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Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Dexter - Episode 5.11 "Hop a Freighter'' - Recap


We've seen the weave of Jordan Chase's troubled psyche fraying at the edges in recent episodes. As Lumen and Dexter and the Miami police have threatened to crumble the house of crazy cards he's built so carefully, he's become agitated, annoyed, and on edge.
This week, however, Jordan Chase finally lost his s--t. Read More...



The first signs that this was going to be the episode where Jordan would go ballistic came in the opening moments, during a heated confrontation with Deb and Quinn. The two had marched into Jordan's office -- with Quinn hilariously making himself right at home on the couch -- and bluntly asked him about his connection to the missing suspects. Normally a composed man, Jordan lost his cool and accused Deb of being "obsessed" with him. I was surprised at the amount of information Deb gave him about the ongoing case. Her motive was clearly to scare him into admitting his connection, but I thought she revealed a lot of seemingly classified information to achieve that. Of course, I'm not a cop.

At Dexter's, Lumen and Dexter sat in affectionately close proximity on the floor of the apartment with a blueprint of Jordan's office in front of them, plotting the weak points in his security using Harrison's toys. Except there were none. There seemed to be a toy soldier at every possible point of entry, and a giraffe right in the middle. (If Cole was still around, do you think they would they have used a rhino instead?)

But more interesting than their effort to make a kill plan were the tiny expressions of affection they exchanged. Lumen's hand was gingerly placed on Dexter's back, Dexter leaned in ever-so-slightly into Lumen's midsection. They were gestures I can't remember him ever making even when Rita was around -- or maybe I dismissed them then. And yet another sign of Dexter's increasing affection toward Lumen? He refused her proposal that she act as bait to nab Jordan. He claimed that it was not only unsafe, but risky, considering the PD had a close watch on Jordan. Well, they weren't so much worried about the police as a whole as they were about Deb. And rightly so. These days, I'm not completely convinced any of the rest of the force could win a game of Clue, much less solve a case as crucial and complex as this one.

The paradox here is that Deb's sharp-as-ever police skills continue to make it less and less likely that she wouldn't pick up on Dexter's involvement. But, as Dexter told Lumen, it's possible that Deb "has a blind spot" when it comes to her brother.

As Lumen got all cuddly, Dexter's attention directed to Harrison's baby monitor, which had suddenly picked up Liddy's video surveillance signal. As Dexter saw them appear in the monitor, he became wide-eyed and quickly pulled Lumen into a tight hug, whispering into her ear, "There's a camera in the room." They had no indication of how long it had been there -- or what it had seen.

Outside, his efforts to ID the source proved unsuccessful because his neighborhood is apparently located in the Shady-Ass Van section of Miami -- but he suspected Jordan was behind it. Later, he'd learn that wasn't true when he checked recording equipment in the apartment and saw a Miami Metro tag on it. Suddenly, he found himself wishing it had been Jordan. The goal then became to find out who had ordered the surveillance and where those recordings were being stored. He figured the footage hadn't been viewed by anyone yet because he and Lumen "hadn't been arrested."

The discovery of the camera weighed heavily on Lumen because she thought this meant that the plan to kill Jordan was off (and it probably should have been). But Dexter assured her with an embrace that they would finish the job. But at what price?

The next morning, the search for the van containing the surveillance equipment was down to three, and Lumen said she'd keep watch during the day. Their survey of the neighborhood was interrupted by a phone call from Dexter's party-planning nanny. Knowing it wasn't safe to bring the kids to Miami for Harrison's first birthday, Dexter told her that they (yes, he AND Lumen) would meet them in Orlando for the festivities.

Mid-recap recap break: floor canoodling, tender hugs, hand holding, joint appearances at family events -- Dexter and Lumen's relationship seems to have gone 0 to 60 in record time. Does that seem odd to anyone else? Or is that just what's bound to happen when you kill someone together before you have a real date?

One thing I do know is that despite our long-standing suspicions about Dexter's nanny, she remains totally innocent. With one episode left in the season, do you think there will be an eleventh-hour twist where she's revealed to be completely evil? I'm going to feel really bad about thinking the worst of her if it turns out she's just a nanny, because then I'll officially know this show has made me a paranoid, mistrusting person. (Not that I have a huge problem with that; it was probably there a little bit to begin with.)

Meanwhile, the person responsible for the surveillance -- Liddy -- was parked outside Miami Metro, where he had just officially received word of his termination. (Personally, I would have fired him based on his clothing alone.) When Quinn came over and offered as close to a well wish as Liddy was going to get from him, Liddy threw it back in his face and instead asked for a favor. He wanted Quinn to help him bust Dexter so that he could get his job back. He figured that it was a big enough bust to earn him the return of his badge. Quinn, of course, refused, but Liddy said it would be in his best interest to respond to his call for help.

Inside the station, we learned that Masuka had performed the police work that Deb and Quinn should have done at the crime scene last week. Masuka had found a footprint outside the vacant house matching the one the detectives had seen outside Alex Tilden's. He'd also gone inside and reported that it smelled like bleach. It looked to be the work of the vigilante, he said.

To that point, no one had uttered the word vigilante in the presence of La Diabla, erm, La Guerta, and she was clearly annoyed by that. Deb added to the reveal that she believed the vigilante was working with someone else -- someone larger who could do heavy lifting and handle a physical confrontation. "A man, someone she trusts. Someone who cares about her, a father, a brother, a husband, boyfriend," Deb said, and with each passing description Dexter's brow furrowed more and more in worry.

