Dexter: 6.10 Review
“Ricochet Rabbit ” (Season 6, Episode 10)
After last week’s abysmal ‘twist’ it was a huge relief to see the show back on decent form with ‘Ricochet Rabbit’. This episode was a very mixed bag in many ways, there were some nice developments in the story to keep us interested but a lot of the individual character actions just felt unnatural or predictable.
First of all, Travis’ little one-man show outside the church answered all of our questions about him and Gellar within a couple of minutes. Yes, he believes that Gellar is still alive and yes he talks to him as if he was there. So are we to believe that he’s only just had this epiphany after seeing Gellar in the freezer? It all seems a bit ridiculous, given that he’s been trying to escape from Gellar for most of the season and now he’s suddenly going to take control of the DDK work and he’s going to create new disciples? This was quite poor and is way too forced. This scene could have been Gellar’s last which is a shame because Olmos is such a great actor. And as for the true cause of the stab wound, who knows, maybe that was just some left over blood from where Boomer shot him in Battlestar.
What I’ve always found slightly frustrating about Dexter is how convenient things are for him. Whenever it appears he’s trapped or about to be discovered there’s always a very handy excuse or hiding place. When it appears he’s out of clues or fresh leads he’ll suddenly spot something and pin all his hopes on it, which usually pays off. In this episode the fact that he knew the ‘whore’ would be Travis’ next kill was a little too easy. Even more so was when he searched her place and found pictures of her boyfriend, followed by his name and his address all within a minute. Likewise when Dexter got locked in the cellar of the church there was a door waiting for him to quickly escape through. It’s a useful tool to keep the story moving at a fast pace but just seems that too often he’s pointed in the right direction and faces few obstacles.
The addition of Mr. & Mrs. ‘Doomsday Adam’ was a good move. The couple came across as a genuine pair of weirdoes and gave the story a bit more depth. When Travis first walked in and met Steve I couldn’t help think how much he reminded me of Jed from I’m Alan Partridge. Fans of the show will remember he was Alan’s obsessive fan and had a room covered in photos, memorabilia and even a life size doll. If only Steve had a tattoo of Travis on his chest to complete the resemblance, either that or Travis walking in and shouting A-haaa.
The killing on the boat was pretty gruesome, it was interesting to see Travis make a kill, he didn’t flinch at any moment and appeared as calm as Dexter making a kill. One thing that is odd is how Travis found out about the boat? There didn’t seem to be any hint as to them knowing her location. Again, Dexter conveniently found the yacht after flicking through the whore’s facebook…sorry ‘FriendZone’ profile, lucky she didn’t have it set to friends only.
Batista getting knocked out was a nice twist and one that I didn’t see coming until the very last moment. Although, when Batista left a message for Quinn on his cell, it did get me thinking that Quinn would have a lot of questions to answer about his whereabouts if anything happens to Batista – which coincidentally it did. After Beth’s apprehension about killing the girl on the boat it could have gone either way with her owning up to her boyfriend’s actions or doing her job as planned. This scene was totally ruined by Travis’ statement that Batista’s badge was a sign to gas Miami Metro – this was really weak and will take away any surprise to what might happen. What would be a great twist would be if Louis set-up Batista and then recommend to Travis somehow that Miami Metro would be a great target. That would really finish the season off with a bang.
Dexter in the early seasons used to follow a formula where he’d kill a person each episode for something terrible that they’d done and in turn it would affect his life in someway. Now it seems to be that a new serial killer(s) will emerge and Dexter will try and beat the rest of the department in capturing them. It seems odd that this has become the way forward for Dexter, surely Harry’s code would have mentioned, don’t kill a person the whole world is looking for, it could arouse suspicion. Bearing this in mind it was refreshing to see Dexter’s heated exchange with Harry resulting in him calling 911, an interesting move and hopefully one that will continue in the future.
One thing that really gets on my nerves about Dexter is the use of internal dialogue and Harry to make it so obvious what is going on. That and the use of the phrase ‘dark passenger’ in every single episode make it a chore to listen to at times. In this season Dexter had some great interactions with Brother Sam but at the church all of this went out the window as Dexter ranted about being betrayed by Travis, even though the two didn’t seem to develop that much of a relationship.
Overall, this episode was always going to have it’s work cut out for it following on from last week’s revelations, it did a solid enough job in many ways but a lot of this season’s story has felt too forced and artificial.
7.5/10
Scene of the Episode – Louis asking for Dexter’s opinion on his video game was fantastic, the shock on Dexter’s face and his review of ‘it’s a bad idea, do something else’ was great. There’s definitely more to Louis than what meets the eye so this could prove to be very ironic if we find out he is also a serial killer.
Reviewed by Rich Jepson, cult TV enthusiast and author of 24: Terrorism Through Television.