CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD. After a harrowing, emotional journey through the mad land of
“Argentina” in last week’s installment of Dexter,
“Helter Skelter” only heightened the fresh intensity with a new landslide of
action, aggression, and things once foreign becoming felt; enormously so. Propulsive
at every angle, “Helter Skelter” has us slaloming our wild way down a
near-cliff riddled with momentous obstacles; and, of course, we’re still too
far from the ground to make out just what kind of turf we’re going to land on.
With Dexter exploring his uncanny, inescapable bonds with two killers both
incredibly alike and unlike himself—particularly Hannah, with whom he is
becoming increasingly vulnerable—will we see a reconstruction or a
deconstruction of the Dexter we know and love in the chapters to come? What are
the implications of being fully alive and allowing oneself to engage with parts
of the human experience once held steadily at arms’ length? If you’re still
reeling from the thrill of the new ride, try to ground yourself with the
mini-synopsis below, followed by an in-depth review of just what is spinning
into fearsome motion with this episode and the sharp stab of a surprising double-edged
sword that’s changed the nature of everything! “Helter Skelter,” here we come—whether
we like it, loathe it, or find ourselves unsure of every broken shard.
THE BREAKDOWN: As Dexter explores his
humanity through the eyes of Hannah and finds himself challenged by her
inquisitions into the depths of his nature—which he feels may not even exist—he is quickly awakened to his
responsibilities in their togetherness when Isaak Sirko uses her as leverage in
getting Dexter’s assistance in taking out two freshly-minted foes sent by the
Brotherhood. Caught between a rock and a hard place and pulled back and forth between brand new crime scenes which
point to the oeuvre of the “Phantom,” a killer with a flair for setting others
to flame, Dexter tries to help Debra understand her feelings as she helps him
secure Hannah’s safety in the midst of his precarious partnership with Isaak. LaGuerta
continues to weave her way through the shadows of the system and calls
former-captain Tom Matthews out of retirement as a recruit in her delicate
operation of re-framing the Bay Harbor Butcher. Then, in a not-so-delicate turn
of events, Quinn discovers the vengeful George’s sexual transgression against
Nadia and gives him the violent piece of his mind long in the making. Love and
fear drive the wild episode, as the body count stacks and as Dexter seeks to
walk the tightrope of reconciling with Debra and investing in Hannah. Which
love is safe? And does Dexter’s fearlessness of death cloud his fearfulness of
life? What does living life in full look
like… and just how helter-skelter can things get before they go over the edge? Skip the jump for more…
“When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again…
Do you, don't you want me to love you?
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you.
Tell me tell me tell me, come on tell me the answer;
Well you may be a lover, but you ain't no dancer.”
So read the lyrics of The
Beatles’ classic, “Helter Skelter.” And the parallels between these words and
the unraveling of tonight’s events are starting to come forth in vivid colors. If
we look at Dexter’s volatile connection with Hannah McKay and his revelations
in the art of love, we see a Dexter seeking to feel in ways that he’s never
felt. We see him journeying through himself and back again, scanning his inner
horizon for some sign of humanity that will carry him forward with her. “You
can be absolutely fearless in the face of death,” a fading Isaak says to
Dexter, before drawing his final breath over the same sea in which Viktor was
dumped. Absolutely fearless; yet, “so afraid to live.” One of Isaak’s final
admonitions to Dexter is for him to feel all that there is to be felt for the
sake of the one he loves—even though love of this fervent, vulnerable caliber
feels as foreign to Dexter as sunlight to the Marianas Trench. Urging him to give
all he can give, Isaak spits, “For fuck's sake, Dexter! She needs to know how
you feel about her.” And he lets her know when he reaches the hospital where
Hannah is in recovery from the wounds she incurred from her desperate,
poison-and-blade brawl with Jurg. Dexter seems to wrench open the soul he’s
denied himself all these years, as though begging her, “Do you, don’t you want
me to love you?” Yet, while she may be the one in need of stitches and slumped
against the white sheets, it seems that Dexter is truly the more helpless of
the two. Leaning against her, he is unable to see a chary ambivalence etching
its way onto her cool face. She may be a lover, but she ain’t no dancer. And maybe
that same fear she recalls experiencing while nearly drowning as a child, may
be the fear that Dexter should allow himself to experience before his
love-blindness comes to bite him.
