Father Knows Best
Updated 2008-04-18 19:17:06
Previously: "What if the Ice Truck Killer does disappear?" worried Dexter. "No, he's got unfinished business with me." Dexter wrote a cryptic Craigslist ad to see if his "playmate" was still on the loose. Paul, or FOP, as I've been calling him, got out of jail and has been a nuisance. Dexter and Rita finally had sex, which was hot. Dexter was happy to find out that she wanted there to be a "next time." Things with Deb and ProDoc were brought to the next level, as well. Just in time for us to find out he's the actual ITK.
Dexter's taking a shower. "Thank God for showers. Private time to think. Harder to come by, now that I'm in a real relationship." Proving him wrong, Rita jumps in the shower with him, all smiles. She's so cute. They fumble around each other, and Dexter almost chokes himself on the cable from the shower head. This is exactly why I hate showering with someone else. It's never sexy, it's always awkward. Wanna tell me different? I'll flick you in the eyeball. I'm always right. Naturally, Cody has to piss, and he starts raising hell outside the bathroom because the door is locked. Dexter jumps out and dries off really fast, yelling, "Hold on a second, buddy!" "I can't," Cody yells back. Fucking kids. Rita apologizes for only having one bathroom. "When nature calls..." says Dexter resignedly as he opens the door. Cody busts in as we see a scar on the left side of Dexter's torso. Hmm, wonder if that will become relevant. Cody asks him about it, and Rita instantly says, "Cody!" as if it's so rude to ask. I'm sorry, but if I had a scar like that, I'd be psyched when people asked me about it. Scars are radical. Dexter tells him, "Sword fight. I won." I think he's fibbing. Astor comes in because she has to brush her teeth, and Rita looks a little embarrassed. I'm assuming this is the first time he's actually slept over, and that's why they don't have their morning routine down pat yet. Astor comments on Dexter's scar as he leaves, and Cody proudly relays the fib that Dexter just told him. Dexter, finally out of there, looks slightly overwhelmed.
Angel and Doakes are rolling around in a police cruiser, and Angel is trying reach a better understanding of what "separated" means. What it means to him, apparently, is that "you're separated, and then you work it out. That's what it means to me." "Okay," says Doakes, trying to be supportive for a change. Angel goes on that he thinks "this is false pretenses. Nina knew she wanted a divorce when she asked for the separation. She lied." "Yeah, and you didn't when you were cheatin' on her, right?" Ah-ha! So that's what went down with Angel and his wife. "Cheat. Singular. And I felt so crappy about it that I told her the next day." Well, for some folks, that's enough, dude. You should have understood that before you married her. All of a sudden, Doakes spies a familiar dude on the bridge that they're on. "Stop the car, man!" Angel screeches to a halt and Doakes gets out and yells, "Hey!" The guy turns around, ditches the grocery bag he's holding, and books on foot. Doakes gives him chase as Angel whips the cruiser around. As they get to the end of the bridge, the guy jumps over the side to the sand down below, and heads under the overpass. Doakes does the same as Angel stops the car right behind him. Angel gets out of the car and starts running towards where the two went as we hear a loud gunshot on the soundtrack. As Angel approaches, we hear another gunshot, clearly not from the same weapon. "Doakes!" Angel yells. When he finally reaches Doakes, the other guy is lying dead under the bridge. "You alright?" he asks, but Doakes stays quiet. They both approach the body.
A couple hours later, now evening, the body is covered with a sheet. A couple of guys from the coroner's office are taking notes as Dexter checks the blood spatter. "The suspect's name was Jacques Bayard, according to his driver's license," says Angel. "Haitian?" asks LaGuerta. Angel thinks so. "Alright," she says, speaking to Doakes now. "Let's go over it again." "I saw a gun in the suspect's waistband. I went to question him, and he took off running when he saw me." LaGuerta confirms this with Angel, who says what he saw and did. "And when you went under the causeway," LaGuerta prompts. "He took a shot at me," Doakes finishes. "I took cover and returned fire from that corner," he says, pointing at the spot where the overpass reaches ground level. "No, not from there," says Dexter, who's just rolled up. "Yeah, from fuckin' right there!" Doakes disagrees. Dexter cites the trajectory of the blood, but Doakes isn't having it. "You questioning me? 'Cause I got a lot of questions for you." Angel tries to calm Doakes down, but he doesn't relent. "The man is a fucking creep-job!" he says angrily, referring to Dexter. LaGuerta urges him to just focus on the facts. "The DA's team is ready for you. You good?" Doakes says he is. "You're next," she says to Angel, who looks bemused as he walks up to Dexter. "Sorry, but I didn't invent physics," says Dexter smiling. "He just got mixed up, is all," says Angel. "Hell, I'm not even sure what happened." "Well, trauma can distort the memory," says Dex as he takes off.
