DEXTER (Season 5)

“Dexter,” Season 5, Episode 2: “Hello, Bandit”

Welcome back, Dexter. After last week’s sad and mopey premiere, it was nice to see the Dexter (Michael C. Hall) we all love back. Inner monologue and all.

Sunday’s episode found Dexter as the newly-single father. Astor and Cody moved into Deb’s (Jennifer Carpenter) with Dexter and baby Harrison. Astor, still not ready to forgive Dexter, insisted on leaving the cramped apartment for her grandparents’ house. Dexter agreed.

That was probably the best decision anyone could’ve made. Dexter as a single father would’ve never worked. Not for Dexter, not for those kids and not for us, the viewers. We don’t watch this show for wholesome family fun. We all know why we watch it. So, farewell Cody and Astor.

It doesn’t take long for Dexter to feed his inner creature of the night. While renting a moving van, he discovers some crime evidence in the back of one of the vans. He does some lab tests and concludes that it’s human blood. He tracks down the person who last rented the van and pretty soon he’s found his next victim.

Dexter doesn’t get around to killing in this episode, but it’s been set up for next week.

I’d like to report that Dexter is in the clear after his interview with the FBI, but I can’t. Everyone knows he has a solid alibi for when Rita was murdered, but there’s still a search on for Kyle Butler (Dexter’s alter-ego from last season). And now Quinn has sketches of Kyle made from details given by Arthur “Trinity Killer” Miller’s family.

Elsewhere we’ve got Deb dealing with Quinn (Desmond Harrington) following their sexual encounter last week. Right now it seems Deb regrets what happened while Quinn is ready for round two. That storyline is interrupted by a ritualistic murder (or two?). It’s too soon to tell if either of those murders are worth mentioning any further. So I’ll stop with that now.

Also, we’ve got some LaGuerta (Lauren Velez) and Batista (David Zayas) drama brewing. Batista becomes upset that LaGuerta has been hiding a hefty bank account from him. He gets drunk and gets in a pretty serious bar fight. Who knows where that’s leading. I hope the show writers find a nice place to take this story because those are two of my favorite characters.

I’m definitely ready for things to get back to normal. So saying goodbye to Cody and Astor was definitely a good place to start (it was almost as joyful as seeing amazing character actress Patrika Darbo as the realtor). It was a sad moment for Dexter, but it’s for the best. Dexter now has his sights set on his next victim and hopefully he’ll soon get Quinn off his trail. Things are slowly getting under way but they’re getting there.

Still to come this season: Julia Stiles enters Dexter’s life and Peter “RoboCop” Weller joins the cast as a troubled police officer.

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