florida bad guy." Now all sorts of articles are popping up from his search about drunk-driving accidents involving Matt Chambers, a.k.a. Matt Rasmussen of South Boston, a.k.a. Matt Brewster of Albuquerque. Oh, boy, is he gonna die! Dexter has found his man, and he is pumped.
As he begins to prep his killing room, Dexter VOs, "My father taught me one thing above all others: be sure. And I am. Matt Chambers, Miami is your last stop. If God is in the details, and if I believed in God, then he's in here with me." Then, realizing the power cable for his saw isn't long enough: "I just wish he'd brought an extension cord." Heh. Word, that sucks. I'm sure you'll figure something out, though.
Over at Miami General Hospital (?), Doakes is crouched over Kara Simmons, who is conscious and getting prepped for an MRI. He's helping her drink water, as LaGuerta looks on suspiciously. I think it's fairly obvious at this point that Kara and Doakes had been enjoying some afternoon delight in their spare time until today's events. I mean, this scene doesn't really serve any purpose except to show us that we should think something is up. Duh.
Now it's double-date time. As Deb's boyfriend, Sean, talks about the ice block with the fingers, Dexter notices Guerrero in the distance, having live lobsters brought to him. "Not his style," Dexter VOs. "Usually he leaves the killing to someone else." True. True. Rita, bringing Dexter back to the table, asks how Deb and Sean met. Apparently, she brought her car into his shop, blah blah blah. Deb and Sean make out inappropriately, which inspires Rita to cup Dexter's thigh pretty close to his downtown bonanza, if you catch my drift, and I think you do. The slobbery couple goes to get another round of drinks, and Rita observes, "They can barely keep their hands off each other." Voice-over: "I can kill a man, dismember his body, and be home in time for Letterman. But knowing what to say when my girlfriend is feeling insecure...I'm totally lost." Great little scene right there. Julie Benz is fantastic, because she seems even more diminutive and fragile than she normally does, so you can really sense her discomfort. We also get to see Dexter in caring mode again, which I always find interesting.
Norberto Cervantes is in a cell now, and is being summoned by a guard to "assume the position." Cervantes wants to know where he's going, and guard tells him that "the call came down," and he's taking him to a "more secure block." When they get to the end of the hallway, however, it becomes quite clear that no such block lies in wait for Mr. Cervantes, because when the guard is done stabbing him repeatedly, he makes sure to let him know that Mr. Guerrero is really the one who made the call. Who is this Guerrero character? They're not trying to make us believe he's involved with these ice truck killings, are they? Nah. Anyway, as Cervantes slowly bleeds out on the concrete floor, another creepy orchestral swell comes up in the soundtrack as we hear Dexter atonally singing Frére Jacques ...
...to Astor and Cody, and how they're enjoying this I'll never know, because it's pretty bad. Dude, come on, you were the Emcee in Cabaret ! I guess MCH figured Dexter would be a shitty singer. Whatever. After he's done, he and Rita are watching TV when she abruptly puts it on mute and starts nibbling on his ear. He VOs, "Every time a woman tries to do this to me it...tickles. Still, it's not entirely unpleasant." Dexter pulls away a bit, and Rita wants to know if there's anything wrong. "Kids...?" "Oh, they sleep through thunderstorms." Nice! Come on, Dexter, don't puss out. She's a total babe and she wants you. They start having a major frenching sesh, and Dexter actually goes for the boob, which really surprises me, to be honest. Of course, things get a bit too heavy to quickly for Rita, who's still on edge, sex-wise, from the, er, aggressive methods of her ex, and she turns away. "I'm sorry," she says. Dexter, feigning exasperation, says, "Tell me." "I can't do this." "It's okay. I'm okay." Then, after a pregnant pause, "There's an elephant in the room and it's name is sex." "Tell me about it," Rita says softly. "As far as I'm concerned it can just stand in the corner and mind its own business," says Dex, trying to be comforting. "It has be right for both us, or it won't be right for either of us, you know?" At this Rita collapses into him, saying, "I can't believe I found the one truly decent man on the planet." Heh. I actually loved this scene. The mood is quickly ruined as Dexter unmutes the TV to learn of Cervantes's murder in jail.
Back at the precinct, Dexter and Doakes share a rare "dude nod," where they both non-verbally acknowledge the fucked-up situation they're in. Doakes is taking Cervantes's name down from the Guerrero crime family tree, and Dexter is examining the fingertips. Deb comes in, and Dex shows her that the fingers were hacked off post-mortem. "But why the nail polish? What's he thinking?" VO: "He's thinking, 'Tag, Dexter. You're it.'" Live Dexter says, "I don't know." Deb has info that the hand belongs to Sherry Taylor, "another hooker." "At least he's consistent." Deb is visibly shaken. She's upset that someone is killing these prostitutes, who have to "sell their bodies to survive, or feed their kids." VO: "My sister puts up a front so the world won't see how vulnerable she really is. Me, I put up a front so the world won't see how vulnerable I'm not." Deep, man. Some chick comes in and summons Deb to the Captain's office.