At the lab, Dexter is running more blood spatter analysis and Angel works the phones. Deb is prodding Dexter to hang with her and her boyfriend, and to bring Rita along. "It's just hard to get a babysitter on a Friday night," he says. "Dex, you're my brother. You should know my boyfriend!" "You really like using the "B" word, don't you?" Heh, yeah. That's it, Dex. Play on her insecurities. Deb tells him to stop making bullshit excuses. Dexter tells her that their last double-date was "a little awkward. I just want to make sure this one's gonna... stick ." Hee! "Thanks for the vote of fucking confidence!" Gah, shut up , Debra! She tells him that's "Rudy's different. I think I'm falling for him." Thankfully, Dexter and the rest of us are spared Deb's annoying ramblings when a delivery guy asks around for Dexter. "Right here," says Dexter, and he signs for the package. Angel is standing around, looking shady for some reason. "An urgent registered letter?" says Deb. "Maybe you won a sweepstakes!" What the...? Whatever. Go away, Deb. Angel motions for Dexter to walk with him for a sec. "Did you finish your report on the shooting?" Angel asks. He did indeed. "You still think Doakes's version doesn't add up?" "Blood never lies." Thank you, Gil Grissom . Angel asks him to sit on his report until he has a chance to talk to Doakes. Dexter just hands him the file and heads back over to Deb, who's reading his letter. "We regret to inform you of the death of your father," reads Deb, who looks confused. "Dad died ten years ago." "This isn't about Harry. 'Joseph Driscoll of Dade City, Florida names his son, Dexter Morgan, of Miami as his executor.' It's a will." Deb mentions that it has to be a mistake, because Harry always said that Dexter's father died before the Morgans took him in. "He'd never make a mistake like that." "The body's awaiting cremation while they notify the next-of-kin." "Hey, I'm your only next-of-kin, don't you fuckin' forget it!" says Deb. "Oh, and I inherited a house!" says Dexter as Deb walks away. "I know the truth," Dex VOs. "Because Harry always told me the truth. He had to. He was teaching me principles, a code. He knew what I would become without it. So Joseph Driscoll of Dade City must have been mistaken."
Flashback time. "You know what this is?" asks Harry of young Deb 'n' Dex, holding a piece of paper. "This is Dexter's new birth certificate." He proudly displays the document for both kids to see. "The adoption finally went through. You're a Morgan, now!" "I thought I was already a Morgan," says Dexter inquisitively. "Well, you have been to us. But it's official now!" Deb asks Harry why he never told about what happened to Dexter biological parents. Harry says, "Let's not talk about it," but Dexter insists. "It was an accident, a tragic accident." Well, alrighty then.
Dexter's helping Rita clean up her place, and she asks him if he's found anything else out about Joe Driscoll. "I looked online. I even looked up police records, but there are no birth records, no driver's license...just the deed to the house." Rita finds that odd. Dexter tells her that he talked to the probate lawyer who drafted the will, and it turns out Driscoll "was an insurance adjuster of sound mind with no doubts" about who Dexter was. He also enjoyed bowling. Rita looks concerned, and asks, "Dexter, you're not feeling any of this, are you? You're obviously so overwhelmed that you've shut down." "Maybe," he says after a pause. Rita wants to come with him to sort out the house. "You don't need to do that," says Dex. "Trust me, you'll need me." She kisses him and heads back to the kitchen to keep cleaning.
Deb is passed out on Rudy's bed, and Rudy is up, walking around. He heads to his dresser and fingers a pair of scissors like a creep, when Deb wakes up and says, "I fell asleep." "Sex like that takes a lot out of a person." ProDoc leans over and smooches her, and we're treated to some of Jen Carpenter's side-boob. ProDoc asks if the double-date for Friday is still on, and she says that because Dexter has to go to Dade City, it is, in fact, not. "What's in Dade City?" Deb explains the situation, and Rudy's all, "Really?" as if he didn't know. I'm sure he killed Driscoll, or at least set the situation up somehow. Anyway, he climbs into bed with Deb, and they get into cuddle position, careful not to turn the side-boob into the front-boob. Deb thinks the whole thing is a big mistake. "Still, though. That's gotta open up some old wounds," muses Rudy. "When are you leavin'?" "I'm staying in bed with you all weekend," Deb responds. "I thought you two were close." Deb says they are, but Dexter likes to do things on his own. "He doesn't need my help." "Or...he just doesn't know how to ask for it." He's obviously trying to connive his way into going. Fuckin' guy!
"I left a message so we wouldn't have to have this conversation," says Rita, annoyed. "Yeah, which is why I hustled over here, so we could hash this out like adults," replies FOP, with his stupid Muppet hair flapping every which way. Rita insists that she's still going out of town, and FOP is pissed that it's going to cost him his visit with his children. "It's not your call," she tells him. "The kids are already settled at Colleen's. You can have your visit when we get back." Again, with the Colleen! Who is this elusive woman? Paul is fucking steamed, and he smacks something off the table. Rita stares ahead with a If You're Going To Act Like A Baby, Expect To Be Treated Like One face on. "It's just that I already laid out cash for the tickets," says FOP. "A death in the family trumps the circus." "Dexter's not your family, I am." They share a gunslinger moment as Dexter pokes his head in to ask if Rita's ready. "Hey, Paul." Then, to Rita: "We'd better hit the road." FOP surls past him with Rita close behind. Road trip!
