If you’re tuning into Dexter: Original Sin for the gore, I’ve got great news for you: “Blood Drive” is the most violent installment yet. We’ve got rivers of blood, we’ve got severed limbs, we’ve got sliced-off fingers, we’ve got another chain-saw execution — it’s a real smorgasbord of revolting images, perhaps designed to distract from how much wheel-spinning we’re doing here. The penultimate hour of this series’ first season probably could have been the finale, but instead the show is treading water, a frustrating move after last week’s propulsive episode. On the other hand, an explosive finale could paper over a lot of Original Sin’s, well, sins.
In the meantime, we’ve got cases to solve, even if the show has essentially solved them already. Harry and LaGuerta arrive at the hospital to see Bobby, who’s in surgery after getting shot in the neck. Maria immediately pulls Harry aside to confront him about the stolen Brian Moser file — could she not have said something when they were en route? — but Harry insists that he only nabbed it to find out what happened to the son of his former CI. It’s a private matter, he lies, and not anything LaGuerta needs to concern herself with. Never mind the fact that Brian Moser is absolutely the serial killer they’re tracking, and he’s currently eyeing his next victim, a sweet older woman named Barb he’s sitting next to at church bingo. (Barb is played by the delightful Kathleen Rose Perkins, saddled with preposterous old-age makeup and a facial birthmark they must have added to make sure we’d know it was her in the flashbacks.)
Dexter seasons usually gave us a Big Bad and a secondary antagonist — I’m honestly not sure which Brian counts as, but Dexter is fully fixated on the other one. Captain Spencer, flanked by his tearful ex-wife, is once again demanding that his officers find Nicky. “We can’t let Bobby’s sacrifice be in vain,” he says, and at this point, I wondered if the show had unceremoniously killed Bobby offscreen. (He’s fine!) Dexter’s voice-over calls Spencer “true evil incarnate” and identifies him as Dex’s first child-killer. Does he not remember Levi Reed, the man he murdered … three episodes ago? It seems to me he’s not thinking clearly at all, because he breaks into Spencer’s apartment and almost gets himself caught — not only by Spencer but by Harry. Dexter escapes by jumping off the balcony, which could also have ended badly had Spencer not lived on the second floor of his building.
At Morgan family breakfast the next morning, Harry thanks Dexter for picking up Deb in Bimini (as you do) and tells him he no longer thinks the NHI murders are the work of a serial killer. “I’ll never forget the first time my father lied to my face,” Dex’s voice-over says, and I have a lot of questions about this whole thing. If he ends up learning about Brian’s 1991 murder spree, doesn’t that completely ruin season one of Dexter? (I have … many more questions, but I’ll spare you.) Deb is up and apologizing for her recent jaunt to the Bahamas, which Harry is way too understanding about. After Deb says she’s dumped Gio, Harry tells her to stop dating older men. “The heart wants what the heart wants,” says Deb, and unfortunately, now I’m thinking about one of history’s most notorious age-gap relationships.
Her thwarted affair with Gio aside, Deb is very distressed to learn about Bobby’s critical condition, so Harry invites her to the blood drive Miami Metro has put together. (Realistically, how much blood does Bobby need? But I suppose it’s still a nice gesture!) Once there, Deb meets LaGuerta, who won’t share details about the serial-killer case she’s working on, despite Deb’s love for The Silence of the Lambs. Tanya is a lot friendlier — in fact, she gives a whole speech about how she loved basketball when she was in high school, but solving crimes gives her the same rush of endorphins that sports once did. It’s a sweaty scene, capped by Tanya asking Deb if she’d ever consider policework and noting, “We could always use more kickass women around here.” I’m going to be deeply irritated if Sarah Michelle Gellar’s entire role on this show ends up being as a source of inspiration for future cop Deb.
To be fair to LaGuerta, she doesn’t have time to entertain Harry’s daughter because she’s busy trying to solve the mystery he’s actively impeding. She even heads to records to find out more about the Laura Moser case, but — as Camilla again confirms to Harry — all references to Dexter have been scrubbed from the files. For his part, Harry is preoccupied with more flashbacks than ever. He remembers the gruesome discovery when the shipping container was opened and blood and body parts flooded out (some thrillingly disgusting effects here). He remembers Dexter and Brian huddled in the corner next to Laura’s severed head. He remembers taking in both traumatized boys and having to tell Doris that their mother was the woman he was having an affair with. Barb (Kathleen Rose Perkins, sans old-age makeup) turns out to be an employee of child services who stresses that the state does not like to separate brothers. And yet, we all know where this is going.
