Dexter S05E01 Recap & Review: 'My Bad' (Spoilers)

Dexter Season 5 Premiere Recap & Review: Spoiler Alert

Dexter S05E01 (My Bad) begins right where the Season 4 finale left off: Dexter is holding baby Harrison, who is covered in the blood of Rita, Dexter's wife, who was murdered by Arthur Mitchell, the Trinity Killer. The Dexter Season 5 premiere airs on Showtime on September 26.

Cops arrive on the scene, and Dexter finds himself saying, "I did it". This is strange, because, unlike 99.9999% of the murders on this series, Dexter did not commit this one. And so begins Dexter S5E01, which will frustrate and fascinate Dexter fans. Spoilers ahead, by the way.

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Dexter vs Emotion

The core of the episode is Dexter's dealing with... emotion. The problem is, he (and we) are not exactly sure what he's feeling. Since Dexter is a psychopath, he's not prone to typical emotional responses. He never cries during the episode, though Quinn notices Dexter's neighbor turning on the waterworks. 

Deb brings Dexter back to her apartment (which used to be his), shielding him from the FBI. When he says stuff like "I did it", his little sister gets a bit nervous, a bit protective. Stating, with blank affect, that you killed your wife tends to attract law enforcement attention.

Quinn is Suspicious of Dexter

The next morning, Quinn, Batista and Masuka are listening to Dexter's 911 call. Quinn thinks Dexter's tone is too clinical to be innocent; Batista defends his friend, saying that shock forced Dexter to default into his crime-scene habits.

Quinn hates Dexter, and, as did Doakes before him, just knows that there's something not quite right about the mild-mannered blood spatter analyst. Maybe because he's a serial killer. Just throwing that out there. Still, Quinn's motivation here seems hazy: why harass the one guy in the office who could definitely get you fired? Quinn knows that Dexter knows that Quinn is a somewhat-dirty cop, stealing cash from crime scenes.

Masuka, meanwhile, is freaking out: he caught Rita making out with the next-door neighbor and told Dexter about it. That seed of doubt in his friend: could he really be a killer? (Hint: yes, but not in this case)

Through it all, Dexter is nearly catatonic in his old apartment, until the phone rings. Oh, shit, it's Astor and Cody, Rita's kids! They're with their grandparents at Disney World. Dexter can't quite break the news over the phone. He wants them to have one more good day. As the series progresses we see more and more instances of Dexter acting toward the benefit of others, as opposed to pure selfishness/maintenance of normalcy. Was this the former or the latter?

Dexter Meets Six Feet Under

Dexter and Deb to visit a funeral director in a scene that morbidly plays on Michael C. Hall's former role as David Fisher in Six Feet Under. Dex marvels at the funeral director's ability to fake empathy. 

Dexter remembers his first date with Rita: he chose the restaurant because he was staking out a victim. He ends up breaking off the date partway through, so he can grab the victim in the parking lot. He arranged the second date while dumping the body. 

Dexter's entire relationship with Rita was predicated on a lie, which ultimately came back to hurt them all, though not in the way Dexter seemed to expect. Dexter feels... bad about it. Guilt? Remorse? Is he sad? Is he trying to pretend to be sad?

Deb & Quinn Hook Up: Grody to the Max

Deb cruises over to Rita's house, where the blood-bathroom is still a total mess. It looks like a murder scene, pretty much. Quinn meets her there, and they scrub the bathroom clean. Somehow neither of them gets any blood on their clothes. What the f*ck.

Anyway, after the domestic stuff is done, Deb breaks down and tries to kiss Quinn. At first he resists, but then remembers that he's Joey Quinn. Deb and Quinn have sex on Rita's kitchen floor. This scene would have completely failed if Jennifer Carpenter didn't sell it so well. 

After doing the deed, Deb and Quinn pick out potential dresses from Rita's closet. For the funeral. When Deb leaves, Quinn goes to brace the next-door neighbor, who confesses snogging Rita. he also mentions that Dexter came by to kick his ass when he found out what happened. Jeez, that's one lucky next-door neighbor.