Salsa music ushers Rita and Dexter up to the late Joe Driscoll's house, a small, boxy thing. Dexter belches as he exits the vehicle, and comments that maybe fast food wasn't the best plan. "They should have served a cardiologist with these burgers!" "Junk food's the unwritten rule of the road," says Rita, and I don't totally agree. Jerky? Sure. Chips? Absolutely. McD's? Nay. That's a sure-fire projectile vomit combo, for me. Rita thinks the house looks nice, and Dexter mentions that there should be a key under the mat. Some old lady comes out of her house across the street and asks them if they're her new neighbors. "No, we're just here to clear up some things with the estate," Dexter says. "So sad about Mr. Driscoll. He was only sixty, you know. Too young for a heart attack. He used to clean my gutters every fall." Wow, she must be really lonely. That's sad. "I don't know what I'm going to do now. Unless you know how to clean gutters!" Dexter tells her they won't be there for that long. "Have a good day!" The lady gives a pissed-off look as Rita and Dexter go inside.
Inside, the place looks super dusty, and all the furniture is that mid-70s, shit-brown, cheap-ass wood. Basically, what I imagine Ikea was probably making three decades ago. There are bowling trophies, a couple of plaques on the walls, and heinous couches. "A bachelor definitely lived here," comments Rita. "I don't want a house in Dade City," says Dex. "Which means it's going to need to be packed up," Rita elaborates. "I don't think anybody else is going to do it, so I guess that leaves us. Told you you need me." Yeah, you did. It's true. It's not a terrible place. A little paint, a Swiffer...it could be liveable.
At the station, Angel looks perturbed as he sits at his desk. He sees Doakes and follows him into the break room. "Hey, James. I.A. [Internal Affairs] is pressing me on my report of the shooting. Now, there's just one thing that I can't clear on." "Pretty clear from where I was standing," says Doakes. "Yeah, except I could have sworn that I heard your nine-millimeter go off before the .38. Now, there's lots of reasons it could have gone down that way. If Bayard even just aimed at you, that's still a right to shoot." "Except, he shot first when I came around the corner." Angel tells him couldn't have gone down that way because of the blood spatter report. "Are you calling me a liar?" asks Doakes. "No, I'm sayin' maybe you're not remembering it right." Doakes tells Angel that he's not "the only honest cop in Miami." "I just want to know why a man is dead. I did not see a gun!" LaGuerta comes in, just in time before the pair come to fisticuffs, and asks to see Angel right away.
Dexter's looking at some pictures on a desk. "Is that Joe?" asks Rita. "Must be." "It's weird, but he looks a little bit like you." Dexter observes that there aren't any pictures of family or children around. "Lonely," says Rita pensively. The doorbell rings, and Dexter walks over to get the door. He opens it to find Rudy, who he's never met. "Dexter, hi," he says in a creepy tone. Yeah, way to broadcast what a freakshow you are, dude. After an awkward moment, Deb says, "Surprise!" and comes out from behind Rudy. "I know you can't ask for my help, but it's my duty to, you know...help, while you deal with old wounds..." she babbles on. Wow, Rudy's clearly done a number on her. She's so desperate for companionship that now that she has it, she'll do whatever Rudy suggests. He's got her right in the palm of his hand. Anyway, Deb finally gets around to introducing Rudy, who walks in and embraces Dexter, saying, "I've waited a long time to meet you." Hmm, what's that supposed to mean? I'm assuming this character is going to be written, from this point forward, so that everything he says has some sort of double meaning. Deb's all smiles: "He came here for me, for both of us. Isn't he great?" Oh, Jesus. Dexter smiles back at her, guardedly. Everyone starts talking about how much work all the packing is going to be, and Rudy suggests they all sleep in the house to get more done. Rita thinks it's a good idea, because then they won't have to spend money on a motel room. "It's up to you, Dex," says Rudy. "As long as you don't mind the sofa-bed," says Dexter. Rita's off to look for clean sheets.
The next morning, Dexter is up before Rita and getting dressed. "How did a death turn into a couples weekend?" he VOs. Heh. "Luckily, I get up earlier than normal people." He shuts the bedroom door and walks into the kitchen, where Rudy has already brewed coffee and is pouring a cup. He asks Dexter if he wants some, and Dexter declines. "Thanks, but I gotta hit the morgue." Rudy asks if he wants company, and Dexter says no to that as well. "Thank you, though." "Private, I get it," says Rudy. Man, what's he up to? This is such a twisted situation.
