I fear we may be losing the plot a bit on Dexter: Original Sin — or maybe I should just speak for myself. It’s not that I’m having trouble following what’s going on, but that I’m genuinely not sure where to devote my attention. Four episodes into the first season, there are obviously two main storylines: Dexter becoming a serial killer in the present, and Harry’s relationship with his doomed CI Laura Moser in the past. There’s so much else happening on the fringes, though, that the show is feeling increasingly scattered. The original Dexter generally gave us a primary antagonist (the non-Dexter serial killer) and a secondary antagonist (the cop or investigator hot on Dexter’s trail), and while I don’t need a repeat of that formula, I could use a little more direction here.
We start “Fender Bender” by making some progress on the missing judge’s son storyline, and it’s a sad development: Jimmy Powell is found dead, his body left hanging from a bridge. LaGuerta wants to run point on the case, but Spencer puts her on a body found in Alice Wainwright Park (“Prostitute Park,” colloquially) instead. Dexter will join her, which is probably for the best since he’s visibly disturbed by Jimmy’s body — not an odd reaction to a very upsetting sight, but there’s clearly some barely repressed childhood trauma happening here. Dex admits he’s having a hard time to Clark Sanders, a detective who is surprisingly in touch with his emotions. (Useful for an episode about the importance of letting it all out.) Clark tells Dexter about the first time he saw a dead body — we later learn it was his brother’s — and notes that while people try to bury their feelings, they always end up rising to the surface.
At the other crime scene, LaGuerta is surprised that the one representative from forensics is a 12-year-old. Dexter corrects her — he’s actually 20 — though it is hard to believe that a brand-new intern would be given this responsibility solo. I guess it’s meant to reflect the department’s lack of interest in the victim, a gay drug user, especially compared to a murdered 10-year-old judge’s son. In examining the Alice Wainwright Park body, Dexter is able to see how the murder went down, with the perp strangling the victim face-to-face in order to watch him die and savor the moment. Original Sin does a nice job with these stylized first-person kill scenes. LaGuerta doesn’t have access to Dexter’s detailed visualizations, though, so she’s less impressed, telling him she needs real forensics and not guesses. In voiceover, adult Dexter says it would take a while before LaGuerta began to appreciate his [Liam Neeson voice] “particular set of skills.”
Harry is worried about Dex’s PTSD response to seeing Jimmy’s body. Frankly, I think he should be pleased to see any potential humanity in his son, but I get it. He visits Camilla in records to confirm that any reference to Dexter and his presence in the shipping container has been scrubbed from Laura Moser’s case file. I do think the show is operating under the assumption that we’ve watched Dexter and know what this is all about, making the flashbacks feel increasingly superfluous — but flashback we do! Laura has a meeting with Hernandez, which is a very big deal. Unfortunately, her babysitter canceled, and she can’t find a replacement because Brian is a known terror (future serial killer). Harry volunteers as tribute, saying he’ll take care of Brian and Dexter while Bobby trails Laura to the Hernandez meeting. Okay, cute!
Back in the present day, Dex is still freaked out about Jimmy. Clark tells him that the best way to deal with those feelings is to take action, and you know what that means: sorting through case files to find more serial killers to kill! At home, Harry is sympathetic to his son’s fixation on the murder of a child, but he urges him to leave justice to the police. (Best of luck with that.) Dex says that isn’t enough, and it’s time for him to let his Dark Passenger out again. Bottling up his feelings (by not stabbing someone) means they’ll come out in ways he can’t control (presumably by stabbing someone else). Harry is not exactly thrilled, especially when Dex reveals that his next target is Anthony “Mad Dog” Moretti, a contract killer for the mob. Harry won’t sign off until Dexter can find real proof of Mad Dog’s dirty deeds, but given how dangerous this target is — not to mention how frequently Dex is killing — I’m having a harder time understanding what Harry is protecting his son from at this point.
