Watching Showtime

It’s an episode full of starts and stops, of reclaiming the life the Morgan siblings want for themselves. Dexter confronts someone from his past while Deb learns to let go of hers, all while Rita continues to stand up for herself and Lila continues to be a potentially destructive force in Dexter and Rita’s relationship, all while being amazing for Dexter’s recovery. For the full recap, keep reading!

Grabbing coffee, Dexter muses how he gets real glimpse of human nature while waiting in lines. In this line, he gets to hear how the people around him feel about the things he’s done (the killings); he’s starting to feel more and more like they’d still appreciate it if they found it was him. Deb’s at the coffee house with him, telling him she’s staying at Gabriel’s house that night. Apparently they’ve agreed to no sex for the time being, just cuddling.

Instead of being able to enjoy some sibling time, Dexter has to head off to work. There’s been a murder at a comic book store. While at the crime scene, Dexter compares himself with the superheroes, someone who lives a life undercover, helping the innocent and making the “bad guys” pay. There’s no money missing from the register but the victim’s head was bashed in. Dexter notices a poster for a comic book called “The Dark Defender”, the creation of the victim Denny, and based on the Bay Harbor Butcher. This only confirms Dexter’s theory that he’s a superhero.

Back at another NA meeting, Dexter has a flashback to when his mother was killed, but in it the Dark Defender shows up and saves the day, killing all the people that wanted to kill her. When Lila asks him about his dream at the end of the meeting, she wonders whether he was trying to save himself rather than his mother. Dexter tells her (the first person he’s ever told) about how he witnessed his mother being murdered, and this confirms Lila’s belief that Dexter needs to find the men who did this to help heal himself. In a rather revealing statement, Dexter says he never expected to get better, but agrees to try to find the men.

Deb’s at Gabriel’s, and while she thinks he’s sleeping she starts going through is stuff. He catches her and she says she’s trying to get to know him better, finally coming clean a little more about her relationship with Rudy. Gabrel’s never heard of the Ice Truck Killer, because he’s been in El Salvador for six months. He’s the first man she’s met who had no idea who she was (unlike everyone else she’s run into), and somehow this makes it all okay, even though she doesn’t explain to him what happened to her, instead asking what’s hot about her.

Somehow an armadillo got into Rita’s house! Rita’s mother’s still there, and as soon as Rita’s helping the kids get ready for school she confronts Dexter, telling him she found NA literature in Rita’s house. Nice that she’s going through Rita’s stuff! She says she wants him to break up with Rita because she doesn’t want her daughter hurt.

Dexter’s trying to find out info on his mother’s killers, and is running into a few dead ends. One’s deceased, one’s in jail, but the third? He turned state’s evidence after Dexter’s mother’s murder, and is now out free. His the only file the police still held onto, and there’s tapes to go with it. On the tapes: Harry knew Dexter’s mother! She was the informant. Dexter used to go with his mother to talk to Harry, and Harry told her he wouldn’t let her get hurt. And then she died. Just one more huge hole in the story he told Dexter!

Lila goes to visit dexter at work and tells Angel she’s his decorator. Shouldn’t take long for Angel to start hitting on her! She asks Dex if he found the men who killed his mother; she convinces him to go confront the man and she goes with him! Before she leaves she takes one of his blood spatter “paintings” for her own because she thinks of them as art.

Deb and Agent Lundy go to the pier Dexter’s boat is at to try to case out the spot. It’s one of just three piers in the area that have the same algae makeup as the rocks found in the Bay Harbor Butcher’s bags. They have an extremely tense moment when he takes off his socks and shoes and then starts eating a sandwich while she’s trying to plan how they’re going to handle the investigation. He’s stopped to eat lunch and so has paused the investigation. He’s kind of a dick, but he did hear what she was saying and decides to order surveillance on the marina because there’s no boat rental but there’s poor security so anyone could have gotten out there and stolen boats to use.

Dex takes the night off from work so he can focus on his mother’s killer, and Deb stops him on the way to tell him he wants to talk to her about what she found on Coral Cove, the marina she was at all day. Turns out all she wants to tell him is to move his boat because the security out there is so bad.

On the way to Naples Fla to confront his mother’s killer, Dexter tells Lila how Rita’s mom wants him to leave her and the kids. They brush over it and start talking about what to say to the guy when they find him. Dexter practices what he wants to say to the guy, saying he feels like the guy stole his life and now he’s not the person he’s supposed to be. He’s hollow, hiding in plain sight. It’s one of those rare moments he’s real with someone about who he is and what he’s become. Then he talks about what he remembers about his mother, which isn’t a lot because he was so young when she died.