Love is blind. Dexter, a
virgin to this world of feeling and openness, just might wake up to find
blisters on his fingers from this helter-skelter game.
Fear and love compel
this wild, wide-eyed race of an episode, which sees many ends, beginnings, and
creeping confusions. With breakneck speed, “Helter Skelter” charged through the
final days of Isaak, the aftermath of Debra’s confession, the rise of action in
the Quinn-Nadia-George triangle, the reopening of doors in LaGuerta’s dogged
mission, and the entry of our naïve Dexter into a vortex of emotion—while clinging
onto his lizard-brain logic in terms of understanding Debra. Dexter is
endeavoring to make the shifting tectonics of his once stable world settle,
trying to soothe the quakes into a standstill by grappling for understanding in
his relationships. Of course, the wrench that’s thrown in here is Isaak’s
detainment of Hannah in persuading Dexter to help him out of a sorry jam—and he
uses the opportunity to get to know the man who stole from him his truest love.
Dexter gets to witness both Hannah’s fear on the back of his boat and Isaak’s fear of seeing his life
ended by the work of his own Brotherhood. He sees them fearing death and
misunderstands, as death, to him, is “soothing, predictable, inevitable.” Yet,
Isaak continues to pursue Dexter’s humanity and bring it into the light,
causing Dexter to see that his fearlessness of death reflects a fearfulness of
life, not a route to control and power. Cliché though it may be, with great
power comes great responsibility: Dexter’s responsibility is to exercise
fearlessness in both death and life.
Vulnerability comes at a high cost and requires the one being vulnerable to
exercise discernment. But he’s never had emotions to be preyed on before, from
his perspective, so his entertainment of violent delights will lead to violent
dark if he fails to guide his budding feelings to the safest shore.
While Dexter explores
the implications of guiding his feelings in Hannah’s direction, he endeavors to
keep Debra close, trying to logic her into a position that will keep them both
secure. Giddily he explains right back to Debra why she feels how she feels as
Debra is attempting to make her way back to the station from a crime scene
(which points to the work of a serial-arson—a new plot that has strangely been
introduced rather late in the season and may promise some intriguing twists)—the
scene is a vomiting of emotion that doesn’t really seem to do justice to the
power of Debra’s overwhelming concession of truth in the previous episode, but
it does reflect Dexter’s confusion over just how to deal with this Pandora’s
Box of feeling that’s been opened within him. Logic has served him his entire
life, and by using logic—and even a “fuckin’ M&Ms” metaphor that’s beyond
cringe-worthy for both Debra and the audience!—to help justify Debra’s emotions,
he hopes to calm her and keep her from running the other way in the midst of
her chaotic re-realizations. At the same time, Debra is trying to reject the
truth now that it’s uncaged and romping in the wind. Out of the need to protect
herself, she hopes that her confession will sign the papers on her freedom from
the heavy truth—she’s ready to breathe and have that lost peace she’s been
vying for: “…and then I blinked.” And with Hannah in the equation and not going
anywhere just yet, there’s all the more motivation for Deb to try to
substantiate herself where she knows she can’t deter Dexter.
As if this fearsome Dexter-Debra-Hannah
triage weren’t enough to keep us reeling, there are also the matters of Quinn
(I will preemptively say, rest in peace!—If I see your face by the finale, I
might have to pinch myself; you’re a bit of a dead man walking unless George
gets hit by a bus) and LaGuerta, who has elbowed her way back into Matthews’
life in hopes of getting his assistance with the ever-elusive Bay Harbor
Butcher. After giving her the humorous reeming she deserves, he ends up
consenting, and we’ve got to wonder what suspicions Matthews may have about
Dexter after his close involvement with Harry. He bore the truth of Harry’s
death on his own until sharing it with Dexter in the third season; has he held
onto any other truths into his sun-kissed retirement? Will LaGuerta’s
suppositions stir up any dust? And could the new “Phantom” menace (no pun
intended) have anything to do with
Dexter’s undoing, as the Bay Harbor Butcher case finally starts to gain
momentum? Dexter’s love life isn’t the only thing that’s leaning towards the
helter-skelter. From the ashes of endings rise new beginnings that seem to
promise chaos… and surprises.
How did “Helter Skelter”
strike you? What are your thoughts and theories? Leave them in the comments
below! Thanks so much for reading!