Spoiler alert: Do not read on if you haven't seen Season 7, Episode 4 of "Dexter," titled "Run."
Deb-Dex Drama:
There are moments every now and then when watching "Dexter" that you are reminded that it feels a little weird to be rooting for a serial killer, even if he only kills other serial killers. I had this experience mid-way through "Run," when Dexter showed off some of his sociopathic hubris and maniacally yelled at Deb, "I control everything!" Of course, he doesn't, but by the end of the episode the show's writers made sure that events in the Ray Speltzer case made Dexter's vigilante argument to Deb better than he could himself.
Deb took yet another step closer to accepting her brother's murderous ways when she finally got to experience the satisfaction of Dexter taking justice into his own hands after watching the justice system fail. After narrowly escaping Speltzer's grasp last episode, Deb extracted a confession from him this week using some twisted psychological manipulation, but he was set free when a judge ruled Miami Metro had roughed him up and not properly read him his Miranda Rights.
Deb was devastated and thrown into a crisis in the wake of the court ruling. When she saw Speltzer watching his victim's funeral from afar, she flipped out and got in his face. And although she did not yell, "My brother will kill you later!" that was pretty much the subtext of their conversation.
At the end of the episode, Deb picked Dexter up at the cemetery after he put down Speltzer. "What am I doing here?" she asked him. Well, Deb, you're giving your brother a ride home after he just serial-killed a serial killer ... get used to it. As she stared at his smoky remains floating up into the atmosphere, Deb admitted that she felt glad. "What does that make me?" An accessory after the fact, Lieutenant.
Kill Of The Week:
Dexter took out the juiced-up, earring-stealing, horned hat-wearing psycho murderer Ray Speltzer after a genuinely freaky two-episode run from actor Matt Gerald.
It was far from easy. Dexter first got knocked out in an intense brawl in Speltzer's RV, and then, had to escape another one of Speltzer's bizarre mazes, which this time included an Ice Truck Killer-esque room full of mannequins. Later, Dexter went back to the cemetery and snuck up on Speltzer. He cracked him in the back of the head with a shovel and brought him to the cemetery's crematorium, where he stabbed him in the heart with a stake and sent his body into the oven.
And after getting inspired by Jamie throwing out some of Harrison's old toys, Dexter made the big step of incinerating his blood slide trophies. "It's time for everyone to move on," he said. Now that's progress! Even though LaGuerta still does have that one slide he left at the scene of Travis Marshall's murder.
In other news, the Ukranian mob boss forced one of his average Joe bartenders to shoot himself in the head and take the fall for Anderson's murder in exchange for a payment to his family. At least they poured him a shot of vodka first.
Theory Of The Week:
I had a scary thought after taking in Deb's bloody bathtub dream and the scene where the Ukranian mob boss broke down looking at Victor's picture and vowed to get revenge against Dexter: I really hope the Ukranian mob doesn't end up using Harrison to try to get back at Dexter.
But that horrible possibility may have been put on the table in this episode. Deb came to the realization that Dexter may have had something to do with Rita's death, and when she confronted him about it, he told her the truth: Trinity killed her before he killed Trinity. "She died because you were selfish," Deb told him, and demanded that Harrison go to stay with Astor and Cody. But it was her foreboding warning that really hit home. "If you keep doing this, you're like a fucking magnet ... bad shit is gonna find you."
Later, when the Ukranian mob boss nearly started crying when going through Victor's apartment, I started to get a bad feeling about what that "bad shit" could be. Was Victor the mob boss' son? Clearly, he meant a lot to him. And as we saw in the scene with the hapless bartender, this organization has no qualms about taking an innocent human life. This is one of those theories that I really hope doesn't end up happening, so please tell me that I'm crazy in the comments.
"Dexter" airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime.