At the hospital, Dexter's talking to Driscoll's physician. "I gave Joe a physical once a year, like clockwork. He had no history of heart disease, but it happens." The doctor tells Dexter that they were about to cremate him before they found him. "We thought his son should have a chance to pay his last respects." "I'm not his son." "Estrangement in a family is a shame, but death is the great unifier." Now in the morgue, the doctor rolls out Driscoll's body, and Dex looks on with curiosity. The doctor pulls back the sheet, and Dexter inspects the body closely. Driscoll has a spider-web tattoo on his right elbow, which Dexter comments on. The doctor says he got in Vietnam. "You can be proud he was a patriot." "Yeah, he was also an ex-convict. This is a prison tattoo." The doctor says that's not true, coming to Joe's defense. "How did you determine cardiac arrest was the cause of death? Was there damage to the coronary artery?" The doctor looks shocked that Dexter even knows what that is. "Ah, professional curiosity. I work in forensics down in Miami," Dexter explains. The doctor says he found micro-aneurysms in the retinas, pretty common with seizures during a heart attack. "It's also a sign of diabetic retinopathy," says Dexter. Jeez, know-it-all. "Son, I may be a small-town doctor, but I know a heart attack when I see one." The doctor blabs on about what could have caused it, as Dexter hears a distant Have You Ever Seen The Rain? by Credence, a sure harbinger of a flashback.
Yup! A very young boy is riding shotgun in a car with a man, looking at his spider-web tattoo as the radio blares the Credence tune.
We're back with Dexter, who's looking a little pale and freaked out now, as the song slowly fades into nothing. "It's hard to accept so many unanswered questions," the doctor continues, oblivious. "Oh, you're right, Dr. Pittman," says Dexter, covering his face. "This is really hard." The doctor pats Dex on the back. "Do you mind if I just have a minute alone with...dad?" The doctor says he'll be in his office. What are you up to, Dex? As soon as the doctor's gone, Dexter grabs a syringe from the supply closet and sticks it in Joe Driscoll's chest to extract blood.
Now Dex is sitting on the john in the men's room, making a call that he'd obviously like to be private. "Masuka," says the voice that answers. "Hey, it's Dexter Morgan." "Dude, I know your last name." Dexter wants him to run a DNA comparison. "I'm gonna send you two samples. Do a tox screen, too, okay?" "Dude, if this is your idea of a romantic weekend, you're going to be a bachelor for a very long time." Dexter hangs up, and draws his own blood, and we're flashing back...
...To a very bloody scene. We're clearly in an emergency room, and Dexter is on a bed, his chest sliced open, lots of blood everywhere. Harry runs in and asks what happened. Mama Morgan, still alive at this point, tells him that Dexter went to retrieve a ball of Deb's, and sliced his chest open on a wrought iron post when a dog started chasing him. Yikes, that looks pretty painful. "Is he going to be alright?" Harry asks a doctor. "We'll need to do surgery to repair some internal bleeding, and that's a problem," says the doctor. Harry wants to talk about it away from Dexter, so he and the doctor go to the other side of a glass window, where Dexter can still hear them. "The complication is with your son's blood type." Harry and Mama Morgan get into some sort of tiff, and we can sort of hear Mama saying, "We can't keep him alive if we don't do something! Go now!"
Angel is getting questioned about this whole Doakes shooting fiasco, which I couldn't care less about, to be honest. "So, you heard the .38 go off before Sergeant Doakes's nine-millimeter?" asks the Internal Affairs guy. "Then, I went under the causeway and I saw the suspect --" "Mr. Bayard." "...Mr. Bayard on the ground, his gun lying next to him." Whoa, wait a second. I thought you said you didn't see a gun. What's up? The I.A. guy asks Angel if he's sure it was Bayard's gun. "Well, it wasn't mine! And Doakes had his niner in his hands." The I.A. guy shoots off a string of questions, asking Angel if he saw the gun on Bayard, if he knew the guy was a janitor, if he knew he'd never gotten so much as a parking ticket since he immigrated from Haiti. "He got a lot more than that this time, didn't he?" says Angel. "Are you sure you heard the .38 go off before Doakes's nine-millimeter?" Silence.
