Dexter season 3 episode 11 review

I couldn’t help but feel slightly betrayed by the first five minutes of “I Had a Dream”, the penultimate episode in this season’s Dexter.

He’d been abducted by George ‘Skinner’ King, who Miguel has set on him. Or that’s what was presented. But we never actually saw George, did we?

Inside the trunk of the SUV, Dexter is struggling to get free while having a philosophical conversation with the ghost of Harry about friends, and how sometimes it’s best to kill them. He gets free and waits for the trunk to open! Kerr-pow he punches the man who opens the trunk. Unfortunately that’s actually Vince Masuka!

It turns out that Dexter has been abducted to his own bachelor party, which Vince has put on for him with donations from other men from the station. I must compliment Vince’s choice in exotic dancers; they all look remarkably up to the job.

So this wasn’t the life-and-death scenario we’d been sold, although the semi-naked women did take the edge slightly off the disappointment for me.

The next morning Dexter wakes to find Rita at his apartment. She’s planning this wedding like a military assault by Patton. But Dexter has his own plans, and they mostly involve killing Miguel.

But the dedicated law enforcement cops of Miami have a couple of important cases to deal with, not least the death of Ellen Wolf and the location and true identity of George King. Angel sends his troops to crack those cases while most of them are suffering with heavy hangovers. Meanwhile, Maria LaGuerta is putting the numbers together about whose black SUV was seen outside Ellen Wolf’s. She rings Miguel and asks to talk.

Dexter’s problem is killing Miguel without having the sky fall on his head, an exercise that Harry’s says will require some ‘finesse’. Harry’s appearances as a Jiminy Cricket conscience are usually short and to the point. His point now is that this needs meticulous timing and a completely believable alibi, or it could so easily be Dexter’s last starring appearance.

But before this can go much further, Debra comes to call, whining about Anton. She thinks Harry wouldn’t have approved, and Dexter can’t resist suggesting that Harry wasn’t perfect. Which leads him to ultimately lie about an infidelity Harry had with an informant, as a way of avoiding telling her the truth behind his opinion.

Debra storms off for some powerful one-on-one with Anton, where she’s emotional to begin with and he soon tops that talking about what George did to him. The psychological scars he’s got are clearly much worse than the ones on his back!

This is all great stuff, but I was beginning to think all the wind had spilled from the narrative sales that billowed so dramatically last week.

But before we get entirely becalmed, a stiff westerly starts blowing Dexter in the direction of Miguel who has taken to driving around with his brother for protection. Having been kicked out of the house, he’s now resident in a 5 star hotel, and Dexter needs to know his new schedule.

Debra and Joey check out the scene where Anton was tortured, and a penny drops to her about something Anton said regarding George taking his change when she can’t get good cell phone reception. George used the payphone down the street, the calls from which would be recorded.

More clues are coming to light over at Maria LaGuerta’s, where she’s got Miguel around to ‘talk’. Except that’s not what’s on her mind; gathering evidence from the trunk of his SUV is what she’s up to, and seen by Dexter is what she is. But she’s not that clever at this game and leaves the tailgate open, alerting Miguel to her interest.

Next day, she takes the hairs she collected to Dexter for his analysis, for what it’s worth. She gives Dexter access to the hair fibre records, further alerting Miguel that he could be in big trouble. She then takes the report before Dexter can decide what to tell her; it’s the best Dexter can do to just ask her to hold fire and get more evidence.

Also in big trouble is George King, when Debra and Joey follow a lead to a house and find him there. He escapes after gashing Joey’s head, but he’s running out of places to hide.

Dexter gets into Miguel’s hotel room and realises he’s going to kill Maria that night. Time for some special Dexter action before more innocent people die. Dexter leaves a message on Maria’s phone asking her to meet him, which Miguel hears when he breaks into Maria’s home to kill her. Miguel must move fast to stop Dexter spilling those particular beans! He opens the front door to be injected in the neck by Dexter!

Miguel wakes to find he’s stylishly dressed in polythene, and as he’s seen a killing room before, he’s not unaware of what happens next. The conversation they have at this point is the payoff for this episode. It’s quite brilliant. Miguel tells Dexter he was like a brother, so Dexter tells him that he killed his own brother, and then he tells him he killed Miguel’s! At this point Miguel gets pretty angry, but that doesn’t mean he survives. Dexter garrottes him, ending their talks once and for all.

So Miguel never made it to the final episode…sadly. But that still leaves the horrible mess of explaining his death, finding George and a dozen other loose ends including Dexter getting married.

With so much to resolve, some of this might spill into season four, I guess, but there is still a bunch of craziness to expect next week!

Read our review of the previous episode here.