Showtime
We’re just getting started in the final season of Showtime’s hit Dexter. What happened in season 8 episode 2′s “Every Silver Lining”? Let’s find out.
WINNER: 1970s video recordings
The episode gets right into the shocking reveal of last week: Analyst Evelyn Vogel is aware of Dexter’s history because she was counseling his adoptive father, Harry, about young Dexter’s proclivity for violence.
Vogel reveals that she had a hand in creating the code that Harry gave Dexter to guide all of his choices. She considers herself some sort of a mother to him. She could have turned Dexter and/or Harry in but she cares for him for whatever reason.
But, of course, this history doesn’t come without strings attached…Vogel wants Dexter to do her a favor. Last week’s killer who cut out a chunk of someone’s brain might be after Vogel (he did send her a piece of the brain after all) and she thinks it’s one of her former patients. She wants Dexter to find the man and take him out because she’s used “unconventional methods” to treat other psychopaths and, if the man gets arrested in a traditional way, those methods may come out and submarine her career.
WINNER: Music that reminds you of LOST
We then get our first look at the killer putting a plastic bag over a tied up guy’s head as “Mama” Cass Elliot’s song “Make Your Own Kind of Music” plays. The ol’ trope of evil things going on over evil music. Apparently Vogel didn’t train this guy in originality.
LOSER: Deb’s bounty hunting career
The bounty hunter boss guy Elway interrogates Deb about her bizarre handling of the Briggs case. Deb still claims she was searching for the jewelry, even as she admits that she and Briggs were “intimate”. But Deb tells Elway that she got some keys that she thinks will lead them to the missing $5 million in jewelry that Briggs had.
The search leads to a storage unit where Briggs may have been holding the jewelry. It’d be a bang up job by Deb (literally) until that assassin El Sapo catches up with her, beats her down, and takes the jewelry for himself. He could have killed Deb but doesn’t. If you’re an assassin, you could probably spare killing her just to be safe.
WINNER: Amateur brain surgery
Miami metro investigates the aforementioned brain-related serial killer and finds that he’s performed some brain carving on the latest victim, too. And, yet again, a piece of the brain was sent to Vogel. Dexter finds a murder weapon and is hopeful he can grab prints. No wasted motion in this season, it seems.
LOSER: Quinn’s future attendance in a sergeant test
Captain Matthews has been riding Batista to find new candidates for sergeant. He tells Quinn that he needs to take his career more seriously and go for the test. Batista then also reveals that he knows Quinn’s been sticking it to his sister. What a benevolent way to handle someone typically acting like a complete degenerate plowing your blood.
The pressure from Batista makes Quinn a little skittish about things and leads to an argument with him and Jamie. Jamie tells Batista to stay out of her life. Very important filler going on here.
LOSER: El Sapo’s jewel heist
El Sapo is found dead in his car at the hands of a panicky gunman. Dexter fears that whomever killed El Sapo could be after Deb and goes to her house. Somehow this leads to Deb reopening the can of worms about how she wanted to love him. And she then tells him he has to go again because she’s still working through a lot of shit.
Dexter finds that Deb’s blood was on El Sapo’s car and he assumes she’s the one who shot him to death. Deb’s brought in for casual questioning as she’s not considered a suspect yet. But when Quinn asks her about details, she has a panic attack that requires Dexter to step in. Deb admits that something happened with El Sapo but that it’s all hazy.
Dexter then tells Deb that they found a gun in El Sapo’s glove compartment and it might be hers. Deb tells Dexter to get rid of it from evidence then, but Dexter asks what she’d do if he weren’t there to cover her ass. Naturally, Deb doesn’t take too kindly to it given the whole thing how she shot LaGuerta and never told anyone to protect him. Dexter makes the gun switch and I’m sure Deb will be very grateful.
LOSER: Dexter’s mission for Vogel
Dexter tracks down the brain surgery murderer, or so it seems. He tracks Sussman down to a cabin only to find Sussman hanging in something that looks like a suicide.
When Dexter drops the news on Vogel, she seems surprisingly nonplussed and more focused on what happened between Dexter and Deb. Is this a misdirection or is Vogel obviously behind the murders and using Dexter as a pawn? The latter seems more likely but I suppose we’ll see.
Vogel then calls Dexter back to her place when she’s afraid someone is in her house. They find a DVD that shows Sussman was coerced into killing the man by someone off camera with a gun to his head. Dexter doesn’t take the news that he fingered the wrong guy well — particularly when combined with his Deb problems — and this all seems like Vogel is setting this all up to gain control of Dexter somehow. I’m hoping it’s going to a more surprising place than that but it’s seeming pretty unlikely.
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While the jury’s still out on this season, you have to like how the storylines aren’t being dragged out quite as much as previous years. In another season, I’d wager that the Sussman red herring would extend for at least three episodes. But this season they’re just using these twists to tell the larger final story.
I may be in the minority, though, and I’m just not into the Vogel story. It’s interesting to learn about her place in Dexter’s background but it also seems extremely likely that she’s behind everything related to the brain surgery serial killer to play Dexter for some reason. I’m willing to go along with the ride but, if that’s the case, I’d rather get to our conclusion sooner than later so that we can resolve all of the other far more interesting hanging threads of the show.
Episode gets three out of five bags of tampered evidence this week. Still optimistic about the season and let’s hope the road to the conclusion it’s as obvious as it seems.