Looking through papers back at Driscoll's house, Dexter announces that "Joe bought this house outright in 1976. Paid cash. No records before that." "No records," says Rudy, "no childhood photos. The guy was sixty, but it's like his life started when he was thirty." Rita agrees. "So, what happened between years one and twenty-nine?" says Deb. Rudy speculates, "Maybe he butchered his entire family." Deb says she thinks he was just a loser who maybe split on his wife. "What do you think, Dex?" asks Rudy. "I think Joe spent some time in prison, probably mixed with some bad people. Maybe he had to hide from them." "Whatever it was, drugs were involved," says Rita, holding up a pin. "Narcotics Anonymous. Paul used to get these, but he's never get past his welcome chip." Dexter counts the chips, saying, "Looks like Joe was clean for --" "Let me guess: thirty years," says Deb. "Joe said no to the drugs, but not his Rock 'n' Roll. Nothing in his collection post-1980." Rudy's found Joe's old record collection, and puts on Free Ride by Foghat, and he and Deb start rocking out, playing air guitar and shaking their butts, which is kind of hilarious because Deb is also wearing one of Driscoll's bowling braces, which kind of makes her look bad-ass, for some reason. "Oh, good, dancing," says Dexter. Okay, that's really funny. I love his delivery. Eventually, Rudy gets Rita into the mix after her initial demurrals, and Dexter finally joins in half-heartedly. As the song continues, they all continue cleaning and dancing as if it's the montage in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead where the kids all clean up the house in about five minutes for SueEllen's big fashion show. Okay, I didn't just write that. Anyway, Deb totally redeems herself for all previous annoyances for actually making me laugh out loud by being such a toothy dweeb in this scene. She really goes all out with the dancing, and she looks kind of hot, to boot. Another interesting thing about the scene is that it's edited so that we see only the "violent" things that Dexter and Rudy are doing: ripping tape, cutting boxes, tightening rope. It's very subtle, but it's effective. Well done.
Rita's phone rings, and of course it's FOP. The scene shifts to his little motel room, where beer bottles are strewn all around. "Just making sure dear Dexter is dealing decently with his dead dad." Aw, did someone just learn about alliteration in eighth grade English? As FOP chuckles at his own rapier wit, Rita tells him that everyone's fine. "We'll see you on Monday." "No, talk to me. You having fun? Because I'm not." "Paul," Rita exasps. "I could have been at the circus, eating peanuts, stepping in elephant shit." Rita explains that if he wants to build up to more visitation rights, this is the type of shit he needs to stop pulling. "So maybe, you'd like to just politely hang up," she says. "You're right. You have a great weekend," FOP says sarcastically and hangs up. Dude, I hate FOP. He's such a rage-ball. Hate!
Dexter's standing over the kitchen sink as the water runs, VOing, "A secret life. The only thing Joe and I have in common. There's nothing else in this house to connect us." All of a sudden, Rudy's there, which...duh. "Hiding out?" he asks. "Cleaning up," Dex replies. "I can only imagine what you're going through." "A lot of Lemon Fresh Joy," says Dex, trying to joke. "You joke. Good defense, by the way." "Thank you, I think." Rudy brings up how heavy it must feel that Joe could actually be Dexter's father. "The only way that's a possibility is if Harry was wrong, and, uh, that's just not possible." "Or he lied," says Rudy.
"Don't you worry, little man, you're not going to feel a thing," says a doctor, wheeling young Dexter into surgery. "I thought there was a problem, with my blood." "Your dad fixed it. See, you have a very special blood type. AB-negative. It's hard to come by, and our supply was low. But your dad knew somebody with blood just like yours. You're very lucky." Harry steps in and tells Dexter he's going to be good as new. "I will?" "Hey, would I lie to you?" Apparently so.
"When my father was dying, he just asked me for one thing. 'Be an honest man.' That's all he asked. I made him that promise and that's why I became a cop. Now this Haitian man is dead, and I don't know why, but I know it ain't right. If I talk, I'll be a rat to the whole precinct. But if I lie --" "Hold on," says the I.A. guy in the back seat of Angel's cruiser. He has to flip the tape in the recorder. "Go ahead," he says when he's done. Angel looks distraught, but instead of saying anything else, he just hands the guy the report he got from Dexter. "The blood spatter doesn't match Doakes's report. Also, I heard Doakes's nine-millimeter go off before the .38. He must have had good cause --" "So Doakes fired first?" "Doakes fired first," Angel confirms. The I.A. guy gets out of the car. Oh, man, poor Angel! What a shitty predicament to be in. He looks completely disconsolate.
Back at Driscoll's, Rita serving lunch as Dexter's phone begins to ring. Rita mentions that Dexter's outside poaching garbage can space from neighbors, so Deb picks it up. It's Masuka, and he asks if he called the "hot Morgan" by mistake. "Freudian!" he remarks nerdy. "My subconscious has been exposed." Yeah, you're an episode too late for the Freud jokes, geek. Deb tells him to shut it and tell her what's up. "I got the results," he says. "On Doakes's shooting? Has he been cleared?" "On the DNA test," he says. "What DNA test?" Deb asks. Oh, great. Now Deb is involved. This should be fun. Well, minus the fun part.