To be fair, Harry and Doris did initially foster both boys until Brian’s violent tendencies made themselves known: In a flashback, Brian tries to smother a crying Deb with a pillow. When Harry sits him down later for a talking-to, Brian freaks out, screams that he hates them all, and punches a hole through glass. The flashbacks in this episode are frustratingly convenient in that they sort of let the Morgans off the hook for separating Dexter and Brian — I thought this was supposed to be Harry’s original sin, and here it’s presented as a very necessary evil. Harry and Doris are simply not equipped to handle Brian, especially with a newborn. (The retcon of the boys’ ages further complicates things because, in Dexter, the idea was that only Brian was old enough to have any recollection of what happened. Dexter is a toddler here!)
At least present-day Harry feels guilt, and it was made clear in the case files last week that Harry’s rejection of him was a big part of Brian’s tortured psyche. In “Blood Drive,” however, the focus is much more on Brian’s obsession with Dexter. Harry looks at photos from the NHI murder crime scenes and spots Brian in the crowds, eyes fixed on Dex doing forensic work. Harry realizes Brian is stalking his little brother, though he has other things on his mind, like inviting Barb to his creepy van with the promise of Applebee’s and knocking her out after he reveals himself. This all feels a little unfair to Barb, who never wanted to split up the siblings in the first place. But since Barb separated Brian and Dexter, Brian decides to “separate” Barb (his words!), brutally murdering her with a chain saw.
As for Dexter, he’s forced into a minor plot detour to draw blood, inadvertently giving up two pints himself (one because Clark has had an HIV exposure and needs to pass off someone else’s blood as his own, and the other because Masuka corners Dexter into donating). Woozy but determined, he assembles a kill room at the arcade, then pretends to be blackmailing Captain Spencer so he can lure him there. This whole thing is woefully ill-conceived — the impracticality of the arcade aside, he can’t just disappear a police captain without a major investigation. Also, not to quibble with a serial killer’s morals, but isn’t the whole point that he’s killing people who evade punishment? As much as I’ve been eager for this show to reach the big showdown, this feels awfully rushed. We still don’t know why Spencer did it!
And even on the kill table, he isn’t giving up much. The captain insists he’s one of the good guys and not a serial killer, only really letting his mask slip when Becca comes up. “She betrayed me,” he seethes. Dexter takes this to mean that Spencer killed Jimmy Powell and kidnapped and mutilated Nicky to hurt Becca, and I have to believe Spencer’s “Aren’t you a fucking genius?” is facetious, because that can’t possibly be the answer here. It certainly doesn’t explain framing the cartel and engineering the shoot-out in the last episode. Dexter can’t get a straight answer out of his victim, including about Nicky’s whereabouts — and that’s after he tortures Spencer by slicing off his finger. So despite the “worst case of serial-killer blue balls” ever, Dexter lets him escape so that he can tail him to wherever he’s stashed his son. Let’s hope for some clear answers in the finale, about both Spencer and Brian. I’m going to need a really good reason for why the latter waited another 15 years before returning as the Ice Truck Killer and reconnecting with his brother.
Blood Spatter Analysis
• It looks like Bobby’s going to pull through. He even wakes up long enough to tell Harry to “save Dexter,” which is presumably about Brian but could just as easily be about Spencer.
• Given that he lets Nicky see his face, Spencer must be planning to kill him, right? Again, I’d love an explanation beyond that his wife cheated on him. “A single incident could turn a good person into a monster,” Dexter’s voice-over offers, and doesn’t that strike him as bizarrely reductive?
• There’s so much grossness in this episode that I almost forgot to mention Dexter accidentally stabbed Spencer through the hand with his needle. Cringe-inducing!
• The interlude of Dexter at the blood drive is fun enough, but I still don’t love Dex comparing Clark’s closeted sexuality to his own closeted psychopathy.
• When Dexter turns down Tanya’s request to draw blood, she says, “That wasn’t an ask, that was an order, but phrased nicely! Go forth, draw much blood.” They’re fully giving SMG Buffy-flavored lines, right? Or maybe my head’s just in that place because of this week’s revival news.
• Apologies, once again, for largely neglecting Deb, something Harry and I have in common. She gets a call from FSU, whose coach is somehow still interested despite Deb getting kicked off her volleyball team. At this point, though, it seems pretty clear she’s fully on the path to law enforcement.