Later, Deb and Dexter's conversation about this vigilante killer would lead to Deb indirectly confessing to Dexter that she felt as thought she had no one in her life she could trust now that Quinn was moving further and further out of the picture. (She also told Dexter about Quinn's investigation into his involvement in Rita's death. This was not news to us or Dexter, but it visibly crushed Deb having to relive the betrayal.) "What they're doing takes devotion.…He's putting everything on the line to make what happened to her right. As crazy as that sounds, what word would you use to describe that but love?"

And it's looking more and more like love -- whether we like it or not. Dexter even tried once again to push Lumen out of the impending line of danger (after buying her a token of his affection: a swanky new pocket knife) and told her that he needed time to deal with the situation with Quinn -- who he had discovered earlier that day had been the one to check out the surveillance equipment for the apparently off-the-books investigation. But instead Lumen jokingly suggested they flee the city together -- vigilantes living on the sea. Something about the scene made me think that the end of the season will find Lumen making the voyage -- only alone. (Killing her at this point would be a bit too much tragedy for one man, no? Then again…)

Meanwhile, one half of another couple, Quinn, had his relationship with Deb on the brain while they sat poring over the history of Eugene Greer. (They had finally found out about Jordan's previous identity earlier in the episode.) "The one thing I did right was to get you to almost like me, because I really love you," he confessed to her. It was hard to read what Deb's reaction was going to be, and we'd never see it because their tender moment was interrupted by Batista, who'd come to tell them that Jordan had plans to leave the country on a multi-date speaking tour. Luckily, they nabbed a court order to keep him in the states as a material witness. (LaGuerta actually scored it for them -- slightly redeeming herself in my book. She's officially been knocked down to "minor bitch" status.) But when they went to go pick him up at the airport minutes before he was scheduled to leave, they found out that he hadn't showed up for his flight. He was, actually, just at Emily Birch's house…killing her.

But before we get to that, Dexter was dealing with his own problems. After correctly identifying the van with the equipment, he staked out the scene, waiting for Quinn to return to watch the footage. As he saw a figure approach the van, he grabbed his killer gloves and prepared to M-99. But Liddy was ready for the assault, and instead tasered Dexter before loading his unconscious form into the van. He then called Quinn and told him it was time to make the bust.

Meanwhile, Lumen received a call from panicked Emily, who told her that Jordan knew she had spoken to them. Fearing for her life, she planned to go to the police for protection. There are a number of reasons why Lumen didn't want that to happen, so she told Emily she was on her way -- which is exactly what the bug-eyed, twisted woman wanted. As the call ended, we saw Jordan was at her house, and he'd be waiting for Lumen and Dexter. Unable to get Dexter on the phone, Lumen headed there alone. (Is Lumen's lack of common sense perhaps what makes this character so frustrating?)

It would be several minutes until Dexter would get the message she left. He was too busy fending off Liddy's demands that he make a confession tape -- since all the evidence against Dexter that he had collected was obtained without a search warrant. Liddy's offer? Lumen walks free. But Dexter was uninterested in talking any more, and he kicked Liddy's confession cam right into his smug waiting face (three cheers!). As a struggle ensued, Liddy pulled out a knife to defend himself, which Dexter plunged into his chest after a tense struggle -- just as Quinn approached the van on the outside.

"Go away Quinn," Dexter thought, panicked, as Quinn circled the van on the outside, attempting to open the metal doors that Dexter had locked seconds before. Quinn stood staring at the van in defeat for a moment and quickly lost interest -- but not before a few drops of blood leaked from the floor of the van, out the bottom of the doors and on to Quinn's cheap-looking shoes.

With Quinn gone, Dexter finally heard Lumen's urgent message, and quickly got to cleaning up the scenes as best he could. He left Liddy's body in the locked up van, tossed the evidence in the sea, and took off for Emily's house, where Lumen had found herself in big trouble.

After arriving at Emily's, she found the frazzled woman annoyed that Dexter had not accompanied her. Picking up on the vibe, she tried to exit the house to get Dexter, but Jordan stepped in and stopped her. What followed was at once grisly, horrifying, and totally amazing.

While grilling Lumen for information about Dexter's whereabouts, Jordan got distracted by Emily's badgering long enough for Lumen to make a run for it. As he threw Lumen to the ground and went to retrieve a poker from the fireplace to kill Lumen, he said angrily: "I find this profoundly distasteful. I've never had to do anything before." That's when Emily stepped up and tried to stop him, and Jordan responded by turning the weapon on Emily. He knocked her in the head with it once, turned on his heels, and did it again, killing her. Lumen scurried in fear, and that was the last we saw of her.

Dexter arrived minutes later and followed a bloody trail to a closet, containing Emily's bashed body. Jordan had Lumen. Outside the scene, Dexter found the knife he'd bought for Lumen in a pool of blood. She was doing exactly what he taught her to do: fighting back.

What the heck, readers?!? They left us there?!?

Alas, there are now seven days until the conclusion of this season of Dexter, and I can't wait.

Until then, let's talk about this week. Did you expect Liddy to go out that way? What will Quinn do after he discovers the drops of blood on his shoe? Was LaGuerta slightly redeemed in your eyes? Will Deb's hard work on this complex season-long case lead to yet another crime scene and no one in cuffs? Will Dexter have another tragedy on his hands? And least importantly, did you peg Quinn as the type of man who spends his non-policing time downloading bad viral animal videos? (I would have guessed he was more of a porn man.)

Source: ewrecaps.com

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