DEXTER: “Si Se Puede”

Well, after last week’s episode and its bombshell, there was little this episode could have done to top it off in the revelation department. But, as all good TV fans know, not every episode can be an event, and this was one of the examples of a completely solid episode where nothing happened and a lot happened all at the same time.

I was kinda sad we didn’t get to see more of Wendell. I thought he had awesome chemistry with Deb and could really have furthered her career (more on that later), but, alas, the Skinner (Is that what we’re calling this person?) had other plans, as Wendell was the worst victim yet.

The team behind “Dexter” played along with the notion that Prado was a good guy so that the revealing of more and more character flaws comes as a shock to everyone involved except the audience. I’m not sure that Prado realizes that the sole reason Dexter doesn’t kill people willy-nilly isn’t that he feels this altruistic sense of justice that Prado seems to be taking on; it’s the fact that Harry helped Dexter establish the Code and that Dexter is a creature of control. And, I think we’ll see next week, judging by the preview, what will happen when Dexter is presented with the option of killing outside the code, instead of doing it in the heat of the moment.

I was very confident in my thinking that this whole Angel/Vice Cop thing would not end well. And maybe I was wrong. It turns out that our favorite Sergeant has a bit of game. Well played. Interesting to see how that will play out.

So Rita is heading to work with Syl Prado. This is going to be yet another way that Dexter is going to try to merge his old and new lives together to prove that they’ll work, something that he tried to tell Harry this week…right before Prado showed up with a van big enough for a serial killer and an Aryan.

The kill for this week wasn’t necessarily the focus so much as the fact that Dexter is keeping his ritual a secret. I was really happy about this. I’m one of the people who loves the ritual that Dexter follows. It’s something so unique to him and is really something that humanizes him. Letting Prado in on that will probably never happen, but if nothing else, it’s like taking your boyfriend/girlfriend home to meet your parents: after two dates (in this case, murders), it still might be too soon. Prado did earn major Dexter brownie points for not only helping out but thinking quickly on his feet.

One thought I did have is how Dexter reacts to a kill where he isn’t behind every step of the process. I just don’t see how he can relinquish any part of it: the investigation, the stalking, the kill itself. He cherry picks the best people to fit his code; the most vile, despicable cases that come across his desk. So, how is he going to react when part or all of the pre-kill work is done for him?

Oh, and just a clerical thing. I hate one thing about “Dexter” and it’s the term “my dark passenger.” I think I’m too big of a comic book/Sci-Fi fan that this just sounds cliché…too cliché for a show so good.

I think this episode was a huge stepping stone for Deb. I’ve been really impressed with her this season, as well as the way her story has been progressing. This episode really followed her from getting her own hunch, not one that Dexter planted for her; presenting it to Batista and him buying into it; doing the legwork and seeing Miguel in the act of kidnapping; working with Quinn; and actually playing politics to save everyone in the department a lot of hassle.

Does anyone buy that Yuki is on Quinn for personal reasons? I’m a little curious about Deb’s decision to tell Quinn about the investigation, though when she brought it up, it seemed as if he knew about it already. That storyline continues to be an awesome relief to Dexter’s buddy issues.

Overall, this was a solid episode that I think is a great connector to the moral conundrums Dex is going to go through next week.

The title of this episode, “Si se puede” translates into “If you can.” Do you think Dex can kill outside of the code and know about it every step of the way?

— posted by Philboy

Philboy is GMMR’s resident Dexter analyst. He spends his days studying Communications at Purdue University and his nights trying to keep up with his TV schedule without a Tivo. He awaits the day when Jack Bauer will save us all, but can live with Dexter, Chuck Bartowski and Ned the Pie Maker until then. He idolizes Barney Stinson and hopes to, one day, be the cop who declares someone dead in a procedural crime show.