Outside, Dexter's chucking crap into one of the neighbor's garbage cans, and he turns around to head back to the house. Of course, Deb is standing there. "You trusted Dad your entire life, so why question him now?" "Am I missing something?" Deb holds out his phone. "DNA test?" "Masuka called?" "Your biological father was dead. Dad told us that. I remember." "So, the DNA came back negative?" "It was a match," she says, unbelieving. "Joe Driscoll was your bio-dad!" Dexter seems shocked. He leans against the car and says, "Interesting." "Do you think Dad lied?" asks Deb. "I think he might have known Joe was here, five hours up I-95 my whole life." "Well, he must have had a damn good reason," says Deb. She's getting pretty emotional and starting to undo all the good work her dancing did last night. "I'm not going to let some guy you didn't even know draw him into question." "Deb, I'm not questioning anything." "That's why you got a tox screen, too." Oh, goddammit, Deb. It's all about you, isn't it? Shut the face-hole.
Inside, Deb says she needs to clear her head, and asks Rudy where the car keys are. Dexter comes in, and tells Deb that he ordered the tox screen because Driscoll had no history of heart disease and the coroner's report was "inept." "You did it because, for some reason, he's important to you." And so what if he is! Way to fucking stand up and not think about yourself for a change, Deb. Not ! This isn't a personal affront to you. It's his actual father, and maybe if you really gave a shit, you'd understand that this is a pretty heavy thing to go through, you ass. Sorry. She's being such a twat-chunk, though. Dexter tells her it was professional curiosity. "Well, then, you'll be professionally glad to know that the only toxin in his system was a sedative, which he probably took to sleep." Rudy's watching this exchange very closely. Wonder why? Maybe because he killed Joe. Just a thought. Rita chimes in that the sedative is highly unlikely. "Joe was thirty years sober, and I haven't found anything stronger than Advil in his medicine cabinets." Deb's had enough, and she sits down, defeated. Rudy says, "It wouldn't be the first time an addict fell of the wagon, Rita." "Or someone slipped him a sedative so he wouldn't struggle when he was injected with something," says Dexter. "Like...?" says Rudy. "Diabetic Insulin," says Dexter. "It can cause cardiac arrest. We've seen it before. It's nearly impossible to detect, unless you can find the point of injection, which I wasn't looking for, but if I had a chance to examine the body again --" "Jesus Christ!" says Deb. "He's not even your family. Mom and Dad were. I am! You going to start questioning me, now?" Oh, for the love of Jeebus. "You? Why would I --" "Joe Driscoll was obviously bad fucking news which is why Dad didn't want you to know anything about him! Doesn't that matter to you?" Wow. I think this is one of the worst cases of Taking. It. Personally. that I've ever seen. Dexter's at a loss, as am I. After a long silence, Dexter says, "I don't know what you want from me." "I want what Dad wanted. I want nothing to do with this guy. Let's just finish packing up this crappy house and walk the fuck away!" Dexter says that sounds like a fine plan to him, but things are still awkward. Thanks, Deb, for ruining was already a perfectly awkward and uncomfortable weekend.
Dexter's out in the garage, cleaning and VOing, "I guess I understand why Deb is upset. We both idolized Harry, lived by what he taught us. But Deb never had to be taught not to kill innocent people. That's why she doesn't understand why I need to know." Dexter sees the same old lady from before leaving her house to get the paper, and he runs and grabs it for her, saying, "Howdy, neighbor!" She thanks him, a little surprised by his change in attitude from their previous encounter. He asks her if she noticed any visitors over at Joe's last week, and she's says that she isn't sure. "I'm just wondering if he has any outstanding bills...a gardener, maybe? Or a delivery person? Repair man?" She says she saw a cable repair man. "He was polite. He couldn't fix my TV antenna, but..." She shrugs her should in a "Hey, What Can You Do?" fashion. Dex asks what he looked like. "Oh, well, he had dark hair. Average height. Normal, I suppose." Sounds like Rudy to me!
Doakes is sitting at station, looking over some paperwork, appearing disgruntled as usual. LaGuerta approaches him from behind, and tells him, "I did some checking on our suspect, Jacques Bayard." "You lendin' I.A. a hand?" he asks. LaGuerta tells him she just wants to know what's really going on. Doakes, suspicious, asks her what she thinks is going on. Seems that she's done some homework, and that Bayard used to be an officer in the Haitian military under a different name. "Didn't your tour in the army include some special op in Haiti?" she asks, and is immediately met with a cold stare. "Right. 'Special' means you don't talk about it." Doakes remains silent until LaGuerta asks him about the Haitian death squads, or Tonton Machetes , that he encountered down there. "They made mothers carry the heads of their dead sons," he says. "Forced fathers to rape their daughters." He goes on to list other atrocities, and LaGuerta comments, "This man, Jacques Bayard...if he did those things, he deserved a lot worse than he got." Indeed, he did. Now, at first, I was a little annoyed at this scene, because I thought it was just a thinly veiled attempt to open our eyes to the existence of violence everywhere, and blah blah blah. Not that that isn't important to know. To be honest, I'm woefully ignorant of Haiti's history. But now I realize the writers are actually drawing a parallel between Doakes and Dexter. I mean, wasn't Doakes essentially just "taking out the trash," just like Dexter does? I wonder if this will come back in the future. I really hope so. Anyway, Doakes and LaGuerta share a long moment of quiet understanding, and then LaGuerta stands up and tells him it'll all be over soon, and I assume she's referring to the Internal Affairs investigation.
