Showtime
(Season 3, Episode 8 – “The Damage A Man Can Do”)
The student becomes the teacher. We’ve been seeing, for several episodes now, Miguel prodding Dexter for more information into his dark ways. And all along the way, Harry is that angel (or devil) on Dexter’s shoulder, the former teacher seeing his student grow up … and he’s not liking what he sees.
Dexter, on the other hand, sure looked like one proud papa.
I think we all know that this isn’t going anywhere good for Miguel. I’d assume right now that he’s going to be killed in some way before the season’s over, but imagine if he was able to instead flee the state, possibly showing up again in later seasons? Pffft! Who am I kidding. He’s toast!
The Quinn story is getting more interesting. I won’t go into the previews for next week (though they’re so friggin’ hard to ignore, aren’t they?), but I wonder if Quinn will find King, take him down alone and leave Deb out of the loop for credit. That’s when Deb will head to IAD to bring Quinn down.
I saw intense foreshadowing going on when Miguel thought about taking Fleeter’s ring as a souvenir. Firstly, I believe it’s one of those signs of a serial killer; they like to have keepsakes, like Dexter’s blood slides. Secondly, he’s not done carrying out his new brand of justice, and next time Dexter won’t be there to stop him from taking a trophy; that will likely become his downfall.
I had a thought about future seasons of Dexter and where they might go to test Dexter even further. We saw how careful Dexter was regarding being noticed. Miguel was noticed because he is somewhat notable in the community. Imagine if Dexter got some sort of very public commendation, making it hard to be seen in public without being noticed. That would really make a mess of things.
A couple of final thoughts:
– I was so damned frustrated that Deb didn’t simply knock on Anton’s door after a couple of unreturned phone calls. HE WAS IN DANGER! Why would she not think, “oh, shit! The skinner must have gotten to him!” instead of thinking he was blowing her off for personal reasons. Sorry, but that was lame.
– This is just an observation I’ve had in this series all along: Why does nobody question Dexter’s “artwork” in his little lab/office that sits in plain sight? What kind of sicko hangs prints of blood splatters that have nothing to do with an ongoing case? Hell, even for an ongoing case, that’s sick!
Deb: “What do with the rest of your day? Take a nap, jack off, watch cartoons…”
Anton: “Oh I rarely watch cartoons.”
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Nov 16, 2008 @ 22:31 EST5EDT
Deb deserves a break. I hope she finds Anton in time. That girl is unlucky in love! I felt like the Rita storyline was forced this episode. It’s like they had nothing for her, so they just made her be bitchy and hormonal. I’ve thought about the framed blood spatter pictures myself, especially in last weeks episode where we got a good shot of them. That would have made for a great one liner from Doakes….poor Doakes! I still feel bad about the way that turned out. He was one of my favorites, despite the fact that he wanted to bring Dexter down.
I think the Rita part did serve a purpose. It is part of Dexter’s education on human interaction. Once again, he took someone’s polite response as their real meaning. Rita said she didn’t want an engagement ring, so Dexter assumed that she meant it. Deb set him straight, and Dexter presented Rita with the ring, whereby she immediately apologized for being horrible to him.
Contrast this to Dexter’s relationship with Miguel, where he’s so happy to have a friend and partner (killing partner, not life partner) that he’s ignoring all the warning signs. Harry’s “ghost” shows that Dexter KNOWS that Miguel is bad news, but Dex is hungry for a friend. The irony, of course, is that he used to think he was “above” such feelings, but opening himself up to Rita has caused him to realize that he isn’t as isolated and alone as he thought.
Remember the Vince subplot in the earlier episode, which was also about the importance of friends and colleagues and “fitting into your place and role?”