At Miami Metro, LaGuerta has some more intel on the body from Alice Wainwright Park. He’s been IDed as Blake Kersten, a loner who was estranged from his family after his parents kicked him out at 17 for being gay. Hearing about his solitary lifestyle, Dexter links him to the other recent drug-related homicide — I’m not sure I see the connection, but I do need Original Sin to tie its narrative strands together, so you go right ahead, Dex. More importantly, he’s determined to show LaGuerta that his theory about the killing is grounded in fact. Using two cantaloupes and some ketchup, Dexter demonstrates that the perp must have strangled his victim to death before dropping the body, accounting for the limited blood spatter. The killer wanted to watch Blake die — it wasn’t about drugs or cash, it was “intimate.” Everyone is suitably impressed, except for Tanya, because those were her cantaloupes. “Hands off Tanya’s melons,” Masuka says, and I sigh deeply.
As for Dexter’s other project, he adopts a new alias and meets Mad Dog, played by the great Joe Pantaliano, asking to charter his boat. He also uses Moretti’s business card to procure his address, breaking in to find the evidence of past crimes that the code demands. There’s not much of use aside from tons of fancy guitars, but Dex ends up stumbling on evidence of a future crime, a shredded image of Mad Dog’s next target, Omar Reyes, who is about to testify in a RICO case. This is, apparently, good enough for Harry — I feel like he’s playing fast and loose with the rules here — though he points out that it’s probably unwise for Dexter to go head-to-head with a professional hit man. (Hello?)
In flashback, we see more of Harry babysitting little Dexter and catching Brian mutilating a staggering number of lizards. When Dex briefly disappears, Harry flashes back to his son drowning in the pool — and yes, since this show is Michael C. Hall Dexter’s near-death flashback, and we’re already in Harry’s flashback to his relationship with Laura Moser, this is a flashback in a flashback in a flashback. Can you blame me for feeling disoriented? Harry finds Dexter and hugs him, telling him that he’s safe, and it’s a sweet moment, though it really feels like we’re covering the same terrain over and over again. Regardless, the point of this particular flashback is that Laura returns and is so turned on by Harry being a good father figure to her kids that she successfully seduces him.
I’ve been completely neglecting Debra in this recap, which is only fitting since all she does is complain about being left out. (Her tearfully shouting “I can’t compete with a dead kid!” at Harry is a real low point in this episode.) She’s acting out, buying drugs at Blockbuster (this particular detail tickled me) and going to the club with Sofia. There, she meets Gio, who is handsome enough for her to ignore the fact that he’s clearly bad news. I mean, he has a really nice loft, but as soon as he tells Deb that he works for his father, it’s obvious he’s involved in something shady. I’m begging the show to connect this to one of the existing storylines because there are way too many loose narrative strands right now.
And we’re about to have another one to worry about because Dexter’s third kill does not go at all as planned! While he’s able to subdue the professional hitman with a guitar to the head, Mad Dog wakes up before he’s been fully secured to the kill table, and he fights back. Somehow Dexter manages to survive, but he can’t hold onto Moretti, who flees his home in his skivvies. Dex is chasing after him, and it actually seems like Mad Dog might make a clean getaway — until he stops in an intersection and gets hit by a car. Whether Moretti is dead or alive, this is not a great situation for Dexter to be in. And it’s probably not a very effective way of processing his feelings, either!
Blood Spatter Analysis
• Am I overreacting about how disparate all these storylines feel? Just on the Miami Metro front, we’ve got the home invasion serial killer who definitely didn’t do it, the kidnapping and murder of Jimmy Powell, and the drug-related murders. Could these possibly all be connected? Then there’s Ferrer’s arm surfacing in the last episode, which has to be going somewhere, and now Deb’s entanglement with a shady new character.
• Some great period details in this episode, at least — not only Blockbuster, but also Captain Spencer’s son Nicky playing Sonic the Hedgehog on his Game Gear.
• It’s nice that he can bond with Nicky, but I love that Dexter is sometimes just a total alien. When Harry compares Dex going after a professional killer to taking on Michael Jordan one-on-one, Dex has no idea who that is.
• I sort of hope Mad Dog survives, even though that’s yet another loose end to take care of, because I’d like to see more of Joe Pantoliano. The scene on the boat where he and Dexter talk around Mad Dog’s violent past is one of the better ones in the episode.
• Speaking of underused, having Sarah Michelle Gellar walk onto a scene just to say, “Are those my cantaloupes?” should be illegal.