Dexter's sneaking out of the house as Rudy and Deb cuddle on the pullout bed in the living room. As soon as he shuts the door, we're transported to the morgue, where Dex is breaking in through a window and VOing, "If Joe was shot up with insulin, there'll be an injection welt, maybe between his toes or in a freckle. If it's there, I'll find it." The window is unlocked, granted him easy access, and he comments, "Small towns," as he climbs inside. Once inside, he looks all around only to discover that Driscoll's body is nowhere to be found. "Come on, Dr. Pittman, what crematorium did you send Joe to?" he VOs, clunkily. He opens Dr. Pittman's office door, and there are Joe's ashes, just sittin' right there. Dexter picks them up, and as soon as he does he hears a security guard coming. He steps out into the hallway and gets spotted, so he gives chase. Naturally, the security guard is a big fat fatty and can't keep up, so Dexter escapes rather easily.
Outside, Dexter is still running and looks very suspicious. A car comes tearing up behind him, so he turns his head so the driver won't see his face, but Rudy knows it's him. "Get in," he says. Dexter does, and they peel out. "Heard you sneak out," says Rudy. "Took a guess where you were headed." "Figured I'd need a ride?" "Figured I could talk you out of it." Dexter mentions sarcastically that Deb will be thrilled to know what he's doing. "As far as I know," Rudy tells him, "you went out for a walk." Rudy notices the box of Joe Driscoll's ashes on the floor, and asks Dexter if he stole something. Dex tells him his fingerprints were on the box, and he felt it was just best to get rid of the evidence. "I guess you weren't able to find out if he was injected with anything." "No." Rudy has an idea about how to dispose of the ashes. He pulls over to a bowling alley, and he and Dex get out. Dexter puts the ash box on the car as Rudy begins, "You know, no matter what Harry said, no matter what Deb thinks, that's your father." "Cardboard box." "I know you don't want to acknowledge it, which is why you're running around, breaking and entering, searching for some...killer, but you took that because there's a part of you that knows that this is your real father." Jesus, what are you driving at, buddy? It's not like it was your father or anything. Hmm. Dexter looks contemplative, and he opens the box and takes out the ashes. "My father," he says, enlightened. "Sounds strange." "I know," says Rudy as his eyes bore holes into Dexter's forehead. Dexter pours out the ashes slowly as the neon bowling sign buzzes in the background and the American Beauty Piano Of Importance tells us that maybe we should rewind this scene on our DVRs to see if Rudy was dropping any subtle hints as to his relationship with Dexter. I'll save you some time: he doesn't.
Back at the Driscoll house, Dexter enters the bedroom quietly, but not quietly enough, because Rita stirs. "Hey, are you alright?" she asks, half-awake. He tells her he is, and that he just needed some air. She says she found some stuff in Joe's closet, "just a bunch of papers, over there." Dexter opens the shoe box she points to and starts flipping through the various papers. "Any clues?" Rita asks on her way back to sleepy town. In fact, there is one. Dexter's holding a homemade construction paper card, with a syringe drawn in crayon on the front, and his mind looks blown.
"Hey, buddy," says Harry as enters the hospital room, carrying a balloon. "How you feelin'?" Young Dex says he feels pretty good, and that the abundance of ice cream is more than making up for the itchiness of his scar. "Life's a trade-off," observes Harry. He sees the card that Dexter is working on, and asks him about it. "It's a thank you card." "Who's it for?" "Well, [the nurse] said I should thank the man who gave me the blood. I mean, that's normal, right?" Harry says that it is, "but he's gone, and we won't be seeing him again. I'm sorry." "That's alright," says Dexter, and he throws the card in the trash bin next to his bed. "It doesn't really mean anything." Harry, seeing the disappointment on Dex's face, says, "Yeah, it does," and grabs the card. "You keep drawing, son. I'll make sure it finds him."
Back with present-day Dex, who lets the card fall to his lap. I guess no voiceover was needed. The expression of dawning understanding is enough.