Maria and Doakes are on a stakeout, and reminiscing their secret dating life from before she became head of the department the first time. The suspect in the comic book murder is heading their way, and Maria takes point on it. She finally tells Doakes she’s worried about him, and he tells her he knows she was screwing Pascal’s fiance to get her job back. The show didn’t really focus on the murder in this episode, this being the only other time it’s even mentioned!

Dex is in a hotel getting ready to go talk to his mother’s killer, when Rita calls. She’s freaked out because he took off without telling her why, and then he tells her about the confrontation with her mom. Meanwhile Lila’s stripping down to get in the shower, walking around naked and leaving the bathroom door open while she showers. Super slutty!

Instead of being in the shower when Deb comes over for their dinner date, Gabriel was checking e-mail. While he’s in the shower she goes through his e-mail and finds out he was getting close to her so he could write a book about her called “The Ice Princess”. She freaks out, swears at him and storms out, leaving Gabriel looking a little too confused for someone who was using her.

Dexter heads off to meet the guy, and while he’s at the bar, he calls Lila (who is altering the cottage painting in the hotel room). He’s unsure of what to do, but hangs up with her to go back to not talking to the guy. While this is going on Rita confronts her mother about her confronting Dexter. She tells him that she’s made her choice, and that Dexter is different from Paul. And if she doesn’t like it she can leave, abandon Rita and the kids again, but she can’t choose for Rita.

Dexter’s at the bar 1/2 hour past last call, the last man in the bar. He finally has the courage to talk to the guy! Dexter tells him he needs to tell him how he feels, and the guy pulls out a bat. Dexter gets the courage to tell him that the man stole his life, all the things he practiced saying to him. When he won’t listen, Dexter punches the man in the mouth and then locks the door on him, beating him senseless while he reminds him of how he killed Dexter’s mother. And then Dexter gets the biggest bomb of them all … his mom was fucking Harry, which is the real reason she was killed!!! She wasn’t just a rat, she was also sleeping with the enemy … one too many betrayals. Just before he kills the guy, Lila calls. He tells her he’s about to use, and Lila tells him she’ll come get him. He’s got a knife held to the man’s throat, but she is able to talk him down from the ledge. He leaves the man bloody and half-dead on the pool table (his finger prints and blood everywhere) and goes back to lila. then he cries like a little boy in her lap.

Deb’s staying late at the office because she can’t sleep alone. She starts talking to the Agent Lundy, and turns out he’s not so bad. He’s even run a background check on Gabriel for Deb so that he wouldn’t have to. Turns out he’s not a bad guy, and when Deb tells him how Gabriel was using her to shop around a book about the Ice Truck Killer, she finds out he’s a children’s book writer!!

The next morning Dexter wakes up, head still in Lila’s lap from the night before. Her first words to him are her story of how she got into the program. She thought she had her addiction under control until she met her ex Marco. He ended up being more like her dealer, getting her so strung out that by the time he left, she went to his house and burned it to the ground, with him in it (although she didn’t know that). They blamed the fire on his drugs, and she never went to jail for it. The night of the fire, she went to her first meeting. Dexter tells her he believes that since he deserved it, she didn’t do anything wrong.

Back in time for breakfast, he heads to Rita’s house where he finds out her mom has been in her room all morning packing to leave. While he’s sitting down to breakfast, Lila texts him asking when the next road trip is. He ignores it, choosing instead to talk to Rita and her mom. Turns out Rita’s mom is going to move to Miami, selling her house and quitting her job! She’s just invited herself to live in Rita’s house!!! Nice to not ask your daughter if it’s okay to stay in her house!

By the end of the episode, Deb heads back to Gabriel and he takes her back, even letting her read his book! Dexter takes some time to make sure there’s not a trace of blood on his boat, not knowing the cameras the cops had installed were already recording, and potentially caught him!

To catch up on old episodes:
season one recaps
it’s alive!
waiting to exhale
an inconvenient lie
see-through

Dexter, Showtime, Dexter Morgan, Michael C. Hall, Rita Bennett, Julie Benz, Debra Morgan, Jennifer Carpenter, James Doakes, Erik King, Maria LaGuerta, Lauren Velez, Angel Batista, David Zayas, Harry Morgan, James Remar, Vincent Masuka, C.S. Lee