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Kids, I Have Some Bad News

Meanwhile, the kids are back from Disney World with their grandparents! Look, they brought Dexter a Mickey-ears hat! While wearing the hat, Dexter breaks the news to the kids about what happened to Rita. The kids freak out, because, unlike most of the Dexter audience, they loved Rita*. Astor, taking away the Mickey-ears hat, accuses Dexter of not caring. She's just being a bitchy tween, but she's kinda right, and Dexter knows it.

And, hey, cut Astor some slack- her mom was murdered in the bathtub, and she found out about it while wearing Mickey Mouse ears. How the hell would you react?

Quinn Has a Hunch

Quinn pops into Laguerta's office to gently remind her that, when the wife is found dead, 90% of the time the husband is the killer. Laguerta basically tells him to go screw himself.

Dexter is making moves to disappear, which is the smartest thing for him to do really: if you're a serial killer who may be the prime suspect in your wife's murder, would you stick around Miami to raise three kids on your own, or erase all traces of your life and get the hell out of Dodge? Dex is leaning towards Option B.

Dexter On the Run

Dex hits the water in his boat, the Slice of Life. When he stops for fuel, he conveniently runs into an irate white-trash dude who's generally being an asshole. Dexter follows him into the men's room. By now, Dexter fans are on the edges of their seats: we're so twisted. The white-trash guy is all up in Dexter's face. Dexter beats him to death with a boating tool. When I said "conveniently", I meant for Dexter, not for the white-trash guy.

Dexter Not On the Run

Dexter is able to connect with some sort of human emotion (rage and sadness), and he turns back towards Miami.

Dexter at Rita's Funeral

Dex shows up for his wife's funeral, and delivers what surely must be the single most suspicious, sociopathic, eyebrow-raising eulogy in the history of human burial.

So, Was S05E01 a Good Episode?

I thought that the Dexter Season 5 premiere was a good episode, mainly because it was so circumspect about the emotional elements of Dexter's "grieving" process. He was powerless to exact revenge, because he's already killed the killer. He's facing an apocalyptic worst-case scenario, and the audience is led to root for his sticking around, rather than his doing the smart thing and taking off. We also find ourselves cheering when he finally kills someone.

This is par for the course in a show where, in a sane universe, Doakes and Rita would have been the heroes and Dexter himself would be the terrifying villain. The show gets us to deviate from our moral paths, at least as audience-members.

Still, some of the episode didn't work as well as perhaps it could have. I wasn't buying the grandparents for some reason. They seemed to be purposely left out of the narrative, probably to keep from complicating the dialogue (the episode has to come in at under an hour), but they were too silent. Rita's mom was pretty vocal about stuff like bedtime for the kids-- when her daughter is found dead, and is told about it by the guy she doesn't trust, who is also not showing any signs of sadness, she doesn't have anything to say? It's been gently explained to me by axel3599 that it was Paul's parents, and not Rita's, that took Astor and Cody to Disney World, which is why Grandma is so quiet. Still, though, they surely should be more vocal in this sort of situation.

Dexter's running away and returning seemed a bit too pat, and seemed to take place too quickly: burning down his garage (what, nobody noticed?), sailing off, killing a guy, presumably dumping the body, coming back home, cleaning up, and attending the funeral? All in one day? Maybe it would have been better to have all that activity take place in Miami, so we could bring in the complications from his aborted escape attempt along with the basically-random victim.

All in all, it was the episode that needed to be made so that we can get on with the season, and, if episodes S05E02 and S05E03 are any indication, it's going to be a great season. I'll say no more for now... if you're new to Dexter, check out the DVDs for earlier story arcs. If you're a returning fan, don't miss the Season 5 premiere.

[* Note: the widespread hatred for Rita is due to Julie Benz' incredible performance. In lesser hands, that character would have been boring and forgettable: we can't stand Rita because she seems so real]

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Dexter Season 5 Official Trailer Comic Con 2010

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