In Astor's office (no, not Rita's daughter), the Captain makes LaGuerta not only commend Debra on her police work initiative, but also promote her from Vice to Homicide. Deb is, naturally, totally happy, and as she hugs the Captain, LaGuerta looks on, visibly irritated that she had to do what she just did. After ending their embrace, Deb says, "I won't let you down, sir," and leaves. "I hope you know what you're doing," says LaGuerta. "I promoted you, didn't I? Now find me this ice truck son of a bitch." Heh, nice one, Cap'n. He's out.
LaGuerta and Angel have a conversation, todo en español , about his kid and his wife (I think?). Clearly we're being introduced to some Angel drama down the line, but let's not worry about that just now, shall we?
Over with Doakes now, LaGuerta wants to know why Doakes is obsessing over the Ricky and Kara Simmons thing. Doakes says that when people come after one cop, they come after all cops. LaGuerta tells him that Kara died about an hour previous, and Doakes sits down, disturbed. "Was Kara sleeping with someone other than Ricky?" LaGuerta probes. "Was it you?" His silence is enough of an answer, and she asks what the fuck he could have been thinking. He explains that Kara was going to ask for a divorce once Ricky came off undercover, but she didn't want to hurt him while he was still working Guerrero. "If I go by the book, I take you off the case." "Fuck the book!" Apparently, that's enough for her, and she lets Doakes take point on the Guerrero family. Could be a big mistake, if he's looking for retaliation...
Back with Dexter, who's getting his paralytic syringe ready for Matt Chambers, who has just pulled up in his car. As Dex watches him stumble out of his car, he gets a text from Deb: "Brother, meet me at Loco's Crab Shack. Totally important. Do NOT let me down. Deb." Looking back at Chambers, he VOs, "Gone to rest his weary head. Good news is he'll still be here when I come back for our own personal happy hour."
All right, Deb, this better be good. You're postponing killing here, do you realize that? Turns out, Deb's already told Dexter her good news, and he cheerses her with his pint o' beer. Deb: "The best part? LaGuerta had to say the actual words! I thought her head would explode!" Heh -- yeah, true. Deb thanks Dex for having her back the whole time, and that she wanted to share this moment with him because of that. "Sean the mechanic was busy?" "Um, turns out there's another woman." "Who?" "Me." Ha! Whaps! Dexter notices Guerrero walking across the room, giving pounds to his cohorts, and starts to flashback...
Harry's in the car, in the rain. The door opens and teen Dex is shouting, "Jeez, Dad, it's called being on time! You ever hear of it?" Harry's had a bad day. The judge said Davey Sanchez's killer's arrest "wasn't righteous, and let him walk." "Bad guy kills a cop and nothing happens?" asks Dexter. "So, what, the world just keeps spinning out of control?" "No," Harry responds. "The world can always be set right again."
"Bad guy kills a cop and nothing happens?" Dexter VOs, back in the present. "Not anymore." Dex follows Guerrero into the bathroom. As they stand side by side, pissing, Dexter continues, "All the planning, the making-sure, does it go away because I have the chance to get rid the world of a cop-killer and balance the books? Do I just ignore everything my father taught me about doing this right?" I say a resounding "yes," but I'm just one dude. The tension in the bathroom is building, and after Guerrero asks, "What the fuck are you looking at?" Dexter reaches into his cargo pocket for his syringe, and pulls it out. Slowly the camera pans across a plastic-wrapped body, leading us to believe it's Guerrero, but it's...
...not. It's Matt Chambers, who is just now waking up. Dexter walks into the room carrying a laptop that's playing the same birthday video of the kid Chambers killed. Chambers recognizes Dex, saying, "You?" "And you. We meet again for the last time." "I didn't do any...anything." "Some people believe that. Problem is, I don't." Chambers continues to bullshit until Dexter pulls the trigger on his power saw. "Okay, okay. It was me, but it wasn't me. It was the booze. It takes me over." "That's a point of view to which I'm not entirely unsympathetic. Neither you nor I is in complete control of our destinies. Although, at the moment it would seem that I have the upper hand." Chambers tries to say he's sorry, but Dexter tells him he's done it too many times to be just that, and stabs him in the heart, and it's awesome.
As the Cuban music swells in the score, Dexter VOs, "Carlos Guerrero has chosen to live in a dangerous world. That's his truth. My truth is that world doesn't need me to balance its books." Good call, bro. Dexter packs his car with the remains of Matt Chambers, a.k.a. Matt Rasmussen, a.k.a. Matt Brewster, and pulls away, revealing to us that this time, he chose an abandoned liquor store to do his dirty work in. Fitting, I suppose.
Back home, as he slips his latest victim's blood slide into its new home, we hear, "Matt Chambers, welcome to your last change of address. You'll like it here. You and your neighbors have so much in common." Nice. Wait a sec...who put the doll's head back on the freezer door? I don't think it was Dexter. Apparently, neither does Dexter. He opens the door to find the remainder of the doll gone. As he takes a bath, again doing the crocodile thing that he did at the beginning of the episode, he ponders. "He came back and left nothing but a message. 'Come find me.' And I will. There are no secrets in life, just hidden truths that lie beneath the surface."
Well, all righty! I guess we're pretty well set up for next week. See you then!