DEXTER: If I Had a Hammer

When I took this position, I vowed to blog to you in sickness or in health. So, tonight, I write to you in the midst of some sort of sickness. Therefore, if some of my thoughts are rambling, you can blame the fever. However, this doesn’t explain my rambling in any other post.

The writers have gone to great lengths to differentiate Trinity from another season-long killer arc by making him so much like Dexter. As with the Ice Truck Killer, we see that Dexter has the same sense of adoration for Trinity,  but with the former killer, the private life didn’t so closely mirror his own, even though it was his own brother. Trinity is much more than the man Dexter will have to kill by the end of the season. He’s a almost a role model for Dexter. A template for how he wants to live his life.

This week we didn’t have a death by the hands of Dexter, but we got deep into the private life of Arthur Mitchell, whom we’ve known until now as the Trinity Killer. He has a wife, a couple kids and is the perfect family man, even a Deacon at church. He helps to build houses for the homeless…then uses the houses to kill in. Through his research, Dexter found that, with the three killings, Dexter is emulating the deaths of the three people who were closest to him. His mother drowned in a bathtub. His sister jumped off a bridge. His father was bludgeoned to death in an alley. That’s the cycle.

With every episode, I become more fascinated with Trinity. I can see how a character like Lundy would be infatuated with him too. My only concern is that the killing Trinity will take much longer than it should. The writers have bought themselves a couple of weeks by having Dex shadow him even more, learning from the master how to balance killing and having a family. But, that can only go so far. I hope I don’t get tired of the storyline.

We saw the Deb storyline resolved in a nice, realistic ending, getting rid of some of her demons (the most immediate ones, anyway) and getting her back on the Trinity case. She’s also tracking down Harry’s past, which will be an interesting Pandora’s box to open when that time comes. A lot of the things that Dexter had to own up to with Rita will have to be fleshed out again when Deb uncovers the rest of Harry’s secrets.

Speaking of Dexter and Rita, they went to therapy to talk through their issues and, with the help of Trinity, figured out that Dexter can never be a complete family man. He’ll always need some sort of space to keep some things. Whether this space is just for his blood slides and the like is up for debate, but I am of the opinion that Dexter’s Dark Passenger needs a place to come out and play every once in a while. Having the shed in the backyard will alleviate a lot of the problems for now, but who knows when someone can find something that they aren’t supposed to in there.

On the Laguerta-Angel front, the Deputy Chief put it best when he called it all a bunch of middle school bull. I really got tired of it all, especially since it was pretty clear that neither of them were going to actually leave the department. But, ending the relationship seems like the biggest cop-out the writers could have taken. So, what’s the happy median? Is there one? I’m not completely sure, but I know we haven’t heard the end of it all.

Overall, this was a very enlightening episode. If we trade the violence in every once in a while for more characterization and realistic storytelling, I’m okay with that. Next week we have another killer that Dexter will have to take care of, but his dealings in the Miami underworld will coincide with Quinn. Seriously? We knew he was bad, but I didn’t think he was that bad of a guy. Plus, he takes what appears to be a far too close look into Dex’s life. Do we have another Doakes situation on our hands?

What will be the situation with Quinn next week; Is he the dirty cop we’ve seen glimpses of all along? Thoughts on last night’s episode?