Dexter season 7 episode 11 review: Do You See What I See

This review contains spoilers.

7.11 Do You See What I See

I’m so glad that this show still has the ability to surprise, because it has on occasion telegraphed rather blatantly its meticulously planned twists. In the first ten or more minutes I sat wondering why we were covering the well-trodden ground of Debra not liking Hannah, and LaGuerta not letting the idea that Doakes was framed go.

We also have the mildly funny scene where Joey discovered that he’s been dunked, delivered with zero emotional content by a stripper performing a lap dance at the time. He’s such a schmuck, really. I can’t see he’s going to Vegas to ask her to come back, so that’s yet another relationship where he was the ultimate fall-guy. Maybe he should stay away from strippers and co-workers, among others.

Debra’s idea of getting Hannah by using the evidence provided by a known drug abuser seems to be grasping at straws at best, and frankly if Hannah thought that woman was much of a threat, it is one she’d have dealt with by now.And, then just when it looked possible that both those Dexter’s biggest issues might go away, they both exploded in our faces!

The moment where Dexter realised that he’d been manipulated by LaGuerta by getting the man who ordered his mother killed released was superb, except it could have been even better if it made any sense how they got out of the container unobserved.

She’s not going to let this go, and for once Dexter is really flirting with the strong possibility that he’ll be exposed.But what really got my attention was those developments in the Hannah McKay story, where having found his soul-mate, and dropped his Dark Passenger off on the highway, he’s forced to confront the possibility that his girlfriend tried to kill his sister.

What was fascinating about this whole exercise was that Hannah remained generally calm, even when Debra told her in no uncertain terms how it was. What transpired then, and its consequences were precisely the sort of Greek tragedy that the show’s writers love, where Dexter is torn between the two women he loves, one of whom he knows is capable of killing to protect herself. Actually, as I recall Debra shot someone a few seasons back, so it’s not like they both can’t kill when required. Hey, in this show, you’re pretty much nobody unless you’ve got blood on your hands.

What kept digging me in the ribs was how elegantly the evidence for Doakes was contrived, and based on their conversation at Santa’s Grotto, that was mostly Debra’s work. So then Debra has a crash, and then Dexter finds the bottle of water. Mmmm…is there a connection here? I think so.

What’s been put in place here is Dexter’s ultimate dilemma, because when he finds out that Hannah didn’t poison Debra, and that he’s been had, then how does he react to that scenario? He will be annoyed, to put it mildly. But then we’re supposed to believe that when Hannah says ‘you should have killed me’, that this was an admission, which I suspect it wasn’t at all.

SEASON FINALE SPOILER 

If our collective heads weren’t spinning enough, the trailer for the season finale introduces a possibility that seems too mind-blowing to consider: the return of Doakes!

Now, given that the season trailer showed Vince being killed by Dexter, which turned out to be a brief daydream, I’m not taking that as gospel. But I’m happy to accept that Dexter gets arrested by LaGuerta, in what promises to be something of a spectacular season end.

END OF SEASON FINALE SPOILER 

We’ve learned to hate Maria’s character over the past seasons, not least because she always wants the world her way, and up to this point, with the possible exception of her marriage to Angle, she’s got it. Dexter winning has consequences in the greater karma, and it’s about time that LaGuerta got to some balance. And, not just the incessant tirade of racial and sexual abuse that Matthews gives her each time they meet.

Will Dexter kill her? I can’t believe he will, but then I’m not sure someone else won’t.

I still think that Isaak was killed far too early, and that the transition into the other stories was less than elegant, but that won’t make me any less keen to tune in next Sunday, and see what utter chaos they’ve contrived to close out the penultimate season.

Read Billy’s review of the previous episode, The Dark…Whatever, here.

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