'Dexter' Recap - 'This Little Piggy'

While last week’s Dexter literally made a splash among long-time viewers, the next episode, “This Little Piggy,” doesn’t incude any huge twists but does feature some of the smartest character work the show’s seen in years.

Episode five begins with a dried off Dexter and Debra sitting in another therapy session with Dr. Vogel. Still reeling from the news that her dad killed himself because of his guilt over Dexter’s Dark Passenger and subsequent suicide (and fratricide) attempt of her own, Deb’s anger isn’t unfounded. But what is unusual is exactly how angry Dexter gets. “All I've done all my life is try to protect you," he snarls in the way of a protective Papa lion. With all this talk of Dex questioning his sociopathy (see last week’s recap), this burst of very human-like behavior is telling in many ways. Even Vogel seems to note this, as she says the session is the “first step toward recovery.”

But only minutes after Dexter storms out, Vogel gets a surprise of her own. A.J. Yates, he ex-patient turned serial killer, storms in and kidnaps her after watching Dex sneak into his house on her orders.

After Deb finds Vogel’s house ransacked, she enlists Dexter to track him down. But the Morgans aren’t the only one on his trail. After Janet Thorton (the woman freed from Yates’ house in the last episode) wakes up in the hospital, she names Yates as her captor. This sparks Batista and the Miami Metro squad to track him down. That search leads them to his house, where they find three previous Brain Surgeon victims buried in the backyard under rose bushes. Yates, though, isn’t there.

He took Vogel to an abandoned house where he begins to torture her by cutting off one of her toes. But Vogel keeps a calm head and tries to talk her way out of it by discussing his abusive mother. His fascination with shoes becomes apparent when Vogel recounts how, as a little boy, he would hide under the bed and watch her shoes walk back and forth as he hid from her beatings. So in the tradition of Dexter killers with MOs based on childhood trauma, Yates' torture of woman is based on the need to psychologically get back at his mother. Feeding into this, Vogel momentarily stops and stuns him by giving him a firm slap.

Meanwhile, another case is distracting the Miami Metro force. A young woman’s murder is pinned on Mr. Hamilton, a wealthy Miami-ite with ties to the police force (and by him I mean his wallet). On a trip to his house, Dex and Quin prove that Hamilton did have an affair with the victim but that he is not the killer. Who did murder her is unknown, but his son Zach, a decidedly Dexter-ish teen, does seem suspicious, especially after he was spotted leaving the victim’s house by a fruit vender.

The episode concludes with a surprising final chapter for one of this season’s many storylines – the one, in fact, Dexter viewers would guess would be stretched until the bitter end of season 8. Upon tracking down Yates’ whereabouts with help from Jacob Elway, Deb’s boss (who I’d bet has something dark up his sleeve), they find a shell shocked, but safe, Vogel. In a scene of poetic justice, that nevertheless walks the line of overly dramaturgic cliché, Dex stabs Yates as he lays, unknowing, under the bed. Now, a little less than halfway through the final Dexter season, the Big Bad is dead. Does this mean the final episodes will focus on more internally motivated struggle? It seems so, although the matter will Vogel will surely develop a few more twists and turns.

While “This Little Piggy” was an unusually focused episode, we do see two lighter side stories brewing. The first involves Jamie setting Dex up on a date with his neighbor Cassie. While he tries to bow out in order to hunt Yates, Jamie forces him to stay (“Serial killer bested by 100 pound nanny," Dex’s VO says as she leaves the room). The date, Cassie, seems nice enough and even gives Jamie an excuse for Dexter to leave early. It’s been a while since Dex has found love and even more time since that love isn’t homicidal, so maybe this new girl could be good for Dexter and Harrison (who, by the way, seems to have grown up a good four years between seasons).

In Vince Mazuka news, his newfound daughter Nikki is slowly becoming part of his life. But is she really there to get to know her dad or does she just want daddy’s cash? The scenes between them are great and finally give actor C.S. Lee real heartfelt material after eight seasons of pervy asides. Fearing, but no convinced, of the worst, Mazuka enlists Deb’s help to find out more about Nikki, but, for now, she seems sweet and unassuming. But this is Dexter after all. Sweet and unassuming people either end up dead or with a bloody knife in their hands.

Dexter airs each Sunday at 9/8 central on Showtime