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Dexter: H is for Hero

"He even eats like me."

Congratulations, show. I am totally intrigued. What did Harrison just do?

I don't think Harrison is a psychopath. He was sitting alone, clearly upset, listening to Molly Park's podcast about how Trinity killed Rita and about how his baby self was in the room sitting in a pool of his own mother's blood. How did we get from there to Harrison saving the day by preventing Ethan from carrying out a school shooting?

Right after the catfish incident, Ethan told Harrison he wanted revenge and sent him a shot of his bloody cartoons, so Harrison already knew Ethan was having homicidal fantasies about killing his schoolmates. But Harrison didn't know that when he befriended Ethan in the first place – he was just helping someone who was being bullied.

And Harrison certainly came up with the perfect story afterward. No one is going to believe anything Ethan says about the incident, ever. Harrison even did the right thing in the gym when his peers were praising him to the skies for saving them all. Instead of sucking up the praise, he told them they had been wrong to bully Ethan. He even made them feel bad about it.

Was Ethan even planning to do it? Or was Harrison just acting out a fantasy about slashing someone in the leg with a razor, the way Trinity killed Rita? How much does Harrison know about Trinity? It's unlikely Harrison remembers, but there is true crime information everywhere. Did Hannah tell Harrison anything about it? I honestly don't remember if Dexter told Hannah about Trinity at any point in the original series. You'd think Harrison would have asked Dexter about Trinity by now, in that dry, quiet way of his.


Scenes with Dexter and Deb were always my favorite, and I particularly enjoyed the two of them at the crime scene stabbing each other and analyzing the resulting differences in blood spatter. Until that point, Deb was Harrison's champion, insisting he was wonderful, normal, a hero, not like Dexter. Later, Deb sobbed as she admitted that Harrison was also born in blood, and was like Dexter, after all.

I'm still not convinced, though. And of course, Deb isn't Deb – she's a manifestation of Dexter's guilt. It's Dexter who wants Harrison to be a hero, not a killer. Maybe he is. Maybe Ethan really did approach Harrison about shooting up the school, and Harrison simply came up with an interesting albeit bloody solution to the problem where everyone would survive, including Ethan.

Meanwhile at the Sheriff's office, Angela is very like Deb, unable to let go of the Matt thing until she has actually talked to the guy. The clever podcaster Molly Park has Angela's number, approaching Angela about her enormous fanbase helping to find the missing women. And Angela said yes. That was smart. Publicity could be a problem, but it could also draw a lot of attention to the case.

And it sure looks like Kurt is the culprit. We still don't know for sure, but Kurt just took green-haired runaway Chloe, a possible next victim, to his cabin in the woods. Part of me wishes Kurt weren't the guy. He blamed himself for Matt turning into a bad kid, and he gives money to runaways. He's like a jolly huge elf and even looks a bit like Santa Claus. (There's a Christmas theme this season. Is that deliberate?)

If Kurt isn't the "Runaway" killer, what is he thinking? Was he just covering for Matt, believing that his bad penny of a son would eventually turn up as he always has before? Dexter had some conversational chess with Kurt, and lost. Does Kurt now suspect that Dexter knows something about what happened to Matt?

Bits:

— The opening scene with Deb and the photos and markers was especially well-done exposition about where we are in the story. I love how they're using Deb's ghost this season.

— All Harrison remembered about Deb was her potty mouth. That's cute, but sad.

— We learned that Iris was Angela's best friend who disappeared when they were in high school. Losing her that way inspired Angela to be a compassionate cop, to care about victims of crimes.

— Good performances by the actors playing Ethan's parents in that hospital scene. What an awful situation to be in.

— While filling his gas tank, Dexter saw Kurt talking to green-haired Chloe.

— Will Dexter confront Harrison about the straight razor?

— A drone? Like Chekhov's gun, it's obvious that Harrison is going to see something important with it.

Quotes:

Harrison: (making a protein shake) "You want some of this?"
Dexter: (quoting Deb) "I'd rather put out a campfire with my face."

Harrison: "You ever have a situation scare the shit out of you like that?"
Dexter: (flashing back to the chainsaw and cargo container) "Yeah."
Harrison: "What do you do to deal?"
Dexter: (to himself) "I wrap bad guys in plastic and kill them."

Dexter: (re: Kurt) "The guy's fishing. and I just nibbled."

Harrison: "I guess we all have two sides to us. Maybe we're a little bit hero, and a little bit, I don't know, monster? It's all about which side wins out in the end."
Let's be obvious about this Harrison dichotomy, shall we?

A terrific episode. Four out of four straight razors,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

3 comments:

  1. so there went iris is a momma theory lol (unless she had her and then ran away)

    but wow this show is getting intense and I hope dexter and harrison have a long talk

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matthew, I totally agree that Dexter and Harrison need to have a long talk of some sort.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't think I need there to be a real conclusion to Dexter's story outside of the plots raised in the revival. This season doesn't have an endgame feel to it, just an entry in the chapter of Dexter Morgan in exile. I mean I don't want them to drag anything out, but I'm not sure I really want this season to end with Dexter either dead nor finally caught/turned in. It doesn't feel right anymore. Dexter's moved on and trying to maintain a civilian life again.

    I hope Harrison kills that innately irritating reporter to protect Dex, though that would probably set Harrison up to be killed in turn and I don't want Dexter to have to do that.

    Good episode, loved seeing Dexter doing the blood work in his mind's eye again. And Clancy Brown's just nice to watch here, gonna hurt a little if he really is the killer.

    ReplyDelete

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