Angel busts open LaGuerta's door and says, "You had the case dropped ?" LaGuerta asks the woman she's speaking with to excuse her, and the lady peaces out. Angel takes off his hat (which never happens, so he must be pissed) and says, "I.A. dropped Doakes's case." LaGuerta asks him if he seriously thinks she has any control over what I.A. does. "I put everything on the line. I told I.A. the truth, and there's a lot of evidence to back that up. What the hell happened?" LaGuerta explains that a call came down from "an agency in Washington" that wanted to handle the case as it involved "some foreign affairs issue." "They disappeared it," says Angel, fuming. "You think it was Black Ops, CIA?" "Maybe," says LaGuerta. Then, after a pause: "Probably." "And I ratted him out, Jesus Christ." As he leaves, LaGuerta tries to console him: "Angel, you did what you thought was right." He doesn't care about that now, and he leaves the room with the camera following him. An officer bumps into him intentionally and says, "squeak, squeak" under his breath like an asshole. "You have a problem?" Angel beefs. "Officer Benson," says Doakes behind the uniformed cop. "You just bumped into your superior." And then, yelling for everyone to hear: "I believe you owe Detective Batista an apology." Benson looks put out and let's out a Do I Have To? exasp, but Doakes glares at him in his own special way until he apologizes to Angel. Doakes and Angel share a weird moment, and I can't tell if they're cool or not. Officer Benson leaves the room with egg on his face, leaving Angel looking bewildered.
Dexter is staring at Joe Driscoll's house, then turns around and hands the keys off to the real estate broker. Rudy walks up and says, "I know I should be sorry that we met under these circumstances, but truthfully, I think it was the best way to get to know you." They shake hands, and Rudy maintains an intense gaze at Dexter's face. Deb steps up and bitches, "Realtor says you won't get much for it." "Well, more than if I kept it." "Are we good?" Deb asks. Well, I don't know about Dexter, but I think you're pretty fucking far from good right now, you self-centered cock-ass. I mean, seriously. Way to hold a grudge, there, stretch. Deb hugs Dexter warmly as he says we're fine and meets Rudy's glare, which is still extra big-ass intense, and making me feel kind of not awesome. Deb tells Dex she'll see him at the station, and she and Rudy head towards their car. As Rudy shuts the car door behind Deb, he glances nervously across the street towards the now-emerging old lady from before. As he gets into the driver's side, she starts calling out, "Cable repairman! Wait! Don't go!" Rudy pointedly ignores her and peels out as fast as he can. Dexter and Rita, in their car, are ready to go. "Alone again," Rita sighs, and Dexter replies, "Finally," relieved. "You know what? I'm glad you were here," he tells her in a nice, genuine moment. She beams at him and says, "Thought you would be." As Dexter backs out of the driveway, the old woman tries to get his attention to ask about "the cable repairman," but Dexter just waves at her and takes off. The old lady looks pissed, because her fucking antenna's broken and now who's gonna fuckin' fix it? Not the cable repairman, that's for sure.
Rita's putting the kids to bed, and is shutting the lights when there's a belligerent knock at the front door. Uh-oh. This can't be good. Before she even reaches the door, FOP is all, "Rita, it's me." She opens the door a crack, and FOP barrels in, drunk as a skunk. "They're asleep," says Rita. "Yeah, well I should have been here, okay?" "It's late, and you're drunk, and you can't keep coming by here unannounced," says Rita, laying down the law. "You don't call the shots, okay?" Fucking Paul. Rita tells him she wants him to leave, and he tells her about his lack of ability to give a fuck about what she wants. Because he's five. "I want my fuckin' kids!" Dude, keep it down, they just got to sleep. "You're going to scare them," says Rita. FOP shoves past her, saying, "They don't want to see me? Those kids are gonna remember who the head of this fucking family is." Wow, dude. We're seeing this bastard's true colors now. What raging prick-job. Rita stops him and placates him: "You're right. I've been awful. I just didn't realize I was hurting you so much. I can make it up to you. Let me try." She grabs him by the hand and slowly lures him into the bedroom with the false hope of getting laid. Once they're in there, FOP grabs her by the hair, and she's instantly afraid, and I can't blame her. "Where the fuck are you going?" FOP spits at her, shoving her onto the bed forcefully. Rita keeps making unintelligible noises, clearly frightened out of her wits as Paul tries to rape her. "Wanna play rough, eh? Is that what you want?" "No!" "You fucking whore!" As FOP takes his tank off, Rita reaches under the bed and grabs a Louisville Slugger, and slams Paul across the head with it, dropping him to the ground. That shit was sweet! As he lays on the floor, debilitated, Rita grabs the kids and flees the scene.
Dexter's at his crib, and is putting a record on. "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" by Creedence comes on, and Dexter pulls out the "Thank You" card he make Joe Driscoll as a young man. "I had a father," he ponders. "Someone other than Harry who called me son. The thought never even occurred to me. Harry was all I needed." As we see Rudy, dressed as a cable repairman, visit the old woman who lives across from Joe Driscoll's place, Dexter continues, "It was Harry who always had the answers. He knew who was good, bad, safe, and dangerous. I built my life on Harry's code. I live by it. But Harry lied. Why would he do that? What else don't I know? My concrete foundation is turning to shifting sand. Maybe Rudy was right: you never can truly know anyone."
Whoa. Pretty heavy stuff. Yet again, another episode without a body count, but I have to say, I respect that the writers don't feel that they have to stick to a formula and have Dexter kill someone every episode. It makes it so that when he does find someone to do away with, it feels much more organic.