The Doomsday Killer storyline is starting to drag. What started off as a great angle for this season was bringing religion into the mix, this would normally be something I would groan at because it usually causes character’s to become too good and lose their edge. Dexter fortunately hasn’t, and the use of Brother Sam & the idea of having two DDK’s, has been pretty entertaining so far. What is really starting to bring this down is Gellar. Don’t get me wrong, Edward James Olmos is doing a brilliant job of bringing him to life (or at least existence), but at the moment it is so obvious that he isn’t real that it’s going to lose any shock value during the reveal. I’m beginning to think that this could just be intended for us to believe just so that it proves all of us wrong who share this theory, but even if that were to happen it would mean that we’ve just been swindled into thinking this by the characters placement and lack of interactions.

The idea of another killer having a ‘dark passenger’ just like Dexter is original for the show in many ways and after five seasons the writers need to expand their horizons to avoid any repetition. The execution of this though is losing its finesse, Dexter capturing Travis & letting him go so quickly was clearly a stalling tactic and was soon followed by other distractions from Brother Sam & Jonah. When Dexter found out about the abandoned church I thought this would have been a great opportunity to lay the Gellar does/doesn’t exist debate to rest while it still had some mystery.

Instead, we are led to believe that Gellar quickly sneaked up into the church’s rafters and then leapt out of a second floor window and disappeared down the road before Dexter could complete his monologue. Seriously? I mean come on, EJO is an actor of 64 years of age, whether he exists or not is irrelevant, if he did he would not be physically able to do what he does. Further to this is his show and tell presentation at the grade school, which must have taken hours to prepare for a man pushing 70, not to mention his face is all over the media.

Besides this part of the story flagging somewhat, this has still been a solid season so far. Deb in particular has progressed well with her break up with Quinn and her promotion to Lieutenant. This week what really stood out were the parallels between Travis & his sister and Dexter & Deb, the simple doorstep conversation between the two sisters with psycho-siblings was great and hopefully somewhere in Deb’s subconscious the penny is starting to drop. With a little help from her psychiatrist hopefully Deb can start to realize the true identity of her brother, this would make for a perfect season finale and give the show something dangerous to head for next year.

What was nice to see this episode was Dexter making a trip to his regular donut shop, I was beginning to think he was on a diet, we’ve not seen him with his trademark box of treats for a while. Funerals aren’t normally a place for laughter but I did snigger when I saw the pastor wearing a Brother Sam badge on his shirt. You can do a lot with digital photos these days but what’s most impressive is how quickly he must have had that made, surely that’s the perfect gift for any avid fans of the show out there this Christmas.

Other members of the cast were distracted by the discovery of a dead hooker in a hotel room. What made this significant was LaGuerta’s desperation to close the case quickly, and cover up the identity of the main suspect’s involvement. Who is she covering up for? Well the smart money is on Batista given their history together and his previous encounters with prostitutes, but an outside bet could be Quinn, given the downward spiral that he’s been on since Deb finished with him. Any hope of last week’s apology giving him some closure was quickly dashed with a trip to a strip club. Either way I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough what happened in that hotel room.

A decent enough episode overall, the show is still going strong and it’s good news to hear that it’s just been commissioned for a further two seasons. The Gellar equation is one that needs solving sooner rather than later otherwise it’s surely going to lose any impact come the final episode.

7/10

Scene of the Episode – Deb finding out that Dexter had been to “butt-f*ck’s-ville”, (or Kearney, Nebraska as locals call it) was intense. The acting and delivery was brilliant, especially when Deb reminded us that she lost Lundy to Trinity as well, this left Dexter clearly out of excuses and will hopefully raise another question mark about

Reviewed by Rich Jepson, cult TV enthusiast and author of 24: Terrorism Through Television.