There are a few times in a girl’s life when it is important to have just the right outfit. The first day of school. Prom. Her wedding. And, apparently, her first kill.
Dexter is a dark show and Sunday night’s episode was no exception, but as always with the series there are plenty of opportunities to laugh. And I know I can’t be the only one who giggled when Lumen, dressed in jeans and a purple hoodie from 1992, took one look at Dexter in his now-iconic kill outfit and said “I’m not dressed right.”
This was an episode of firsts. Dexter’s first time away from his son after Rita’s murder. Lumen’s first kill. And Dexter and Lumen’s first time together, after both the death of his wife and her harrowing experience.
“I would”
Let’s talk about the goings-on in the homicide department first. The barrel girls case has been reopened (much to Dexter’s dismay) and it didn’t take Deb long to figure out that someone was picking off all the people involved in the twisted attacks. I’ve always loved how awesome Deb is at seeing the whole picture in a crime. The department searched Cole’s apartment where they found Cole’s own blood smudged on the baseboard and a set of DVD’s. These weren’t home videos of some kid’s hokey school play, they were DVD’s of each victim’s tortured experience. Including Lumen’s, number thirteen.
Dexter had to get the thirteenth DVD out of evidence before Deb saw it and recognized his new “tenant”, and it was a little easier than expected – he knocked over the basket of DVDs and replaced Lumen’s disc with a damaged look-alike.
Later in the episode, Deb would make another breakthrough – that the person hunting the jerks involved could be an escaped victim. The thirteenth victim. There had only been 12 locks of hair in Boyd’s house, but there were 13 DVDs. And how did Deb come to that conclusion? Because that’s what she would do.
Deb is changing, and it definitely feels like we’re leading toward her discovering her brother’s truth. The fact that she didn’t feel bad about killing that gang member in the club. Her comfort with the thought of a vigilante killer and the admission that it’s what she would do. But would she be so accepting knowing that it’s Dexter? I’m not sure.
The other fascinating thing that Deb said this week was that after watching the videos of the tortured women, she thought no one could have a life after that. Will Lumen be able to have a life? Are she and Dexter really healing each other? Will she continue to kill once all her attackers have been killed, or will she seek out new victims with Dexter? So many questions, so few episodes left. I don’t know about you, but I’m totally open to seeing Lumen back next season.
On a sidenote, not much Angel and Maria action this week, right? This was A-OK with me, since the tension in their brief exchange about Deb’s return to the homicide department was enough to update us on their situation.
The First Victim
As if this season’s arc wasn’t creepy enough already (is anyone else totally freaked out by Jordan Chase’s dead eyes?), this week we met the gang’s first victim. It turned out that Jordan Chase was in the old photo that Dexter found in Cole’s home. Back then he was fat, and back then he was named Eugene Greer. Dexter and Chase found the woman, Emily Birch, through the blood that Jordan Chase wears in a vial around his neck, but she wasn’t willing to talk to them. So Lumen went back on her own.
I had to wonder about the healthiness of Lumen watching her own torture video, but at this stage that’s really a moot point. Dexter gave Lumen the DVD, and she in turn showed it to Emily Birch to convince her to talk. And talk Emily did. She told Lumen how she’d been a camp counselor when the group of boys – Jordan/Eugene, Cole, Boyd, Dan the Dentist, and one unnamed redhead – had drugged and attacked her. Jordan hadn’t touched her, but he was the driving force behind the attacks. “Seize your desires” and all the crap that had now made him famous. Afterward she put her clothes on and they made her take their photo, which really sickened me.
But what really sickened me was later finding out that Emily has some sort of weird, creepy, Stockholm-syndrome-esque relationship with Jordan Chase. The way she spoke to him gave me chills. She was seeking his approval and worse, she was jealous of Lumen. It was truly disturbing.
The First Kill
Emily ID’d the redheaded boy in the photo as Alex Tilden, now a local banker. (Also, he was played by the actor Scott Grimes, who was a totally lovable doctor on ER once upon a time. That kind of threw me off.) Lumen and Dexter first went on a mission to search Tilden’s home for evidence (Dexter has a new friend, but he still has a code) where they discovered thirteen pieces of jewelry – including the necklace Lumen was wearing when she was first attacked.
The drama was increased when Jordan Chase dropped by the office to provide Dexter with a DNA sample. The tension wasn’t quite as great as when Trinity walked into the department last season, but watching Dexter give Jordan a cheek swab while Jordan told him not to get involved with toxic people certainly had me glued to the screen.
Lumen revamped her look for the first kill and showed up in a fitted purple shirt and tight pants. It was becoming more and more obvious throughout the episode that Lumen and Dexter would, you know, engage in something other than murder together, but the couple had bigger fish to fry first.
The sequence of events that lead to Lumen killing Alex Tilden couldn’t have been more intense. Liddy was watching them, but more on that later. Jordan Chase called Deb and told her that his office had received a call from an Alex Tilden who’d asked for Cole. She and Quinn headed to Alex’s house, and maybe I’m the only one here, but I wasn’t entirely sure where Dexter and Lumen had set up their kill room. It turned out they’d set up the kill room in a neighboring empty home. There, Lumen killed Alex Tilden exactly the way Dexter had taught her.
“Oh my goodness”
So, Dexter taught Lumen how to plunge a knife deep into someone’s chest, and Liddy watched from a surveillance van outside. Not good, not good at all.
What will Liddy do with this information? I can’t see him taking it to Quinn, but you never know. It certainly seems like Deb will come into play somehow, but will she find out everything? Will Lumen some how end up taking the fall for all the murders so that Dexter could go free?
What did you think of the inevitable Dexter/Lumen hook-up? Personally, I’m all for it. Lumen is an entirely new character, someone who knows exactly who Dexter is and loves him anyway. In fact, it’s basically why she loves him. They need each other. Which probably means they won’t last long. Much like every relationship Deb has ever had, Dexter and Lumen seem to be doomed. With only two episodes left though, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
