Dexter: The Bigger Picture

Poor Harry. His son has a new father figure, and his daughter’s research is shattering her image of dear old dad. But lucky us: A shocking turn in the case of the sleazy photographer turns this season upside down.

Sulky Dexter sees Trinity as proof that Harry’s code was wrong about sociopaths needing to be lone wolves, but it turns out Trinity’s way isn’t as easy as it sounds. A trip to the woods for lumber reveals that when he isn’t plotting elaborate murders or playing the perfect family man, Trinity is just an ordinary cranky old dude, probably a lot like your dad. But inside, he’s a an oversensitive, frightened baby, unable to man up and put the deer he hit with his truck out of its misery. (Maybe also like your dad.)
 
Someone should tell Dexter that felling trees to build a house a few days later isn’t very realistic — you have to dry the wood and you, uh, need a lot of it. Of course, if you’re Trinity and secretly building a coffin, that could work.
 
Debra is still hoping to solve the Trinity murders, but for now the Harry Morgan case has her attention. She’s shocked to find out that Harry had a slew of affairs with informants. Dexter helps nudge her away from that investigation to protect his own secret. But he protects her, too — not just from disappointment, but also from Trinity, Quinn’s reporter friend, and the photographer the cops question about a dead model.
 
Quinn responds to Dexter’s interference and general oddness by pulling a Doakes and tailing him, but Dexter manages to slip away from Quinn (and family life) long enough to capture his prey. That Dexter finds the model’s fingernail in the photographer’s bulletin board is ridiculous, but the payoff is worth that clumsy bit of proof: Dexter sacrifices the photographer on a lit table, amid strobe lights, as a PowerPoint slideshow reviews the photographer’s love of brutalizing beautiful women. It’s a gorgeous scene, made all the more intense by the photographer’s palpable panic. 
 
And it’s brilliant. Distracted Dexter seems to have jumped to a conclusion based on that fingernail match: The cops say the photographer’s assistant was the real killer. Oops. This creep’s death is hardly a tragedy, but Dexter’s misstep could draw an awful lot of attention to the Bay Harbor Butcher, especially if Quinn can put the clues together. At the very least, Dexter is going to have to rethink his lifestyle. Again.
 
More Recaps: 
The Ampersand is bored by LaGuerta and Batista — and offers a good guess about the Dexter/Trinity endgame.
Dexter Addict doesn’t care about LaGuerta and Batista, either.
EW’s Ken Tucker reminds us that we should be worried about Debra.
And, lest we forget, TWOP and everyone else hate Rita. And TWOP is on the outs with the voice known as DVO, too.