"I Don't Want the Police to Take Care of It. I Want to Take Care of It"

By Dustin Rowles | TV | November 9, 2010 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | November 9, 2010 |

“Dexter” has always been at its best — no matter who the villain or what the circumstances — when he’s competing, so to speak, with the police to identify a killer so that he can inflict his brand of justice before the authorities do. The better seasons are those where he and his colleagues (and his sister) at the police department are trying to find the same person, the police so they can arrest him, and Dexter so he can kill them. This week, which more or less continued the momentum the season picked up last week, has Dexter trying to identify Cole Harmon — the motivational speaker’s right hand man — before Musaka and Deb do. What I thought was interesting was — rather than steer the cops away from Boyd Fowler and, perhaps, raise suspicion about his murder — Dexter used Fowler to give himself some time to track down Harmon.

As to Harmon, Lumen identified him as one of the several who raped her, and after the unofficial partnership between Lumen and Dexter last week, it’s made official this week. They are partners in revenge, an arrangement most of us could see three episodes back, but the writers unnecessarily went through the push/pull motions before bringing us here. And if you ask me, they make for a cute couple, and though it’s not something I’d want for the remainder of the series, it’ll be fun to see Dexter in that kind of relationship for the rest of the year. It may also allow him to use Lumen as a springboard for his thoughts rather than resort to the pervasive voice-overs.

Thus identified, the murder of Cole Harmon has to wait another episode, and though no suspicion has yet been attached to the motivational speaker, Jordan Chase, my guess is that they wouldn’t cast Jonny Lee Miller as a simple red herring. There’s some sinister Frank T.J. Mackey underneath his naive innocence.

Meanwhile, the Fuentes brothers stakeout was fun — it’s nice to see some progress in that regard, and the murder of the informant is sure to bring out a more interesting conflict between Maria and Batista than what had transpired earlier this season (and has seemingly been dropped). Plus, Peter Weller’s crooked cop, Stan Liddy, is officially the best part of this season, so far. I thought at the season’s outset that Quinn would surely be killed, but Stan Liddy may save Quinn from Dexter and, possible, bring Quinn and Dexter together in an effort to bring down Liddy.